The Outlaws 'Christen' Little John

In this picture, kindly sent in by Mike, we see the moment that Little John  (James Robertson Justice) is thrown into the stream by Robin Hood (Richard Todd) and his outlaws as they 'Christen' him.

This rare still is taken from Walt Disney's  live-action movie, the Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952).

Last year, thanks to some input from my readers, we managed to put names to some of the actors faces, in another scene from this movie. Although we can see Richard Todd, Antony Forwood and Ewen Solon in this picture, can any one put a name to the actor on the far right? If so, please get in touch.

Cavan Malone the Mysterious Page Boy

Cavan Malone as Giles the Page Boy with Joan Rice as Maid Marian

Four years ago I thought I had found the page boy that appeared, but was uncredited, in Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952). At the time, I thought the young actor was the stage and screen star Brian Smith (b.1932). His film career started in 1950 and he appeared as Taplow in the classic, The Browning Version (1951) alongside Michael Redgrave. Smith went on to appear in TV’s Billy Bunter in 1954, the colourful swashbuckler, Quentin Durward (1955) with Robert Taylor and the 1957 version of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. But Neil, one of my regular readers wasn’t sure and I must admit I later began to have doubts.

Now, after a lot of trawling the web, I can hopefully reveal, the person who played Giles, that mysterious page boy!

Cavan Malone (born 25th November 1939) was the son of the Irish tenor Danny Malone. His mother Hazel Malone ran the famous Corona Stage School in Chiswick, London, during WWII.  As a former child actor he had appeared with Alec Guinness in the movie classic Kind Hearts and Coronets in 1949 and also on television as far back as 1947.  On the small screen he starred in episodes of No Hiding Place, Dixon of Dock Green and also played Gordon Davies, husband to Joan Walker, in Coronation Street in 1961.  But after appearing in the classic war film 633 Squadron during the mid sixties he seems to have quit acting.

He sadly passed away in 1982, aged 42.

Below is Cavan Malone’s TV and Film Career:

 1964: 633: Squadron ... Ericson

1964: Downfall ... Driving Instructor

1964: The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (TV series)

– Downfall (1964) … Driving Instructor

1962: Outbreak of Murder (TV series) ... PC Wright

1962: Suspense (TV series)

– Killer in the Band (1962) … Charlie

1962: Dixon of Dock Green (TV series)

– A Special Kind of Jones (1962) … Arthur Flint, as a Young Man

1961: Highway to Battle ...Hoffman

1961: The Cheaters (TV series)

– Fire! (1961) … Detective

1961:  Coronation Street (TV series)

– Episode #1.18 (1961) … Gordon Davies

– Episode #1.17 (1961) … Gordon Davies

1961 Return of a Stranger ... Detective

1960: Linda...Chief

1960: Emergency-Ward 10 (TV series)

– Episode #1.310 (1960) … Tony Aight

1959: No Hiding Place (TV series)

– The Sharp Knife (1959) … Eddie

1959: Julius Caesar (TV movie) ... Servant to Julius Caesar

1958: Further Up the Creek ... Signalman

1957: The Adventures of Peter Simple (TV series)

– The Plot Against Peter (1957) … Midshipman Thompson

1956: Over to William (TV series)

– The Begging Letter (1956) … Robert Brown

– Cats and White Elephants (1956) … Robert Brown

– William and the Three-Forty (1956) … Robert Brown

– The Browncheck Sports Coat (1956) … Robert Brown

– William and the Ebony Hairbrush (1956) … Robert Brown

Richard Todd (Robin Hood), Cavan Malone (Giles) and Martitia Hunt (Queen Eleanor)

1952: Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men... Giles the Page Boy (uncredited)

1952: Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School (TV series)

– The Siege (1952) … Lord Mauleverer

1951-1952 BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (TV series)

Earl of Warwick's page / Prince Henry

– The Life and Death of King John (1952) … Prince Henry

– Festival Drama: Saint Joan (1951) … Earl of Warwick's page

1949:  Kind Hearts and Coronets ... Young Graham (uncredited)

1949:  Macbeth (TV movie)...Macduff's son

1948:  It's Hard to Be Good ...Tommy Beckett (uncredited)

1948: Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill ... Benson

Bill Owen and Cavan Malone in When the Bough Breaks (1947)

1947: When the Bough Breaks ... Jimmy

1947: Captain Boycott ... Billy Killain

Louise Hampton

Louise Hampton as Tyb

Louise Hampton only appeared in the opening scenes of Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood (1952) as Maid Marian’s comical nurse, Tyb. This traditional character has her roots in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, when the Nurse provides not only comic relief during the play but is also Juliet’s faithful confidante. This formula was used to great comedic affect again in Warner Brothers ‘Adventures of Robin Hood’ (1938) when Una O’Connor played Marian’s nurse, Bess.

Sadly I can find very little about the life of Louise Hampton, other than what is mainly on IMDb. It states that Louise was born in Stockport, Cheshire in 1877. She was a obviously a very accomplished actress and during her long career appeared in three of my all-time favourite films, ‘Scrooge’(1951) alongside Alistair Sim, ‘Goodbye Mr Chips’ (1939) as Mrs Wicket and of course the 'Story of Robin Hood ' (1952).

Louise Hampton in 'Goodbye Mr Chips' (1939)

Her movie debut was in 1911, it was a silent thriller called ‘Driving a Girl to Destruction’ and after a long interlude she was back on the silver screen in ‘Brown Sugar’ (1922) and ‘The Eleventh Commandment’ (1924).

It is said that Louise looked upon film making as a secondary importance. It was the stage that was her first love and where she gained her most success. From September 7th, 1922 to the end of February 1923 she acted in Rudolf Besier and May Edginton's play, ‘Secrets,’ at the Comedy Theatre in London. The cast also included Fay Compton, Doris Mansell, Fabia Drake, Bobbie Andrews, Cecil Trouncer and Ian Fleming.

In 1933 she appeared in the play, 'The Late Christopher Bean,' at the St. James' Theatre in London, with Edith Evans and Cedric Hardwick.

