Tod Slaughter
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Tod Slaughter (19 March 1885 - 19 February 1956) was an English actor, best known for playing over-the-top maniacs in macabre film adaptations of Victorian melodramas.
Born as Norman Carter Slaughter in Newcastle, he made his way onto the stage in 1905 at West Hartlepool. After a brief interruption to serve during the war in the Royal Flying Corps, Slaughter resumed his career and returned to the stage. In 1913, he became a lessee of the Hippodrome theatres at Richmond and Croydon. After the war, he ran the Theatre Royal, Chatham before taking over the Elephant and Castle theatre in South London for a memorable few years from 1922 onwards that have since passed into British theatrical legend. Tod's company revived Victorian "blood-and-thunder" melodramas such as Maria Marten, Sweeney Todd, Jack Shepherd and the Silver King to enthusiastic audiences - not just locals but also sophisticated theatre-goers from the West End who might have initially come for a cheap laugh but ended up enthralled by the power of the fare on offer. Tod also staged other types of production such as the annual Christmas pantomime where he would cast prominent local personalities in bit-parts for audience recognition. Sadly, despite a local protest, the Elephant and Castle theatre was closed down in 1927 and Tod's company vacated it several months before the end. At the start of the 30's, it is said he briefly retired from acting to become a chicken farmer but it proved a short-lived venture and he was soon back managing his company touring the provinces and outlying London theatres with a repertoire of Victorian melodramas.
In 1934 at age 50, he debutted into motion pictures. Usually cast as a villain, his first film was Maria Marten or Murder in the Red Barn (1935) a Victorian melodrama filmed cheaply with Slaughter as the obvious bad-guy. Slaughter’s next film role was as Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (1936) directed and produced by George King, whose partnership with Slaughter was continued in the subsequent shockers: The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (1936); The Ticket of Leave Man (1938); The Face at the Window (1939) and Crimes at the Dark House (1940).
There were, however, some non-melodramatic roles in his career. He was a supporting player in 1937's The Song of the Road and Darby and Joan. In 1938's Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror he played the head of an international gang of super-villains.
After the war Slaughter resumed melodramatic roles and starred in The Curse of the Wraydons (1946), in which he played the legendary Victorian bogeyman Spring-Heeled Jack, and The Greed of William Hart (1948) based on the murderous career of Burke and Hare. These were produced by Ambassador films at Bushey studios who had made a healthy profit rereleasing Tod's 30's films during the war years. Sadly, the publics appetite for melodrama seemed to have abated somewhat by the 50's and he went bankrupt in 1953 owing to a downturn in his touring income. His last two films were each three episodes of the television series Inspector Morley cobbled together for theatrical release. A version of "Spring-heeled Jack" starring Tod was one of the first live TV plays mounted by the BBC after the war.
Still performing on the stage almost to the very end, Slaughter died of coronary thrombosis. After his death following a performance of Maria Marten in Derby, his work slipped almost completely into obscurity. He was survived by his actress wife Jenny Lynn.
However, his name was often mentioned in passing by Horror film historians such as Dennis Gifford, and the showing of several of his films late at night on Channel 4 ensured a cult following which is steadily increasing as his position as a true original of British cinema and theatre is slowly recognised.
