TODD, MIKE

TODD, MIKE (Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen; 1909–1958), U.S. producer and impresario. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Todd was the son of a Polish-born rabbi. He produced 21 shows on Broadway, largely light musicals. These include Call Me Ziggy (1937); The Hot Mikado (1939); Star and Garter (1942); Something for the Boys (1943); Mexican Hayride (1944); Up in Central Park (1945); As the Girls Go (1948); Michael Todd's Peep Show (1950); and The Live Wire (1950). His production of the tragedy Hamlet (1945), starring Maurice Evans, set   the record at the time for the longest run of any Shakespearean play on Broadway (131 performances). Todd was a financial promoter of two motion picture filming innovations, Cinerama and Todd-AO, the latter of which he codeveloped. Cinerama was introduced to film audiences in 1952 with the stomach-churning This Is Cinerama. Todd-AO was introduced in 1955 with the wide-screen film Oklahoma\! In 1956 Todd made the $6.5 million film of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days (Academy Award winner for Best Picture) which, by the time of his death in a plane crash, had grossed $33 million. Of his three marriages, the second and third were to the film actresses Joan Blondell (from 1947 to 1950) and Elizabeth Taylor (from 1957 until his death). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Cohn, The Nine Lives of Michael Todd (1959); Liz Taylor, M. Todd Jr., and S. Todd McCarthy, A Valuable Property: The Life Story of Michael Todd (1983). (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)