Richard Todd

Acting

Richard Todd

Born — Died

1919-06-11 — 2009-12-03

Place of birth

Dublin, Ireland

Known for

Acting

Credits

75 titles

Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd (11 June 1919 – 3 December 2009) was an Irish actor known for his leading man roles of the 1950s. He received a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, and an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nomination for his performance as Corporal Lachlan MacLachlan in the 1949 film The Hasty Heart. His other notable roles include Jonathan Cooper in Stage Fright (1950), Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters (1955), Sir Walter Raleigh in The Virgin Queen (1955), and Major John Howard in The Longest Day (1962). He was previously a Captain in the British Army during the Second World War, fighting in the D-Day…

Known for

Midsomer Murders poster
7.5

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

Midsomer Murders

1997

Doctor Who poster
7.9

The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.

Doctor Who

1963

Murder, She Wrote poster
7.5

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

Murder, She Wrote

1984

Silent Witness poster
7.6

A team of exceptional forensic pathologists and scientists investigate heinous crimes and use their skills to catch the people responsible.

Silent Witness

1996

Heartbeat poster
7.1

Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

Heartbeat

1992

Theatre 625 poster
7.2

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Theatre 625

1964

Film credits

1990s · 4 titles

1980s · 4 titles

1970s · 8 titles

Asylum poster
6.1

A young psychiatrist applies for a job at a mental asylum and must pass a test by interviewing four patients. He must figure out which of the patients, is in fact, the doctor that he would be replacing if hired.

Asylum

1972

The Big Sleep poster
5.9

Private eye Philip Marlowe investigates a case of blackmail involving the two wild daughters of a rich general, a pornographer and a gangster.

The Big Sleep

1978

Dorian Gray poster
5.1

London, England. Dorian Gray is a young man who somehow keeps his beauty eternally, while a mysterious portrait of himself gradually reveals his moral decay.

Dorian Gray

1970

The Next Scream You Hear poster
5.5

The police receive an anonymous tip that Bernard Peel has murdered his wife, Jennifer. Peel declares his innocence, but there is a substantial amount of evidence contradicting his story. Is someone trying to frame Mr. Peel? Peel asks private detective Matthew Earp to investigate.

The Next Scream You Hear

1974

The Sky is Falling poster
4.7

Chicken, a desperate hippie junkie living in a small Spanish village, is finding it difficult to separate fantasy and reality. This isn't helped by the villagers practising magic and child sacrifice, or his involvement with a group of boozy expatriates lost in their own dreams and regrets.

The Sky is Falling

1975

No. 1 of the Secret Service poster
4.1

No. 1 is fearless, irrestible, and licensed to kill. No. 1 is assigned to capture a madman killing international financiers. Before getting the bad guy, No. 1 encounters mercenaries from the evil organization K.R.A.S.H. (Killing, Rape, Arson, Slaughter, and Hit).

No. 1 of the Secret Service

1977

Home Before Midnight poster
5.5

A successful rock lyricist becomes romantically involved with a girl he picks up hitchhiking only to learn that she is only fourteen. Her parents take action against him.

Home Before Midnight

1979

Um Homem e o Cinema poster
9.0

Alberto Cavalcanti reviews his own prolific career as a filmmaker.

Um Homem e o Cinema

1976

1960s · 13 titles

The Longest Day poster
7.6

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

The Longest Day

1962

Operation Crossbow poster
6.7

Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant. The film alternates between German developments of the V-1 missile and V-2 rocket (with a German cast speaking their own language) and discovery by British Intelligence of the weapon.

Operation Crossbow

1965

Never Let Go poster
6.5

John Cummings, an unsuccessful London cosmetics salesman, has his unpaid-for car stolen by a hood in the employ of Lionel Meadows, sadistic organiser of a car conversion racket. As the vehicle is uninsured, and since the police seem indifferent, Cummings decides to find it himself — and gets himself involved in an underworld battle.

Never Let Go

1960

Coast of Skeletons poster
5.8

A former district officer is assigned to work on a team of diamond prospectors, who are busy double crossing each other until they are blown up having found bullion.

Coast of Skeletons

1965

The Battle of the Villa Fiorita poster
4.4

Two British children travel to Italy in an attempt to break up their runaway mother's affair with an Italian concert pianist.

