Cause of death Heart attack Role Actor Name Richard Haydn | Years active 1938–1985 Occupation Actor | |
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Full Name George Richard Haydon Movies The Sound of Music, Alice in Wonderland, Young Frankenstein, Ball of Fire, Mutiny on the Bounty Similar People Peggy Wood, Eleanor Parker, Daniel Truhitte, Robert Wise, Charmian Carr | ||
Richard haydn the fish mimic
George Richard Haydn (10 March 1905 – 25 April 1985), known as Richard Haydn, and born as George Richard Haydon, was an English comic actor in radio, films and television. Some of his better known performances include Ball of Fire (1941) as Professor Oddley, No Time for Love (1943) as Roger, And Then There Were None (1945) as Thomas Rogers, The Emperor Waltz (1948), Alice in Wonderland (1951) as the Caterpillar, as Baron Popoff in The Merry Widow (1952), as William Brown in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), and The Sound of Music (1965) as Max Detweiler.
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Biography
Haydn was born on 10 March 1905 in London. After working as a music hall entertainer and overseer of a Jamaican banana plantation, he joined a touring British theatre troupe, and then moved into television and film.
In the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks said that Haydn eschewed the Hollywood lifestyle, and that he used gardening and horticulture as a means of escape.
Following a heart attack, Haydn died on 25 April 1985 in Los Angeles, California.
Television and film
Haydn was known for playing eccentric characters, such as Edwin Carp (on a 1964 episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show), Claud Curdle (Mr. Music, 1950), Richard Rancyd (Miss Tatlock's Millions, 1948) and Stanley Stayle (Dear Wife, 1949). Much of his stage delivery was done in a deliberate over-nasalized and over-enunciated manner.
He is particularly notable for his performance as the voice of the Caterpillar in the 1951 Disney animated adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, and for his small role of Herr Falkstein in the 1974 Mel Brooks classic comedy Young Frankenstein. Haydn was also memorable as the manservant Rogers in the 1945 adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. He is also well remembered for his role as William Brown in Mutiny on the Bounty.Perhaps his most acclaimed role, however, was in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1965 film musical The Sound of Music, in which he played the Von Trapps' family friend Max Detweiler.
Haydn performed as the nosy neighbor and gossip in Sitting Pretty with Clifton Webb and Maureen O'Hara in 1948, using his over-nasal voice. He was Prof. Summerlee in 1960's The Lost World, and in the same year played opposite Doris Day in Please Don't Eat the Daisies.
In the 1960 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 1 April 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 the episode of Bewitched entitled "A Majority of Two". On 23 February 1969, he played the Magician who had twin daughters on the episode of Bonanza entitled "The Lady and the Mountain Lion" (S10/Ep21). On 12 January 1973 he appeared as Edward the butler in season 4 episode 15 of Love American Style entitled "Love And The Impossible Gift".
Other work
He was a regular on the Burns and Allen radio show. Haydn authored one book, The Journal of Edwin Carp, in 1954.