But by this time motion pictures were being made with sound and Louise’s’ first ‘talky’ was ‘Nine Till Six’ in 1932. After this she made a whole string of movies, including ‘Tobias and the Angel' (1938), ‘The Silver Box’ (1939) 'Sheppey' (1939) ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’ (1939), ‘His Lordship Goes to Press’ (1939), ‘Castle of Crimes’ (1940), ‘Busman’s Holiday’ (1940) ‘The Middle Watch' (1940) and ‘The Saint Meets the Tiger’ (1941).

During February 1935 and April 1936 Louise appeared in the play, ‘Lady Precious Stream,’ at the Little Theatre in John Street, London. In 1938 she also acted in ‘Babes in the Wood' at the Embassy Theatre in London, with Angela Baddeley, Alexander Knox, Ellen Pollock, and Richard Caldicot.
 
A year later, along with making a host of movies, Louise was treading the boards again in Carel Kapek’s play, ‘The Mother’ at the Garrick Theatre in London. It was directed by Miles Malleson and had Nigel Stock in the cast.
 
Her later movies included 'Bedelia' (1946), ‘The Gentle Gunman’ (1950), ‘Files From Scotland Yard’ (1951), ‘Scrooge’ (1951), ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men’ (as Tyb) (1952), ‘The Oracle’, (1953) and ‘Background' (1953).
 

Louise passed away on 11th February 1954 aged 76. She was married to Edward Thane.

If you have any more information on the life of Louise Hampton, please get in touch at disneysrobin@googlemail.com. I would be pleased to hear from you.

Ivan Craig, Ewen Solon and Geoffrey Lumsden

Back in May of this year I posted a still from Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood, with an appeal for the names of the actors in the picture who played the outlaws. Thanks to Neil and Laurence I can now reveal three of the names, Ivan Craig, Ewen Solon and Geoffrey Lumsden.

Laurence informed me that Ivan Craig (1912-1944), during his career, had appeared in TV’s Claude Duval, (The Gay Cavalier) (1957) as Major Mould and also as Lord Blackheath alongside Roger Moore in Ivanhoe (1958-1959).

Geoffrey Lumsden (1914-1984) seems to have begun his lengthy profession as one of Robin’s men but, went on to appear in many classic TV series including Upstairs Downstairs, Harriet’s Back in Town, Bergerac, Special Branch, Edward and Mrs Simpson and the hilarious Dad’s Army as Captain Square. Lumsden also appeared in the Hammer movie The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) alongside former colleagues from Disney’s Story of Robin Hood, Joan Rice and James Hayter.

Geoffrey Lumsden

During my research I was amazed to find an official, fact filled web site, dedicated to Ewen Solon. It’s at http://www.ewensolon.com/ and is well worth a visit.

Ewen Solon

Robin's Merrie Men

Above is very good still from Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood (1952) showing Friar Tuck (James Hayter) demanding two hundred shillings from the Sheriff (Peter Finch) for the ill treatment of the poor, eating at Robin’s table and for giving the friar a nasty bump on his head!

In this picture we also get a clear view of some of the faces of the Merrie men. So, what I would like to do is try and put some names to the faces that are shown. I have included below a list of the actors that appeared as Robin’s band of outlaws in the movie. If you can identify any of them in the picture, please get in touch at disneysrobin@googlemail.com.

Here is a list of the actors:

John Brooking: - Merrie Man

Ivan Craig: - Merrie Man

John French: - Merrie Man

Richard Graydon :- Merrie Man

Geoffrey Lumsden: - Merrie Man

John Martin: - Merrie Man

Larry Mooney: - Merrie Man

Nigel Neilson: - Merrie Man

Charles Perry: - Merrie Man

Ewen Solon: - Merrie Man

John Stamp: - Merrie Man

Jack Taylor: - Merrie Man

Peter Finch as the Sheriff of Nottingham

This excerpt is taken from the excellent book, Peter Finch –A Biography by Trader Faulkner….

“As soon as Peter had finished his six week contract in Point of Departure he went straight on to the Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men at Denham Studios. The Americans were very anxious to make an authentic, accurate film on the Robin Hood legend and Carmen Dillon, who had done memorable artistic work on Olivier’s film of Henry V and who subsequently designed Richard III, was sent to Nottingham to do detailed research. They were also very keen, says director Ken Annakin now, to get ‘what we’d now call National Theatre actors, which surprised everybody, because they never did manage to get any.’

Richard Todd, a contract artist, had already been cast as Robin Hood and Disney were determined to test everybody for the Sheriff of Nottingham. All the best available actors were tested. Peter had only done Train of Events, for Ealing and he didn’t regard himself as a costume actor. But ‘Peter’s test,’ says Annakin, ‘was simply great and everyone agreed he should play the Sheriff. He brought sincerity to the part with a lot of bite and I would say it was rather like the casting of Guinness in Star Wars. He gave the whole of Robin Hood a lift with consummate acting. He had some marvelous scenes with Hubert Gregg as Prince John, another very good English actor. Of course he had to do a lot of action stuff as well.

‘I remember one Saturday afternoon we had him on one of the typically untrained horses that England produced at the time. We had to do seventeen takes to get a close-up of him on the horse and it took us the whole afternoon. Every time we turned over, the horse seemed to understand at once and played up. Peter showed great patience. In fact, he was one of the most professional actors I’ve ever worked with. He was a sympathetic person and very responsive to direction. In his later life we all know he had a period when he started hitting the bottle. I never saw a sign of this when we were making Robin Hood, but clearly his life was not satisfying him entirely.

‘He was a marvelous actor, but if one has asked him in the old days whether being an actor was the sort of thing he really should be doing, I suspect his answer would have been that he needed more out of life than just that. I think he found himself forced into a shoe, a shape, which for a long time he didn’t accept.

‘He had the intelligence to be a director. I don’t know whether he had the patience to apply himself constantly. I always feel that direction is about forty per cent obstinacy and forty per cent patience.’

With the Sheriff of Nottingham, Peter began to be accepted in England as an important actor in terms of screen potential. Ken Annakin maintains that what Peter Finch did with his role was the best that an actor had done in that kind of film until that time and that people in the film industry began to take serious notice of him because of this. It gave a tremendous boost to his confidence and the possibility of a substantial film career really fired his enthusiasm.”


Peter Finch-A Biography by Trader Faulkner p.166-167


For more information on Peter Finch, please click on the Peter Finch Label.