The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

1965

Death Drums Along the River poster
5.3

A British colonial policeman in Africa investigates a murder in a hospital up river.

Death Drums Along the River

1963

Don't Bother to Knock poster
4.8

An Edinburgh travel agent loses his keys and his fiancé in one night. A friend finds the keys and makes loads of copies with his address attached as a joke. She gives them to him as he leaves for a holiday. He gives the keys to several women he romances across the continent. He gets engaged again by phone and arranges to meet his fiancé at his flat, but the flat isn't empty...

Don't Bother to Knock

1961

The Long and the Short and the Tall poster
6.7

Based on a play by Willis Hall. A troop of British soldiers are out in the jungle to record jungle noises and troop noises in the jungle so that the recordings can be played back by other troops to divert the enemy to their whereabouts. As they progress to what they think is closer to the base camp they find themselves farther and farther from radio range until the only channel they can get clearly is that of a Japanese broadcast. They now realize they are probably only 10 to 15 miles from a Japanese camp! The tension is added to by rowdy and openly admitted "non-hero" Private Bamforth who has nothing good to say about anyone and especially Corporal Johnstone (who holds an equal dislike for Bamforth). When a Japanese soldier is taken as their prisoner, the true colours of each man comes to the surface

The Long and the Short and the Tall

1961

Subterfuge poster
5.2

A young wife is becoming very distraught over the fact that her husband, a secret service "spy" for England, has changed his mind about transferring away so that he can spend more time with her and their young son. He has grown cold and distant towards her; she thinks it 's because of the secretiveness of his work. Meanwhile, an American spy comes to England and is induced to help the British "team" with an undercover spy ring. When this spy ring is over turned the "bugs" that crawl out from under its rock shocks everyone!

Subterfuge

1968

The Love-Ins poster
4.8

A college professor falls in with the counterculture crowd in San Francisco after resigning from his position in solidarity with two expelled hippie students.

The Love-Ins

1967

The Very Edge poster
5.3

Tracey Lawrence is assautled in her home and is so affected by the traumatic event she now finds all men totally repulsive, including her husband. Her attitude does not change with time, and to make matters worse her husband has got romantically involved with his secretary. Also, the police still have not tracked down Tracey's attacker and there is no guarantee that she is safe.

The Very Edge

1963

The Hellions poster
6.7

Luke Billings (Lionel Jeffries) and his family have a problem with the new police sergeant Sam Hargis (Richard Todd) so they take over a small Transvaal town with the attention of drawing Hargis into a showdown. Hargis tries to get back up from the townsfolk who do not want to know, so is forced to lay low. As things get out of hand one of the Billings boys takes an interest in the storekeeper's wife, Priss Dobbs (Anne Aubrey). Having had enough her husband, Ernie (Jamie Uys) takes up the gun and heads down the main street alone. An act that prompts Hargis to join him. Slowly, the townsfolk turn up to back them up.

The Hellions

1961

The Boys poster
7.5

A night watchman at a garage is found murdered, and four teddy boys are put on trial for the crime. Witnesses and suspects give differing accounts of the lead-up to the crime, and the truth emerges.

The Boys

1962

1950s · 24 titles

Stage Fright poster
6.8

A struggling actress tries to help a friend prove his innocence when he's accused of murdering the husband of a high-society entertainer.

Stage Fright

1950

D-Day the Sixth of June poster
5.3

En route to Normandy, an American and a British officer reminisce in flashback about their romances with the same woman.

D-Day the Sixth of June

1956

Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue poster
5.2

After the 1715 defeat of the clans, one of the highland leaders, Rob Roy MacGregor escapes, has lots of adventures, gets married, and eventually becomes enough of a nuisance to George I to be outlawed, and hunted by the English

Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue

1953

The Dam Busters poster
6.9

The story of the conception of a new British weapon for smashing the German dams in the Ruhr industrial complex and the execution of the raid by 617 Squadron 'The Dam Busters'.

The Dam Busters

1955

The Virgin Queen poster
7.0

Sir Walter Raleigh overcomes court intrigue to win favor with the Queen in order to get financing for a proposed voyage to the New World.

