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Richard Todd was an Irish-born British stage and film actor, who served his country during World War II. On 6 June 1944, as a captain, he participated in the British Airborne Operation Tonga during the D-Day landings, and was among the first British officers to land in Normandy as part of Operation Overlord. A fitting background therefore, for a man who would go on to portray military heroes in a number of distinguished British films – Wing Commander Guy Gibson in ‘The Dam Busters,’ Major John Howard in ‘The Longest Day,’ and Commander John Kerans in ‘The Yangtse Incident.’

After the war, he would return to the theatre, eventually becoming one of the most popular actors of his day. His private life would be less fortunate – two failed marriages, and the suicides of two sons. His own mother had taken her life when he was nineteen, prompting the notion of some genetic predisposition within the family bloodline. Studies in recent years have dispelled this theory, yet the fact remains that suicides do run in families. Living long enough to see it all unfold – Todd was 90 when he passed away – the actor must have wondered how accountable he was for such unspeakable tragedies.