Hubert Gregg

This has been sent to me from our regular contributor, Neil Vessey:

“I have recently purchased direct from his widow, a copy of Hubert Gregg's autobiography. He was indeed a genius with all the many, many talents and different careers he had going. He was brilliant as Prince John - possibly the performance of the film. Anyway in his book he has this to say about the film:-
'It was during a tour of Agatha Christie's The Hollow that I got a telephone call to say that I had been asked to test for the part of Prince John in the coming Walt Disney production The Story of Robin Hood. I was told that Ken Annakin was directing. He had directed me in a pot-boiler called Vote for Huggett and we got along well together.
I made my first film at Denham Studios - I hadn't set foot there since In Which We Serve - and the final choice seemed to be between Kenneth More, Geoffrey Keen and myself. I won by a short beard.
The Disney Robin Hood was a new screen experience and one I wouldn't have missed for seven whodunits in a row, director or play. Peter Finch was cast as the Sheriff of Nottingham and we shared a crack of dawn car to the studio each day. It was a colour movie with absolutely no expense spared. The costumes were beautiful, if unnecessarily weighty in their adherence to mediaeval reality. One cloak was heavily embroidered and lined with real fur: it cost more than a thousand pounds (a good deal of money in pre-inflationary days) and took all my strength to wear. In one scene I had to ride into the town square, leap off my horse and enter the treasury building in high dudgeon.
To add to the reality our saddles were fitted with mediaeval pommels at the back that had to be negotiated carefully when dismounting. In the first take, I lifted my leg as gracefully as I could the necessary six inches higher than usual and leapt beautifully off my steed. As my feet touched the ground the weight of my cloak carried me completely out of frame to the left.
One day on the set, a week or two after shooting had begun; I heard a quiet voice coming from a chair on my left."How are you, Mr. Gregg, my name is Disney" I looked surprised at this modest newcomer to the studio - he had arrived from Hollywood the day before. "I'd like to thank you...." he was saying, adding flattering things about my performance, which however he referred to as 'a portrayal'. The choice of word was typically American and the modesty typically Disney.
I enjoyed every moment of the filming but had to put my foot down over a suggestion from the publicity department. They wanted to send me by car, in costume and make-up, to Alexandra Palace where I would appear on television singing 'Maybe it’s Because I'm a Londoner'

The above is an extract from Hubert Gregg’s book. He does say more about Ken Annakin working with colour pictures of all the set-ups. You will know of course know that he had written the song ‘Londoner.’
The autobiography is called 'Maybe it’s Because.....? '
Hubert Gregg is described as an actor, songwriter, author, director and radio presenter - among other talents - as if that isn’t enough. His career spanned 70 years in Theatre, Film and Radio.

Hope this is of interest - I know it will be. It gives another fascinating glimpse into the film and its making. "

Neil
The Hubert Gregg website is at http://www.hubertgregg.org.uk/index.html
If you want to read more about Hubert Gregg please click on the Hubert Gregg label.

Hubert Gregg

Hubert Gregg MBE played the ‘sneering’ Prince John in Walt Disney’s live action movie the Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952). As a student Gregg had studied at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art and his career started with a part in a production of Jean-Jacques Bernard’s Martine. After early appearances in light West-End farce, he moved on to revue and more high-brow performances in Shakespearean plays, including a season at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre. He started his radio career as a part-time announcer with the BBC Empire Service, a forerunner of the World Service and also made his TV debut in a dramatization of the life of St. Bernard at Alexander Palace.

During two seasons at the Chichester Festival Theatre in southwest England, he played Britannus to John Gielgud's Caesar in George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra. Gregg also appeared in Terrance Rattigan’s first long running Broadway and London success, French without Tears, along with parts in While the Sun Shines and Off the Record. He also both acted and directed William Douglas Home’s comedy The Secretary Bird. In this he played the part of Hugh Walford, a part that was to become his favorite stage part next to Hamlet.

His skill at directing found him working on Agatha Christie’s first theater success, The Hollow at the Fortune and Ambassadors in 1951. Then for three years, on Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest, later in 1953 with his direction, he helped gain,-for six years-the record breaking success of The Mousetrap. But he soon became fed up with both Christie and the play. "She was a mean old bitch," he would say. "She never even gave me the smallest gift." He later wrote a book about his experiences, Agatha Christie and All That Mousetrap (1980).

Hubert Robert Harry Gregg was born in Islington, North London on July 19th 1914. He came from a poor background. His father was wounded in the Somme and, with no income, sold toys in the street, but four miles away from his home so as not to shame his family. But Hubert later won a scholarship to St. Dunstan’s College in South East London. His parents couldn’t afford to send him to university so instead he enrolled at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art and between 1933 and 1936 he played a multitude of roles for the Birmingham Repertory Company and the Old Vic.

As a private soldier in the Lincolnshire Regiment during 1939, Gregg put pen to paper and wrote the words and music to his first song I’m Going to Get Lit Up When The Lights Go Up In London. But the musical-comedy star Hermione Gingold refused to sing it. "She said quite correctly that we couldn't sing about getting lit up when we didn't know who was going to win!" said Gregg.

The song was launched in 1943, when victory was on the horizon, and was recorded by Alan Breeze with Billy Cotton and his Band. But provoked concerns in Parliament over possible nights of drunkenness in the capital. Lady Astor asked if this was “the disgraceful way Britons were going to behave.” Prime Minister Winston Churchill replied that he was confident, “we shall celebrate a victorious peace in a way worthy of the British nation.” Gregg married the actress Zoe Gail in 1943.

His feature film debut came with Noel Coward, John Mills and Michael Wilding in David Lean's 1941 classic In Which We Serve and it was during World War II that he worked for the political warfare executive on the BBC German Service. Gregg’s ability to speak German so fluently led Goebbels to think he was a German traitor!

Over a hundred songs and lyrics followed his first success, like London In The Rain, I’ve Got An Invitation To The Royal Coronation, My Mother’s Ambitious For Me, Spring Is At It Again and Everybody Shines When The Sun Shines.