The Virgin Queen

1955

The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men poster
6.2

Young Robin Hood, in love with Maid Marian, enters an archery contest with his father at the King's palace. On the way home his father is murdered by henchmen of Prince John. Robin takes up the life of an outlaw, gathering together his band of merry men with him in Sherwood Forest, to avenge his father's death and to help the people of the land that Prince John are over taxing.

The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men

1952

Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst poster
7.3

While sailing lawfully up the Yangste in 1949, the British warship Amethyst found its return to the open sea blocked by Communist Chinese shore batteries that unexpectedly opened fire. In charge, Lietenant Commander Kerans was not however prepared for his crew and his ship to remain as a hostage for the Chinese to use as an international pawn.

Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst

1957

Saint Joan poster
6.5

In 1456, French King Charles VII recalls the story of how he met the 17-year-old peasant girl Joan of Arc, entrusted her with the command of the French Army, and ultimately burned her at the stake as a heretic.

Saint Joan

1957

Venetian Bird poster
6.2

Travelling to Venice to locate an ex-partisan on behalf of a French insurance company, a British private detective gets mixed-up in a political assassination conspiracy.

Venetian Bird

1952

Chase a Crooked Shadow poster
7.1

A woman who lives in Spain has trouble convincing anybody that a complete stranger has taken her dead brother's identity.

Chase a Crooked Shadow

1958

The Sword and the Rose poster
6.4

Tells the story of Mary Tudor and her troubled path to true love. Henry VIII, for political reasons, determines to wed her to the King of France. She tries to flee to America with her love but is captured when she is "un-hatted" on board ship. In return for her consent to the marriage with France, Henry agrees to let her choose her second husband. When King Louis of France dies, Mary is kidnaped by the Duke of Buckingham. He tries to force her to marry him but she is rescued by her love in an exciting battle on the beach.

The Sword and the Rose

1953

The Secrets of the Bed poster
3.8

Four-episode Franco-Italian omnibus film. Four men from different national and cultural background take refuge in a cabin after being sidetracked by bad weather on their way to conference.

The Secrets of the Bed

1954

The Riddle of Robin Hood poster
NR

Promotional film for The Story of Robin Hood, featuring Walt Disney and production personnel; released in 1952.

The Riddle of Robin Hood

1952

Lightning Strikes Twice poster
5.7

Sent to a dude ranch in the west to recover her health, a New York actress falls in love with a ranch owner recently acquitted of the murder of his wife.

Lightning Strikes Twice

1951

Danger Within poster
6.3

Drama set in an Italian prisoner of war camp during World War 2, where a group of British soldiers find their plans for escape thwarted by a mysterious traitor in their midst.

Danger Within

1959

A Man Called Peter poster
6.6

Based on the true story of a young Scottish lad, Peter Marshall, who dreams of only going to sea but finds out there is a different future for him when he receives a "calling" from God to be a minister. He leaves Scotland and goes to America where after a few small congregations he lands the position of pastor of the Church of the Presidents in Washington, D.C. and eventually he becomes Chaplain of the U.S. Senate.

A Man Called Peter

1955

Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France poster
6.1

As Louis XV lies on his deathbed, the Dauphine of France, Marie-Antoinette, seduces a Swedish officer, Axel de Fersen, which pains her husband, Louis XVI, who will know how to be generous when he learns of this deception.

Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France

1956

24 Hours of a Woman's Life poster
5.8

A compulsive gambler stumbles towards losing everything when Merle Oberon decides to save him from himself.

24 Hours of a Woman's Life

1952

No artwork available
8.0

Young orphan Heathcliff is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Edgar Linton, a man of means who befits her stature. Heathcliff vows to win her back.

Wuthering Heights

1953

Flesh and Blood poster
7.0

Based upon the play A Sleeping Clergyman by James Bridie, it tells the story of three generations of the Scottish Cameron family, with its various conflicts and romances.

Flesh and Blood

1951

Stars Meet in Moscow poster
NR

Documentary essay about the First Moscow International Film Festival, held in August 1959, about its participants and guests - Soviet and foreign actors, directors who came to the film forum.

Stars Meet in Moscow

1959

Intent to Kill poster
5.2

While resisting pressure from his upper-class wife to take a higher-paying job in London, a Montreal physician prepares to carry out brain surgery on a Latin American president. They don't suspect that a trio of assassins is also waiting, for their chance to carry out a political assassination on the operating table.

