Richard Haydn
| Richard Haydn | |
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| Born | George Richard Haydon 10 March 1905 Camberwell, London, England, UK |
| Died | 25 April 1985 (aged 80) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1938–85 |
Richard Haydn (10 March 1905 – 25 April 1985) was an English comic actor in radio, films and television.
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[edit] Early life and career
Born George Richard Haydon in London, he was known for playing eccentric characters, such as Edwin Carp, Claud Curdle, Richard Rancyd and Stanley Stayle.[clarification needed] Much of his stage delivery was done in a deliberate over-nasalized and over-enunciated manner. He was possibly best noted in his performance as the voice of the Caterpillar in the 1951 Disney animated adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Haydn was particularly memorable as the manservant Rogers in the 1945 adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.
According to the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks said that Haydn used gardening and horticulture as a means of escape from the Hollywood grind and eschewed the Hollywood lifestyle.
[edit] Television and film
In The Twilight Zone episode "A Thing About Machines", he portrayed Mr. Bartlett Finchley, a quirky, self-absorbed, technophobe who is confronted by every machine in his home. On April 1, 1964, he reprised the Edwin Carp character, a poet and an expert on fish, in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show which saluted several old-time radio performers.
On 11 April 1968 he appeared as a Japanese businessman on an episode of Bewitched entitled "A Majority of Two".
Perhaps his most acclaimed role was in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1965 film musical The Sound of Music, in which he played the von Trapps' family friend Max Detweiler.
[edit] Other work
He was a regular on the Burns and Allen radio show. Haydn authored one book, The Journal of Edwin Carp, in 1954.
He appeared in the TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. as Mr. Hemingway in "The Mad, Mad Teaparty Affair" season one, episode 18, in 1964.
[edit] Partial filmography
- Charley's Aunt (1941)
- Ball of Fire (1941), as Professor Oddley
- Thunder Birds (1942)
- Forever and a Day (1943)
- No Time for Love (1943), as Roger (a pianist and composer without any of his usual characteristics)
- Tonight and Every Night (1945)
- And Then There Were None (1945), as Thomas Rogers, the butler
- Adventure (1945)
- The Green Years (1946), as Jason Reid, the schoolmaster
- Cluny Brown (1946)
- The Beginning or the End (1947)
- The Late George Apley (1947)
- Singapore (1947)
- The Foxes of Harrow (1947)
- Forever Amber (1947)
- Sitting Pretty (1948), as Clarence Appleton, the nosy neighbor
- The Emperor Waltz (1948)
- Miss Tatlock's Millions (1948). He also directed.
- Alice in Wonderland (1951), as The Caterpillar
- The Merry Widow (1952)
- Never Let Me Go (1953)
- Money from Home (1953), as Bertie Searles, the English jockey
- Her Twelve Men (1954)
- Jupiter's Darling (1955)
- Twilight for the Gods (1958)
- Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)
- The Lost World (1960)
- Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
- The Sound Of Music (1965), as Maximilian Detweiler
- Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion (1965)
- The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967)
- Young Frankenstein (1974), as solicitor Herr Falkstein
- The Hugga Bunch (1985), his final film appearance