On one particular grim day, after seeing the German Doodlebugs devastating his native city he composed on the back of a theater program, what later became the folk anthem- Maybe it’s because I’m A Londoner. "It took me 20 minutes to write it before supper one night, Gregg said. “It's only got 16 bars, but people seem to like it."
In 1947 it was given to Bud Flanagan by impresario Jack Hilton and Flanagan literally made the song his own during a four-year run in the West End revue Together Again.

Apart from writing songs, including Elizabeth, for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Gregg also turned his hand to writing plays and two novels. In 1951 his first book April Gentleman was published. Also at the beginning of this year he was chosen to play the part of the evil Prince John in Walt Disney’s second live-action movie, filmed at Denham studios, the Story of Robin Hood. A role he seemed to perform with relish. His cinema career continued with roles such as Mr. Pusey in the Alexander Mackendrick comedy The Maggie (1953,) Final Appointment (1954), Simon and Laura (1955)(with Kay Kendal and Peter Finch) and Doctor at Sea (1955) (which he also wrote the music for).

In 1958 he starred in his first musical Chrysanthemum at the Prince of Wales, along with his second wife Pat Kirkwood (his first wife was the singer Zoe Gail whom he married in 1943 and divorced five years later).

In 1962 his musical version of Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, the three men being Kenneth Horne, Leslie Phillips and Gregg himself, and it was in radio that he eventually found a more durable career.

With his relaxed style, velvety voice and endless show business anecdotes from his varied career, he became hugely popular with radio audiences. He started with the series I Remember it Well, Square Deal followed and then the show that he hosted on BBC Radio 2 for thirty five years-Thanks for the Memory. Playing ‘vintage records from the square chair’ he delighted his listeners with unashamed nostalgia. Lesley Douglas, Radio 2 Controller, said: “He painted pictures of a bygone era with wit and style.”

After 23 years of marriage Gregg divorced Pat Kirkwood and a year later he married Carmel Lytton, 30 years his junior. In 1981 he was given the Freedom of the City of London and in 2003 he was awarded an MBE for his services to music. In 1993, he celebrated 60 years of broadcasting by presenting 'Sounds and Sweet Airs', which he also wrote. 1994 was the 50th Anniversary of D-Day, for which he appeared on 'Hubert Gregg and The 40s'. Hubert Gregg died on Monday 29th March 2004 at his home in Eastbourne, East Sussex. He is survived by his third wife Carmel and their son and daughter and a daughter from his previous marriage to Pat Kirkwood.

The Page Boy from Nottingham

A few weeks ago a good friend of this web site, Neil Vessey, sent in another stunning still from Walt Disney’s live-action film the Story of Robin Hood. It shows Joan Rice as Maid Marian, dolefully looking out from Nottingham Castle towards Sherwood Forest, as she tries to think of a way of finding her lost love, Robin Fitzooth.

But Neil wanted some information on Giles, the Page Boy, who stands behind, asking her, “Mistress Marian, why so sad?”

This rekindled an inquiry that I started a few years ago and set me off once again, looking for the young actor who mysteriously does not appear on the list of credits at the end of the film, even though his character had dialogue.

Well it looks like I could have found him! It seems that Giles the Page Boy was played by television and film actor Brian Smith. I can not find anything else about his life apart from the fact that he was born in Nottingham, England on 24th December 1932. His film career started in 1950 and he appeared as Taplow in the classic, The Browning Version (1951) alongside Michael Redgrave. Smith went on to appear in TV’s Billy Bunter in 1954, the colorful swashbuckler, Quentin Durward (1955) with Robert Taylor and the 1957 version of The Barretts of Wimpole Street.

Through the next four decades, Brian Smith appeared in a whole range of various television programs, the last of which was Peak Practice in 1996.

Why did his name not appear in the acting credits of Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood? Perhaps it will remain a mystery. But The Browning Version was released in April 1951 and amongst the cast and crew were the familiar names of Bill Travers and Carmen Dillon who would start working, it seems, with Brian Smith on Disney’s Story of Robin Hood at the end of that month.

Joan Rice

I have recently received an email from Maria Steyn, a close friend of Joan Rice. Maria very kindly supplied information on the life of Joan when I began this web site over a year ago. They spent a great deal of time together in Maidenhead during the 1970’s. But by the late 1980’s Maria lost contact with Joan and her husband Ken McKenzie, due to Joan’s ill health.

Maria was very pleased to read the recent information supplied by Joan’s niece on this web site in January and is keen to get in touch with her, or anybody else who knew Joan and her family. We both appreciate that information like this, is of a very personal nature. So if you would like to contact Maria, please leave an email address at : disneysrobin@googlemail.com and I will pass on her email address to you.

Martitia Hunt

The tall, elegant, velvet voiced Martitia Hunt (1900-1969) was the perfect choice to play the part of Queen Eleanor in Walt Disney’s Story of Robin Hood (1952). To read the biography of this wonderfully talented actress, please click on the ‘label’ Martita Hunt in the right-hand column or below.

Patrick Barr

Patrick Barr (1908-1985) is shown above in a still from the 30 minute film Murder At The Grange. Patrick played the part of Inspector John Morley in this British B Movie thriller, which was also known in the UK as Murder At The Festival.

The film was released in December 1952 - the same year he played the part of King Richard I in Walt Disney's Story of Robin Hood. Later, Patrick re-created his role as Richard the Lionheart, in the much loved classic TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Richard Todd

This article on Richard Todd’s ‘haunting double tragedy’ appeared in ‘The Daily Mail’ on Tuesday, April 25th 2006. For me this was an incredibly revealing account by Wendy Leigh, of a man who I have greatly admired. But after reading this piece, I am sure you will, like me, be left totally in awe, of this true gentleman’s courage in the face of extreme adversity.

"Veteran actor Richard Todd is 86, [2006] but looks at least ten years younger. Handsome, blue-eyed and with the erect posture of a former military man, his manners are impeccable and his charm reminiscent of his days as a Fifties matinee idol.

The star of the Dam Busters and The Longest Day, who after two marriages ended in divorce, lives alone in a small Lincolnshire village, seems to have the quintessential elderly Englishman’s existence; living out one’s golden years in peace and happiness.

But this tranquility masks a deep sorrow that surfaces when Todd reflects on the two great tragedies of his life: the suicides of two of his four children. Suddenly the actor’s sonorous voice falters and his eyes fill with tears.

