Richard Todd Meets Walt Disney

Richard Todd practices for his role as Robin Hood

 

70 years ago Walt Disney's live action movie The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men had its premiere in London. Sadly, this colourful version of the legend is rarely shown and almost forgotten since the Disney organisation released an animated version in 1973.

But, down the years I have tried to make people aware of this live action movie, with its array of talented actors and actresses and incredible production team.

In his book Caught In The Act, Richard Todd describes his first meeting with Walt Disney in October 1950 and how he wanted his Robin Hood to be portrayed:

"The following Monday I went to Burbank to meet the most legendary of all the movie-world figures, Walt Disney. I don't remember whether the idea had come from Disney himself, or whether Milton Pickman had suggested it, but Walt was planning a film about Robin Hood and wanted me to play the English folk hero.

The atmosphere in the Walt Disney Studios was quite different from any I had so far experienced in the film factories. Walt first took me on a brief tour of his empire, going round acres of sound stages and rows of drawing offices, where animators were busy sketching. And everywhere he went he was greeted with 'Hi, Walt,' and he replied, 'Hi! Jack-or Fred-or Art-or Lou.' He seemed to know every single one of the workforce.

Joan Rice (Maid Marian), Walt Disney and Richard Todd (Robin Hood)

Eventually, we arrived in his office, a large, panelled, comfy room with a bar at one end. Before we settled down to talk, Walt proudly showed me how, at the touch of a button, the bar became a soda fountain for youngsters. He adored children and delighted in surprising them.

We were joined by Perce Pearce, his senior live-action producer, a jolly, rubicund Pickwickian figure, who was going to take charge of the Robin Hood project, and Walt then outlined his ideas for the planned film. With images of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn in my mind, I simply could not see it as a vehicle for me. I was not physically built to play a larger-than-life swashbuckler, and I could not see myself swinging from the same Sherwood family tree as the mighty Flynn.

Above all, I considered myself an actor; not for me the Lincoln-green equivalent of Tarzan.

Walt was very persuasive. He described the idea of Robin Hood as a quick-thinking welter-weight, not a ponderous heavyweight. But even so, much as I liked and admired him, I felt I could not abandon all my thespian principles for a child's play romp in the forest. I must have been taking myself very seriously at that time.

And it never occurred to me that it might be a darned sight more difficult to make a fantasy character believable than to play some of the straight conventional parts that I had already done."

Thanks to Neil Vessey owner of the fantastic web site Films of the Fifties for the use of the image of Richard Todd with the bow at the top of the page.

From Caught In The Act, The Story of My Life by Richard Todd : Hutchinson 1986