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Mike Todd (Elizabeth Taylor's husband) airplane crash...
Mike Todd (Elizabeth Taylor's husband) airplane crash...
Item # 574514
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March 23, 1958
SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN, Massachusetts, March 23, 1958
* Mike Todd dies in airplane crash
* Elizabeth Taylor's husband
This 40+ page newspaper has a various headlines on the front page concerning the airplane crash death of famous film producer Mike Todd that includes: "Showman Mike Todd Killed In New Mexico Plane Crash" and more with related photo w/ Elizabeth Taylor and map (see images). Note: Mike Todd was the only husband of Elizabeth Taylor whom she did not divorce.
Other news of the day throughout. Good condition.
wikipedia notes: Michael Todd (June 22, 1907 – March 22, 1958) was an American theatre and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. He is also well-known as one of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands.
On 22 March 1958, Todd's private plane, Lucky Liz, crashed near Grants, New Mexico. The plane, a twin-engine Lockheed Lodestar, suffered an engine failure while being flown grossly overloaded in icing conditions at an altitude which was at the limit for single-engine flight. The plane went out of control and crashed, killing all four on board. Apart from Todd, these were screenwriter and author Art Cohn, who was writing Todd's biography The Nine Lives of Mike Todd; pilot Bill Verner; and co-pilot Tom Barclay. Taylor was to make the flight to New York with her husband, but stayed home with a cold after her pleas to come along were overruled by Todd. Ironically, Todd spoke about the plane being safe as he phoned friends, in an attempt to recruit a gin rummy player for the flight, just hours before the crash:
Ah, c'mon, he said. It's a good, safe plane. I wouldn't let it crash. I'm taking along a picture of Elizabeth, and I wouldn't let anything happen to her.
His son, Mike Jr., wanted his father's body to be cremated after it was identified through dental records and brought to Albuquerque, but Taylor refused, saying he would not want cremation. Todd was buried in Forest Park, Illinois at Beth Aaron Cemetery in plot 66, which is part of Jewish Waldheim there. In his autobiography, Eddie Fisher, who considered himself to be Todd's best friend, stated:
"There was a closed coffin, but I knew it was more for show than anything else. The plane had exploded on impact and whatever remains were found couldn't be identified.....The only items recovered from the wreckage were Mike's wedding ring and a pair of platinum cuff links I'd given him".
Category: The 20th Century
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