For a parent to lose one child is a tragedy. To lose two is devastating beyond words. And for both to die by their own hand must be unbearable. Yet Todd has faced both calamities with characteristic stoicism, staying true to his family motto: ‘It is necessary to live.’


As he puts it in his first interview since the second suicide: ‘It is rather like something that happens to men in war. You don’t consciously set out to do something gallant. You just do it because that is what you are there for. It is your country. And you just get on with it.’


Seven months ago Peter, Todd’s eldest son from his first marriage, shot himself in the head. He killed himself in the same way as his half-brother, Seumas, had done eight years earlier.

Peter’s mother, the actress Catherine Grant-Bogle, died nine years ago, so it fell to Todd’s second wife Virginia Mailer-Seumas’s mother-to tell Todd that a second son had taken his life.

‘I came home to find Virginia’s car outside my house.’ Todd says. ‘I saw her coming towards me and said: “What a nice surprise.” Then I saw look on her face and …’ Todd stops in mid-sentence. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I can’t go on.’

Then regaining his composure, he continues: ‘Obviously, I knew Peter all his life and he knew more about my way of life than anybody else in existence. He was a devoted son. We shared so much together. I miss him. The word ‘terribly’ hangs in the air but Todd, with typical understatement, leaves it unsaid. Nor does he discuss the circumstances of Peter’s suicide.

But the facts are that his son’s body was found slumped in his car at 7.35 am on September 21, last year [2005], in a car park by the village hall in East Malling, Kent, where he lived with his wife, Jill.

According to reports, she had planned to leave her 53-year old husband, a racing car company executive. Peter, who used his father’s full surname of Palethorpe-Todd, left her a suicide note: ‘I’m so sorry but I cannot face life alone without you.’

His wife accepted there were problems in the marriage, but said that her husband had been badly affected by Seumas’s death: ‘He was extremely angry that Seumas did what he did,’ she told an inquest. ‘But because Peter wasn’t a chap to talk about things that inwardly affected him, it took its toll.’

She also said Peter’s drink problem had worsened since Seumas’s death.

Peter took a gun from a cupboard in their home. Jill, a director in an events management company, described her husband as ‘controlling’ and ‘obsessive.’ She said that on the night he shot himself, Peter knew that ‘time was running out’ for their marriage.

‘The following morning, I saw his bed had not been slept in and his car had gone. I phoned a family friend and she was the one who mentioned about the gun in the cupboard. When I saw it was gone, I phoned the police.’

A verdict of suicide was recorded.

Todd, who has another son, Andrew, and a daughter, Fiona, did not attend his son’s inquest. ‘Peter lived in Kent. Seumas and Andrew lived in Lincolnshire and they weren’t particularly close to Peter. But Peter had apparently said before he died that if anything happened to him he wanted to be buried with his brother.

So now Peter and Seumas are buried in the same churchyard just a few miles from Todd’s home. ‘There’s a space there for me, too. It’s my retirement home,’ says Todd. ‘I go down once or twice every week and have a chat to my boys.

‘The fact that Seumas committed suicide made it easier for me to cope with Peter’s suicide because I was more prepared. I leapt into action straight away. Funeral arrangements and all that sort of thing. Which I didn’t have the heart to do when Seumas died.’

I ask if the tragedies have challenged his faith in God. He insists not and says: ‘I am not going around saying: “Why me? Why me?” Saying “Why me?” doesn’t help.’

Has he ever been close to committing suicide himself? He looks at me uncomprehending. I pose the question again. ‘No. Not once.’ He says.

‘What helps me is accepting it, getting on with things. I try to think of the good times. If I get stuck in a morass of mourning, I switch off and think of something else. You have to. You can’t let yourself go on wallowing. You can’t let yourself do that.’

Eight years before Peter’s untimely death-on December 7 1997- Todd walked into his home, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, and saw Virginia, sitting with her back to him, shaking and moaning.

His son Andrew, ashen-faced, was speaking into the phone. ‘No, I’m afraid it’s definitely suicide,’ Todd heard him say. The actor ran to Seumas’s bedroom and found the 20-year-old lying on his bed, the butt of his 12-bore shotgun between his feet. ‘My heart stopped. He was lying on his back across his bed. This could not be my boy, my lovely Seumas, he could not really be dead.’ Todd said.

Seumas left a suicide note saying that he ‘could not cope.’

At first, Todd thought Seumas, a first-year student of politics at Nothumbria University, was suffering from financial worries. But he had only a small overdraft and was supported by loving, well-off parents.

Then an inquest into another student’s suicide suggested a link between depression and an anti-acne drug that Seumas had also taken.
‘I am convinced of it,’ Todd says. ‘There have been too many other cases for it to have been a one-off accident.

‘In 1996, my son came back from travelling for two years and he was tremendously depressed. In Australia he’d had chicken pox. He was panic-stricken because of the risk of facial scarring. And the illness probably also contributed to his melancholy.

‘He was very good looking and didn’t like having spots. The acne was very disheartening. The poor little chap didn’t stand a chance. It was an illness and it did not arise out of any unhappiness with us.

‘It reached crisis point because he was in his first year at university and the stress was too much. Young chaps don’t talk to each other about their depression, do they?

I first met Todd three-and-a-half years after Seumas’s suicide in Brighton, where he was appearing in ‘An Ideal Husband.’


At first, he avoided talking about his son but when he finally did, although his voice trembled slightly, he remained composed. He confided that he had been tempted to try to contact Seumas through a medium, but was afraid that if he did, Seumas would say: ‘Look, I am sorry I killed myself. I wish I could come back.’


Tears welling in his eyes, Todd recalled Seumas’s memorial and Andrew’s poignant words: ‘Thank you Seumas for being such a brave and great brother and friend to me. I know I didn’t deserve your love, and I will always miss you terribly.’

Todd said that he had changed since Seumas’s death: ‘I am more caring. I certainly make sure that my children know that I care about them, that I am around and know how they are getting on. I see Andrew every other weekend and am always on the phone with Peter and Fiona.’

He was putting on a brave face and trying to be optimistic, but I remember thinking that day in Brighton that it would be surprising if he lived to see his 80th birthday. Little did we know then that Peter’s suicide lay ahead.

