Mike Todd
Mike Todd was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States on June 22nd, 1909 and is the Film Producer. At the age of 48, Mike Todd biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 48 years old, Mike Todd physical status not available right now. We will update Mike Todd's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.
Career
Todd started his career in the building industry, where he earned and then lost a fortune. He founded the College of Bricklaying of America, purchasing the equipment to teach bricklaying on credit. Since the Bricklayers' Union did not see the college as a place of study, the school was forced to close. Todd and his brother, Frank, established their own building business.
During the conversion from silent pictures to sound, his first encounter with film was as a contractor to Hollywood studios and soundproofing production stages. When the company's financial support suffered in the early days of the Great Depression, he and his brother went bankrupt. Todd had lost over $1 million (equivalent to about $16,221,116 in today's funds) but not yet 21. Todd married Bertha Freshman on February 14, 1927, becoming the father of an infant boy who had no home for his family. Todd's subsequent work experience was turbulent, and failed ventures made him bankrupt several times.
Todd developed the "Flame Dance" during Chicago's 1933-2004 Century of Progress Exposition. In this number, gas jets were developed to light a portion of a dancer's costume, leaving her naked in appearance. The performance attracted enough interest to warrant a Las Vegas nightclub bid. Todd had his first glimpse of Broadway with the performance and was determined to find a way to work there.
Todd, despite resistance from the FTP after witnessing the Federal Theatre Project's Chicago performance of The Swing Mikado, an all African-American cast led by Harry Minturn, wanted to do his own version on Broadway, The Hot Mikado. On Broadway, 1939, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, starring Bill "Bojangles," opened the Hot Mikado. Todd's subsequent success, at the expense of the Chicago production, contributed to the financial crisis and ultimately, the Federal Theatre Project unit's demise in Chicago.
Todd's Broadway success gave him the courage to face showman Billy Rose. With a plan to bring the Broadway show to the Fair, Todd visited Grover Whalen, president of the 1939 New York World's Fair. Whalen, who was eager to see the performance at the fair, covered Todd's Broadway closing costs before deciding to pay. At Lindy's, Rose, who had an exclusivity clause in his fair deal, told Todd that his deal did not include new forms of entertainment only. Rose quickly agreed to promote Todd's film as well as his own to avoid any head-to-head competition.
During his career, Todd produced 17 Broadway shows, including the hugely successful burlesque revue Star and Garter starring comedian Bobby Clark, The Naked Genius written by and starring stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and a 1945 version of Hamlet starring Maurice Evans. His greatest triumphs came in musical comedy revues, many starring actresses in déshabillé, such as As the Girls Go (which also starred Clark) and Michael Todd's Peepshow.
Todd entertained the possibility of staging the 1945 Major League All-Star Game in newly liberated Berlin. Despite the fact that baseball's new commissioner Happy Chandler was "intrigued" by the prospect, the move was ultimately dismissed as impractical. Due to wartime travel restrictions, the game was eventually postponed.
Todd produced A Night in Venice, complete with floating gondolas at the newly constructed Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York, in 1952. It lasted for two seasons.
Mike Todd, a broadcaster who created Capital Cities Communications), and entrepreneur Fred Waller co-created Cinerama in 1950. The company was created to produce a massive composite image on a curved screen using Cinerama, a widescreen film process developed by Waller that used three film projectors. This is Cinerama's first cinerama film was released in September 1952.
Todd waited for the Cinerama Company to develop a widescreen process that would eliminate some of Cinerama's flaws ahead of its debut. The Todd-AO process, which was developed by the American Optical Company, produced the final product. The process was first used for the successful film adaptation of Oklahoma! (1955) The American settlers. (Ironically, Todd dismissed the stage musical during tryouts a decade ago, boasting, "No jokes, no legs, no chance." Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days, which premiered in theaters on October 17, 1956, was widely condemned.) The movie had grossed $33 million at the box office by the time of his death, equaling to about $59,801,714). Around the World in 80 Days received the Best Picture Academy Award in 1957.
In downtown Chicago in the 1950s, Todd purchased the Harris and Selwyn Theaters. Michael Todd's Cinestage was renamed Michael Todd's Cinestage and turned into a showcase for Todd-AO films, while the Michael Todd Theatre was renamed the Michael Todd Theater and operated as a traditional cinema. Both theaters' facades survive as part of the Goodman Theatre complex, although the interiors have been sandblasted.
My Name Is Morgan, a William Woolfolk book published in the early 1960s, was considered to be loosely based on Todd's life and work.
