Michael Todd

**Michael Todd** (June 22, 1909 – March 22, 1958), also known as **Mike Todd**, was an American theatre and movie producer. He is known for making movies, starting the movie formats of Cinerama and Todd-AO, and his 1957 marriage to actress Elizabeth Taylor (1930-2011). Todd's 1956 production of *Around the World in Eighty Days* won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Todd is also well known as the third of Elizabeth Taylor's seven husbands.

## Personal life
Todd was born **Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen** in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Chaim Goldbogen (an Orthodox rabbi) and Sophia Hellerman, both Polish Jewish immigrants. He was one of nine children in a poor family, the youngest son, and his siblings nicknamed him "Toat" to mimic his difficulty saying the word "coat". It was from this nickname that his name "Todd" was derived (said in Germanic/Yiddish as "Tote").  Todd was expelled in the sixth grade for running a game of craps inside the school. In 1929, she bore him a son, Michael Todd, Jr. Todd and his wife were separated at the time of her death; less than a week before, he had filed for divorce. The following year, Todd married actress Joan Blondell on July 5, 1947. They were divorced on June 8, 1950, after she alleged that he had abused and extorted her. Todd's third marriage was to the actress Elizabeth Taylor, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship. The couple exchanged vows on February 2, 1957. Todd was 47 and Taylor was 24; he was her third husband. Todd and Taylor had a daughter, Elizabeth Frances (Liza) Todd, who was born on August 7, 1957.

On 22 March 1958, Todd's private plane *Lucky Liz* crashed near Grants, New Mexico. The plane, a twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar, suffered an engine failure while being flown overloaded in icing conditions. The plane was flying at an altitude which was too high to sustain flight with only one working engine under those conditions. The plane went out of control and crashed, killing all 4 people on board. In addition to Todd, those who died in the crash were screenwriter and author Art Cohn, who was writing Todd's biography *The Nine Lives of Mike Todd*; pilot Bill Verner; and co-pilot Tom Barclay. Taylor wanted to fly to New York with her husband, but stayed home with a cold after her pleas to come along were overruled by Todd. Just hours before the crash, Todd described the plane as safe as he phoned friends, including Joseph Mankiewicz and Kirk Douglas, in an attempt to recruit a gin rummy player for the flight: "Ah, c'mon," he said. "It's a good, safe plane. I wouldn't let it crash. I'm taking along a picture of Elizabeth, and I wouldn't let anything happen to her."

His son, Mike Jr., wanted his father's body to be cremated after it was identified through dental records and brought to Albuquerque, New Mexico, but Taylor refused, saying he would not want cremation. Todd was buried in Forest Park, Illinois, at Beth Aaron Cemetery in plot 66, which is part of Jewish Waldheim there. In his autobiography, Eddie Fisher, who considered himself to be Todd's best friend, stated:

The remains were desecrated by thieves, who broke into Todd's coffin looking for a $100,000 diamond ring, which, according to rumor, Taylor had placed on her husband's finger prior to his burial. the bag and coffin had been sealed in Albuquerque after Todd's remains were identified following the 1958 crash. Todd's remains were once more identified through dental records and were reburied in a secret location.

## Work
Todd began his career in the construction business, where he made a fortune but later lost it. He opened the so-called College of Bricklaying of America, buying the materials to teach bricklaying on credit. The school was forced to shut its doors when the Bricklayers' Union did not view the college as an accepted place of study.

He later served as a contractor to Hollywood studios, and during the 1933-1934  Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, he produced an attraction called the "Flame Dance." In this number, gas jets were designed to burn part of a dancer's costume off, leaving her naked in appearance. The act attracted enough attention to bring an offer from the Casino de Paris club in New York City. Todd got his first taste of Broadway life with that engagement and was determined to find a way to work there. His Broadway success gave him the nerve to try taking on showman Billy Rose. Todd visited Grover Whalen, president of the 1939 New York World's Fair, with a proposal to bring the Broadway show to the World's Fair. Whelan, eager to have the show at the fair, covered Todd's Broadway early closing costs. Rose, who had an exclusivity clause in his fair contract, met Todd at Lindy's, where Rose learned his contract covered new forms of entertainment only. Todd's *Mikado* dated back to 1885. To avoid any head-to head competition, Rose quickly agreed to promote Todd's production along with his own. Todd went on to produce 30 Broadway shows during his career.

Todd's business career was volatile, and failed ventures left him bankrupt many times.

In 1945, Todd suggested the idea of holding the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in newly-liberated Berlin (Germany). Although baseball's new commissioner Happy Chandler was reportedly "intrigued" by the idea, it was ultimately dismissed as impractical. The game was finally cancelled due to wartime travel restrictions.

In 1952, Todd made a production of the Johann Strauss II operetta, *A Night In Venice*, complete with floating gondolas at the then-newly constructed Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York. It ran for two seasons.

In 1950, Mike Todd formed The Cinerama Company with the broadcaster Lowell Thomas (who founded Capital Cities Communications) and the inventor Fred Waller. The company was created to exploit Cinerama, a movie process created by Waller that used three movie projectors to create a giant composite image on a curved screen. The first Cinerama feature, *This is Cinerama*, was released in September 1952.

Before its release, Todd left the Cinerama Company to develop a widescreen process which would eliminate some of Cinerama's flaws. The result was the Todd-AO process, designed by the American Optical Company. The process was first used commercially for the successful 1955 movie adaptation of *Oklahoma!* (starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones). Todd later produced the movie for which he is best remembered, ''Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days*, which debuted in cinemas on October 17, 1956. Costing $6 million to produce, the movie earned $16 million at the box office. In 1957, *Around the World in 80 Days* won the Best Picture Academy Award.

A William Woolfolk novel from the early 1960s, entitled *My Name Is Morgan'', was considered to be loosely based on Todd's life and career.

## Selected Broadway productions
**Call Me Ziggy* (Play, Farce, 1937)
**The Hot Mikado* (Musical, Operetta, 1939)
**Something for the Boys* (Musical, Comedy, 1943)
**Mexican Hayride*  (Musical, Comedy,1944)
**Up in Central Park*  (Musical, Comedy, 1945)
**As the Girls Go*  (Musical, Comedy, 1948)

## Footnotes
## Sources
**Dictionary of First Names*, 
**City of Light : The Story of Fiber Optics*, 
* Cohn, Art. *The Nine Lives of Mike Todd*. Hutchinson of London, 1959.
* Walker, Alexander. *Elizabeth: The Life of Elizabeth Taylor*. Grove Press, 2001. 

## Other websites 
*
*
*Mike Todd's "A Night in Venice" on Amazon.com
*Mike Todd - Accident Report Aviation Safety - March 22, 1958 

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