Now, months after Peter’s death, Todd and I are having tea at his Victorian cottage. One wall is covered with photographs of his children, including Peter and Seumas; youthful, handsome, glittering with promise.

‘I changed my will today,’ Todd says flatly. ‘I had to because Peter was my executor but now he is dead.’

Later, at a nearby restaurant, we talk again about his sons. I suggest that being an actor may have helped him survive his double tragedy.

‘I’m sure it has. Because no matter what I feel at any one time, good or bad, I’m used to being other personalities. I switch from being unhappy to being reasonably happy. By switching identities, I just became somebody else.’

Todd became an actor against all odds. His mother wanted him to become a diplomat. Todd was born in Dublin into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family that included a judge and an Army officer; his father who served in India.

His mother, a beauty with violet blue eyes and an accomplished horsewoman, committed suicide when Todd was only 19, and already at drama school in London.

‘Her death didn’t affect me terribly badly at all.’ He says. ‘I wasn’t devastated. We had been close but just before she died, we disagreed. She didn’t want me to go on the stage. There were various differences and I lost affection for her. I began to find her a bit tiresome. I felt no guilt at all.’

When war came, Todd trained at Sandhurst and served in the Parachute Regiment. He became one of the first British officers to land in France in advance of the main D-Day landings, and later fought bravely in the Battle of the Bulge.

‘It was probably the best time in my life,’ he said. ‘I had no worries, no responsibilities. My parents were dead, I wasn’t married, I had no children. I didn’t have to worry about where we were going to live. We were all prepared to die for our country.

After the war, Todd became a film actor, winning an Oscar nomination for his second film, ‘The Hasty Heart,’ co-starring Ronald Reagan, and was Britain’s highest-paid film star during the Fifties.

In 1949, he married Catherine and they had Peter and Fiona. He starred in Hitchcock’s ‘Stage Fright’ in 1950 with Marlene Dietrich.

‘She was awfully nice and taken with me,’ he says, a trifle immodestly. He met Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood while he was making ‘A Man Called Peter,’ about a Scottish pastor.

‘She wasn’t in the film, but I found her in the corner (on set) by herself, listening and crying because she was so moved by the sermons in the script.’

In a career spanning 40 films, he also met Elizabeth (‘nice thighs’) Taylor and Brigitte Bardot. He blushes and says nothing when asked if he was romantically involved with either star, and is the last acor in the universe who would ever kiss and tell.

The great love of his life is Virginia, a glamorous former model, whom he married in 1970, the year his marriage to Catherine was dissolved.

They had Andrew and Seumas but their marriage, too, ended in 1992 when Virginia divorced him, partly because she was tired of him being away working so much. Today [2006] , Virginia, 64, lives 20 miles from Todd’s village, Little Humby.

‘Virginia and I are perfectly happy,’ he says, ‘we are the best of friends. We see each other a lot, spend a lot of time together but we each have space.’

Asked if he would marry again, he says that, if he did, it would be to Virginia, adding: ‘She probably feels the same.’ Then jokingly, he says: ’I’ll wait till I’m a bit older to ask her, though. I’m a bit young.’

Even now-five years since [2006] his last appearance, in ‘An Ideal Husband,’ and two years since his last television appearance, in ‘Holby City’-Todd still receives more than 40 fan letters a week.


He works for Age Concern, supports the Royal British Legion and speaks at charity functions and military commemorations all over the country, raising huge sums for charity.

On those occasions, his appearance is invariably heralded by the rousing sounds of ‘The Dam Busters March’, the theme music of the film in which he played heroic Wing Commander Guy Gibson.

Vigorous, with a full diary and countless interests including the English countryside where, for many years, he farmed 320 acres in Oxfordshire, Todd drives himself everywhere, shops at Marks & Spencer and is catered to by an adoring personal assistant and a multitude of friends.

He clearly enjoys giving advice to the elderly he meets at Age Concern. ‘I tell them to make the most of it. I’d be nobody without some form of interest to keep me going.'

Todd needs two knee transplants but has been told he is too old to have them. He has had open-heart surgery three times, including a quadruple bypass, and, as a result, is a great fan of the NHS.

‘I’m lucky that with all the disabilities I’ve got, I’m still able to look after myself,’ he says.

Since Peter’s suicide, countless newspapers have requested an interview. He has rejected them all. He did not want payment for this interview, asking only that a donation be made to the British Legion.

As we prepare to leave the restaurant, an elderly man comes over to Todd and-almost reverentially- asks: 'May I shake your hand?’ Todd acquiesces, neither proud nor pleased, just accepting.
Just before we part, I ask him for his definition of Britain and Britishness. ‘To me, it means fairness, good sense, decency, kindness, politeness.’

Todd, at 86 [2006], the father of two sons who killed themselves, exemplifies all those virtues and more: self-discipline, dignity, and courage in the face of unthinkable tragedy.”


Wendy Leigh ‘Daily Mail’ Tuesday April 25th 2006

Robert Newton as Friar Tuck!

According to a February 1951 Los Angeles Times news item, Walt Disney originally planned for the Story of Robin Hood to feature a young boy in Robin Hood’s camp, to be played by Bobby Driscoll. But, decided instead, to highlight the romance between Robin (Richard Todd) and Maid Marian (Joan Rice).

The same news item also states that Robert Newton would play "Friar Tuck," but the Buffalo Courier Express reported in March 1951, that Newton's role in the RKO picture Androcles and the Lion prohibited him from joining the Disney production in London.

What sort of Friar Tuck would Newton have made, I wonder?

Joan Rice

It has been my main purpose on this web site, to raise awareness of the largely forgotten film ‘The Story of Robin Hood’ and its wonderful array of talented actors and actresses. Joan Rice is a prime example. In most cinema biographies, Joan Rice is rarely credited with little more than a few lines of text. Normally they basically state that she was a ‘pert British actress who enjoyed a brief flurry of popularity in the 1950’s’. But in my opinion and that of a growing amount of experts, she was the most innovative Maid Marian of all time and deserves far more credit. So after various visits to local libraries and the help of her friend Maria Steyn I began, about a year ago to try to piece together the life of this largely forgotten English rose.

In July 2007 I posted what I had managed to accumulate. It wasn’t a great deal, but what I hoped it would do, would lead to some more information and raise interest in her and of course the role that had catapulted her to stardom-Maid Marian.

