Michael Todd

Michael Todd (born June 22, 1909?, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.—died March 22, 1958, near Grants, New Mexico) was an American showman with a flair for the flamboyant who is remembered as Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband and as a film producer for Around the World in Eighty Days (1956).

In his book The Nine Lives of Michael Todd (1958), Todd’s friend Art Cohn recounts a conversation in which Cohn quizzes Todd about his age, listing a variety of years (1907, 1908, 1909, 1910) and sources. Todd replies that “my new birth certificate” reads June 19, 1911, but he otherwise claims ignorance. “I think I was born in 1910,” Todd concludes, “but you put down any year you want.” Cohn chooses June 22, 1909, the date that also appears on Todd’s gravestone.

Todd made his first mark as a showman with a dancing revue at the Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago in 1933. He later wrote for the slapstick comedy team of Olsen and Johnson. Todd produced and cowrote many Broadway revues, beginning with Call Me Ziggy (1936). His later productions included Hot Mikado (1939), Gilbert and Sullivan set to jazz, productions for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, Something for the Boys (1943), Cole Porter’s Mexican Hayride (1944), and Up in Central Park (1945).

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Todd promoted the development of the wide-screen film technique called Todd-AO, first used in the film version of Oklahoma! (1955). In October 1956 Around the World in Eighty Days in Todd-AO opened with a barrage of publicity generated by Todd. It won the Academy Award as best picture of the year.

Todd—who married Taylor, his third wife, in 1957—was killed in an airplane crash in 1958.