| Richard Haydn | |
|---|---|
| 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.
Contents |
Born George Richard Haydon in London, he was known for playing eccentric characters, such as Edwin Carp, Claud Curdle, Richard Rancyd and Stanley Stayle. 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. Brooks added that Haydn died without life insurance.
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.
He was a regular on the Burns and Allen radio show. Haydn authored one book, The Journal of Edwin Carp, in 1954.