This blog is read by people from all over the globe and as my visitors began to grow in those early days, so did my hope of some positive feedback. I was in luck and gradually over time, some more details of Joan’s life began to appear. So this is an update on information that I have gratefully received over the past year, although I must stress it is unofficial.

Dorothy Joan Rice was born at the City Hospital, Derby on 3rd February 1930. She was one of the four daughters of Hilda and Harold Rice. But life in 314 Abbey Street, Derby, became filled with trauma for Joan, Barbara, Roma and Gill, when their father was later imprisoned for child abuse. It was then that young Joan was sent to an orphanage in Nottingham, where it is said she used to play as ‘Maid Marian’ in Sherwood Forest.

As a teenager Joan moved to London where she started work as a Lyon’s tea House ‘Nippy.’ In 1949 she won the ‘Miss Lyons’ beauty competition and this led to her meeting the actor and producer Harold Huth and a screen test for the Rank Corporation. She secured a seven year film contract with them and in her early days went on to appear in ‘Blackmailed’ (pictured above in 1951) alongside Dirk Bogarde.


It was Walt Disney himself, who was keen for Joan to play the part of Maid Marian, in his second real-life adventure film in England. Although there was some reservations. Joan did not let him down. Her portrayal as the lively and independent-minded girl friend of Robin Hood, is now recognised by many film critics, as an innovative step away from the past celluloid Marians, who tended to be little more than a ‘beautiful plot device’.

So after her success as Lady Marian, in Walt Disney’s ‘Story of Robin Hood’ (1952) Joan was offered many film roles. But apart from a major part as the dusky Polynesian, Dalabo aki Dali, alongside Burt Lancaster, in the lavish ‘His Majesty O’Keefe’ (1954), a long notable film career eluded her.

In 1953 Joan married the writer and producer David Greene (1921-2003) but they divorced ten years later and she moved to Cookham in Berkshire. Sadly, according to Joan’s niece, their son Michael, recently committed suicide.

During the late 1950’s and early 1960’s Joan’s movie career faded, so she turned to working in repertory theatre and television, including appearing in series such as ‘Zero One’, ‘The New Adventures of Charlie Chan’ and ‘Ivanhoe’ with Roger Moore.

It was about this time that Maureen Bell met Joan Rice. She writes:

“I met Joan when I lived in Windsor. It was 1962/3 if my memory serves me well. Joan lived in the flat next door to mine. At that time she worked at the Tax office in Slough. I think it was Slough. We had many talks and I found her to be a wonderfully warm person. She kept stills of the films she had made, plus a guitar which she played. I accompanied her to Maidenhead one day. I recall it was a mini. We were travelling flat out on the Maidenhead bye pass. I had never travelled so fast in a car before, I was petrified. But not Joan, who handled the car like a professional.”

Joan Rice’s final appearance on the silver screen, was as a grave robbers wife in the 1970 Hammer film ‘The Horror of Frankenstein.’ She then set up her own property and letting agency in Maidenhead, known as the Joan Rice Bureau.


Joan’s friend Maria Steyn writes:

“Joan and I met during 1978 when I rented an apartment through her property office, the Joan Rice Bureau, in Maidenhead.I was immediately fascinated by her person, not knowing anything of her film career at the time. We befriended and I met her several times in her Maidenhead apartment. She kept a lovely dog Jessy, a golden retriever who sadly died, as did her mother, during 1979.

Being a very extravert and lively person, she mentioned many of her lovers and an ex-husband, a Mr. David (?) Green(e) ?, who was taking care of her financially. Also she mentioned a son named Jim (?) Green(e), at the time playing in a band called Jam. I never met the son nor ex-husband.After moving from Maidenhead Joan and I kept in touch and I remember seeing her once a year during the mid-eighties.At the time she was living with a gentleman Mr Ken(neth) McKenzie from Stornoway, Isle of Lewis . They had acquired various properties which they let and lived in Cookham (nr. Maidenhead) at the time.

Ken was in advertising sales [also a former journalist with the Daily Sketch] and, being optimistic and energetic, kept Joan going. Joan since 1981 or so had become rather depressed and given to drinking and heavy smoking. She looked rather pale and unhealthy by 1986 and had repeated, severe and extended coughing fits. Later, around the late eighties, it became increasingly difficult to communicate with her and we lost touch.It was by checking IMDB I found out she had died January 1st, 1997.I then tried to trace Ken McKenzie but to no avail. The Cookham address did not respond, nor did other links I had. From the Norman Wisdom movie in which Joan played, I keep some good original still photos. I do have the 'The Story of Robin Hood ' on VHS, which I cherish.”


This was recently posted by Joan’s niece:

“It was nice to find something on the internet about my Aunt Joan. I miss her a lot. There is some incorrect facts such as her son's name was Michael Green whom she had with her union with David Green. Sadly Michael committed suicide several years ago. She and I wrote each other up until her death and I still have her letters. My Mum and I went to see her grave shortly after she died... it was a sad trip. Of the four sisters Joan, Roma, Barbara (my Mum) and Gill, only Gill is still alive and living in England.”

I would like to send out a very big thank you to Maureen Bell, Maria Steyn and Joan’s niece for getting in touch. It makes working on this web site so worthwhile. Please, if anyone has any more information on Joan Rice, ever met her, or have any anecdotes they would like to share, please post a message on the blog or email me at disneysrobin@googlemail.com.

(To read more about Joan Rice please click on the label 'Joan Rice' either in the panel opposite or below.)

Joan Rice as Maid Marian

This is an excerpt from ‘And The “Reel” Maid Marian’, a paper by Sherron Lux on the character and role of the various Maid Marion’s on the silver screen over the years. Sherron reaches the conclusion, of course, that Joan Rice’s portrayal of Maid Marian, is one of the best of all time.............

