HITCHCOCK STAR TODD DEAD

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Stage Fright star and Ian Fleming‘s personal choice for the role of James Bond, veteran thesp Richard Todd dead at 90.

Best known for his roles in The Dam Busters and The Longest Day, Todd was a real-life World War 2 hero taking part in the actual D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944.

The Irish-born Todd trod the boards on stage in the 1930s but his stage career was cut short by the dawn of WW2 and he then joined the British Army. Todd was promoted to captain in the British 6th Airborne Division and helped take the bloody beaches of Normandy.

Post-war, Todd found success in the stage production of The Hasty Heart and won an Academy Award Best Actor nom for recreating the part on film

Todd then teamed with legendary master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock in the 1950 Stage Fright paired with Marlene Dietrich and Ronald Reagan’s first wife Jane Wyman.

Todd’s many roles included folk legends Robin Hood for Disney and Rob Roy before landing a plum role in The Dam Busters as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, a film so influential that George Lucas stole the climatic attack on the dam literally shot for shot for his attack on the Death Star in Star Wars (1977).

Todd then relived his WW2 years as he relived his war experiences in the epic The Longest Day, the Darryl F.Zanuck star-studded D-Day spectacular. 

The thesp then came thisclose to landing the role of super suave James Bond in Dr. NO and was author Ian Fleming‘s first choice but a scheduling conflict found Sean Connery making history instead as 007.

Todd was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1993 before passing away peacefully in his sleep at his home in Grantham, England yesterday.