Intent to Kill

1958

The Naked Earth poster
10.0

Africa, early 20th century, an Englishman marries the girlfriend of a late friend and faces natives and adventures, on the banks of a river infested with crocodiles.

The Naked Earth

1958

Portrait of Clare poster
6.7

The three marriages of a woman: a young man who is killed, a priggish lawyer and a sympathetic barrister. From the novel by Francis Brett Young.

Portrait of Clare

1950

1940s · 3 titles

Series credits

Midsomer Murders poster
7.5

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

Midsomer Murders

1997

Doctor Who poster
7.9

The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.

Doctor Who

1963

Murder, She Wrote poster
7.5

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

Murder, She Wrote

1984

Silent Witness poster
7.6

A team of exceptional forensic pathologists and scientists investigate heinous crimes and use their skills to catch the people responsible.

Silent Witness

1996

Heartbeat poster
7.1

Set during the 1960s in the fictional North Yorkshire village of Aidensfield, this enduringly popular series interweaves crime and medical storylines.

Heartbeat

1992

Theatre 625 poster
7.2

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Theatre 625

1964

Thriller poster
7.0

Thriller is a British television series, originally broadcast in the UK from 1973 to 1976. It is an anthology series: each episode has a self-contained story and its own cast. As the title suggests, each story is a thriller of some variety, from tales of the supernatural to down-to-earth whodunits.

Thriller

1973

No artwork available
6.8

A modern day version of the 1969 detective series about Private Investigator Jeff Randall, who is aided in cases by the ghost of his deceased partner Marty Hopkirk.

Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)

2000

The Last Place on Earth poster
7.4

The Last Place on Earth is a 1985 Central Television seven part serial, written by Trevor Griffiths based on the book Scott and Amundsen by Roland Huntford. The book is an exploration of the expeditions of Captain Robert F. Scott and his Norwegian rival in polar exploration, Roald Amundsen in their attempts to reach the South Pole. The series ran for seven episodes and starred a wide range of UK and Norwegian character actors as well as featuring some famous names, such as Max von Sydow, Richard Wilson, Sylvester McCoy and Pat Roach. It also featured performances early in their careers by Bill Nighy and Hugh Grant. Subsequently Huntford's book was republished under the same name. The book put forth the point of view that Amundsen's success in reaching the South Pole was abetted by much superior planning, whereas errors by Scott ultimately resulted in the death of him and his companions.

The Last Place on Earth

1985

British Film Forever poster
5.5

Running for seven weeks from July 2007, each week focused on a different genre, examining British film by genre. Presented by Jessica Stevenson the series featured over 200 exclusive interviews with leading actors and directors including Sir Michael Caine, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Kate Winslet.

British Film Forever

2007

Virtual Murder poster
7.0

Eccentric psychology professor Dr John Cornelius solves technologically-charged crimes with his partner Samantha Valentine, police contact Inspector Cadogan, and his HOD Professor Owen Griffiths.

Virtual Murder

1992

Boy Dominic poster
8.0

The adventures of a 12-year-old boy's struggles in Victorian Yorkshire, after his father, Captain Charles Bulman, is lost, presumed drowned off the coast of Africa.

Boy Dominic

1974

Jenny's War poster
6.7

Jenny's War is a 1985 war television serial set during World War II, made by HTV in association with Columbia Pictures. It is directed by and written by Steve Gethers. The screenplay is based on the novel with the same name of Jack Stoneley. In the UK it was shown as four 50 minute episodes on the ITV network, while in the United States it was syndicated under the Operation Prime Time banner by MCA TV. The serial stars Dyan Cannon, Nigel Hawthorne, Robert Hardy Christopher Cazenove and Hugh Grant, and is about a mother, Jenny Baines, who searches for her son Peter, who was shot down over Germany, and who she believes is still alive.

Jenny's War

1985

Elstree: Britain's Hollywood poster
NR

Two-part documentary celebrating the 75th anniversary of what was once the biggest film production centre outside Hollywood: Elstree.

Elstree: Britain's Hollywood

1989

The Royal poster
7.8

Follows the staff and patients of a Yorkshire cottage hospital in the 60s, embroiled in tangled love lives and bitter power struggles.

The Royal

2003