"......Joan Rice’s Marian is vital to Ken Annakin’s 1952 film for Walt Disney, misleadingly called ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men’; it is Marian’s story, as well, because without her, only about half the story would be left. Joan Rice gives us a bright, spunky young Lady Marian, faithful daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon, and loyal friend to her childhood companion Robin Fitzooth (Richard Todd); though he is the son of her fathers head forester, she eventually falls in love with him despite the social barriers. However, Rice’s Marian has a distinctly independent turn of mind. She defies the Queen Mother’s orders and slips out of the castle disguised in a page-boy’s livery, seeking out her friend Robin, who has become an outlaw in Sherwood Forest. Her actions ultimately help prove that Robin and his outlaws are King Richard’s real friends and that Prince John is a traitor. This independent turn of mind in Joan Rice’s Marian stands in sharp contrast to her later and better-known Disney counterpart, the vixen in the popular 1973 animated feature 'Robin Hood' directed by Wolfgang Reitherman. Although beautiful and charming, the vixen Marian is actually a rather passive little lady (again, King Richard’s ward); almost obsessed with marriage and children, she never makes a decision on her own, and the story would work just as well without her. Unlike Rice’s Marian, then, the vixen Marian never claims agency for herself. Perhaps this second Disney Marian is a subtle slap in the face of the women’s movement, which was gaining momentum in the early 1970’s, while Joan Rice’s 1952 Britain-filmed Marian could be depicted as somewhat independent.
.......................................................................................................................
Recently, Disney released the 1952 live-action film in its limited-edition, budget-priced classics series of videotapes, so perhaps more people will get to know Joan Rice’s lively, independent-minded Lady Marian; or perhaps not, as Disney does not spend major advertising dollars on budget-priced limited edition releases."

Sherron Lux


(To see all posts about Joan Rice please click on the label marked 'Joan Rice' in the right-hand panel or below).

Hubert Gregg

Peter Finch

Elton Hayes

Daily Telegraph Obituary 29th September 2001


"ELTON HAYES, who has died aged 86, was well-known to radio and television audiences of the 1950s as "the man with the small guitar".
Hayes specialised in old English folk songs and ballads such as From Priggs that Snaffle the Prancers Strong and The Ratcatcher's Daughter. He sang to his own guitar accompaniments with an easy charm that came strongly over the microphone.

After making his radio debut on Children's Hour, Hayes occupied the guest star slot on every major radio variety show including In Town Tonight, Workers' Playtime, Variety Bandbox, Terry-Thomas's Top of the Town and Eric Barker's Just Fancy. He occasionally presented Housewives' Choice; and on Children's Hour, he sang Edward Lear's nonsense rhymes. Hayes's version of The Owl and the Pussy Cat was recorded by Parlophone and became a regular item on Children's Favourites.

In 1954 he was given his own series Elton Hayes - He Sings to a Small Guitar, a misquotation from The Owl and the Pussycat that became his catchphrase. This was followed by Close Your Eyes, a late night "bedtime" programme of light music, and Elton Hayes in a Tinker's Tales, in which Hayes, as an itinerant tinker, narrated a story which a cast of actors then dramatised as a musical play. Hayes also wrote the music and songs for the series.

On television he appeared in The Minstrel Show (forerunner of The Black and White Minstrel Show) and BBC Caravan Time, and sang and acted in several television plays.
Hayes was the obvious choice for the part of Alan-a-Dale in The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (1952), directed for Walt Disney by Perce Pearce. So well did Hayes fill the role that although it had started as a few lines, it grew into one of the film's biggest parts.

Elton Hayes was born at Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, on February 16 1915. Both his parents were actors and he made his first stage appearance aged nine in the prologue of a pantomime at the Canterbury Theatre, while also employed as a call boy and assistant stage manager at a salary of five shillings a week. For years he treasured a presentation watch engraved "To Elton Hayes, the youngest call boy and stage manager 1925/26 from Cheerful Charlie Grantly", the actor who had played Buttons.

As a child, Hayes learned the violin and, in his early teens, won a scholarship to the Fay Compton School of Dramatic Arts, run by the Compton family of actor-managers. There he received an extensive theatrical education "from Shakespeare to operetta and from tap dancing to ballet and the mechanics of theatre production".

His first job was as assistant stage manager with the Old Stagers' Company at the Canterbury Theatre. In his spare time he sang as "Eltonio" at local social clubs, obtained small parts in theatre and pantomime, and took a small part as a dancer in the film The First Mrs Fraser. He also joined a tap dancing troupe on the cine variety circuit, and became part of a four-man musical variety act called The Four Brownie Boys.

Hayes took up the guitar shortly before the war when he accepted one as security from a friend who had borrowed 30 shillings. At the outbreak of war, he was invited by ENSA to put together one of their first mobile units.
Eventually, though, Hayes volunteered for military service and, after being commissioned in the Royal West Kent Regiment, was posted to South East Asia Command. After the Japanese surrender, he hitch-hiked to Bombay where he was appointed OC ENSA North West Frontier Province, based in Rawalpindi.

A few days after arriving back in Britain, he visited Broadcasting House, still in uniform, to watch a Children's Hour broadcast and was immediately taken on to write and perform a slot in the programme based on Edward Lear's Nonsense Rhymes, and given a slot on In Town Tonight. From then on, he was seldom off the air.

In 1949 the actor manager John Clements invited him to appear in The Beaux Stratagem, which ran for 18 months in the West End. It was his performance in this that caught the eye of Perce Pearce, who thought that he would make the perfect Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood.
The success of the film led to a tour of America, where he made 113 television and radio appearances in eight weeks, including visits to Mexico and Canada. In 1952, he made a solo appearance in The Royal Film Performance and in 1956, appeared in The Sooty Show at the Adelphi Theatre.

Towards the end of the 1950s, however, Hayes found that he was becoming affected by nerves before his live performances. Believing that it would be stupid to continue, he decided to give up performing.
Hayes had already bought a small thatched cottage on the Essex-Hertfordshire borders and, after studying at a local agricultural college, he settled down to life as a farmer, breeding pedigree livestock.

In later life, he took up carriage driving and became a member of the British Driving Society. At the 1989 Lord Mayor's Show in London, he was to be seen dressed in a scarlet uniform, standing behind the team on a Post Office Mail coach blowing Clear the Road on a post horn.
After suffering a stroke in 1995, Hayes had to give up his farm and moved to live with friends, who cared for him until his death.
He married in 1942, Betty Inman, who died in 1982."

(To see all posts about Elton Hayes please click on the label marked Elton Hayes in the right-hand panel or below).