Richard Todd dies at 90

The actor, a hero in real life who parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, died in his sleep on Thursday at his home near Grantham, Lincs. He had been battling cancer for a long time.

In his heyday, Todd was Britain’s highest-paid matinee idol of the post-war years and became best known for playing Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC in the 1955 Dam Busters epic.

Born in Dublin in 1919, he grew up in Devon and went to Shrewsbury School.

As a Parachute Regiment officer he was among the first British soldiers to parachute into occupied France as the Allied invasion began. He made contact with Major John Howard who led the assault on the vital Pegasus Bridge, which signalled the start of the Allied operation.

Ironically, he later relived this episode on film in the 1962 classic, The Longest Day. But he played Major Howard while another actor played Todd himself.

After the war he gained fame in the London stage version of The Hasty Heart, which took him to Broadway.

He returned to England to appear in the film version and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in 1949.

His later appearance in The Dam Busters, a screen reconstruction of the triumphant and daring British air attack on the Ruhr dams in Germany, made him a huge star.

But he was also well known in America for his role as the US Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall in A Man Called Peter.

The actor was the first choice of author Ian Fleming to play James Bond in Dr No but he had to turn the role down because of other commitments. The part went to Sean Connery instead.

Todd’s other film roles included playing the lead in The Story Of Robin Hood And His Merrie Men in 1952 and starring in Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue with Glynis Johns in 1953. He continued to act well into his 80s, appearing as himself in 1994 in D-Day Remembered, A Musical Tribute.

The star, who was made an OBE in 1993, also featured in four episodes of Doctor Who in the 1980s playing the character Sanders opposite Peter Davison’s Time Lord.

He was last seen on screen in a 2007 episode of ITV drama Heartbeat.

Michael Winner, who directed Todd in the 1978 film The Big Sleep, described him as “the best example of classic British screen acting”. He said: “Richard Todd was the most wonderful type of British stiff upper lip acting.

“He was a very fine actor but his style of acting went out of fashion, which was a pity because his contribution to British movies was enormous.”

Neighbour Joan Hayes, of Little Humby, Lincs, trained Todd’s gundogs for him and knew the actor for 30 years.

She said: “He was the perfect gentleman. The tragedy was that he was never knighted.

“He was very much loved by everyone in the village. He has been very ill recently but we attended his 90th birthday party in June.

“He was in a wheelchair but at least he was able to get there and see the Lancaster bomber fly-past.”

Todd was twice married, first to Catherine Grant Bogle in 1949 and then to Virginia Mailer in 1970. Both marriages ended in divorce.

Tragically, two of his sons committed suicide. Their deaths were a terrible reminder of Todd’s youth when, at the age of 19 he learned that his mother had killed herself. Todd said dealing with those tragedies was like his experience of war.

He said: “You don’t consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it.”

His spokeswoman said yesterday: “He had been suffering from cancer, an illness he bore with his habitual courage and dignity.”