Todd was born Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Chaim Goldbogen (an Orthodox rabbi) and Sophia Hellerman, both Polish Jewish immigrants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Todd
Mike Todd talks to a reporter about Elizabeth Taylor. "Miss Taylor? You mean Missus Todd."
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 too high to sustain flight with only one working engine under those conditions. The plane went out of control and crashed, killing all four on board.
Footage including Mike Todd's Beachcraft, "The Liz" (mentioned elsewhere as Lucky Liz)
Elizabeth Taylor Arrives At The Gravesite of Mike Todd - March 1958
Emotional footage of Elizabeth arriving at the funeral of Mike Todd
Beth Aaron Cemetery, Forest Park, Illinois - March 1958
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."
The Los Angeles Times reported in 1977 that Fisher's story was false; Todd's remains were indeed recovered and buried in Forest Park, Illinois. The remains were desecrated by robbers, who broke into Todd's coffin looking for a $100,000 diamond ring which, according to rumor, Taylor had placed on her husband's finger prior to his burial. The bag containing Todd's remains was found under a tree near his burial plot; the bag and coffin had been sealed in Albuquerque after Todd's remains were identified following the 1958 crash. Todd's remains were once more identified through dental records and were reburied in a secret location.
http://www.slate.com/id/2091218/
In 1977, "Wise Guy" Anthony Pellicano found the body of Elizabeth Taylor's third husband, Mike Todd, which was stolen from a Chicago cemetary. In front of a camera crew from a local news station, Pellicano walked over to place seventy-five yards south of the excavated grave, reached under some leaves, and revealed a plastic bag of Todd's remains. Pellicano's rivals claimed he'd staged the entire episode for publicity.
Sept. 11, 1993, Los Angeles Times. Times reporters James Bates and Shawn Hubler write: Then there was the matter of producer Michael Todd's bones, which disappeared in 1977 from a Forest Park, Ill., cemetery. Todd had been married to actress Elizabeth Taylor when he died in a 1958 plane crash.
The grave robbery made headlines. Police scoured the cemetery in vain. Then a phone rang in the detective division. Pellicano said he had an informant; he knew where the bones were buried. Police met him at the graveyard. Pellicano had an anchorman in tow.
Todd's remains—a few bones and a melted belt buckle—were right on the cemetery grounds, under a pile of leaves and dirt about 75 yards from the grave. The grave robbers, Pellicano told police, had been after a 10-carat diamond ring, a gift from Taylor that they mistakenly had believed was inside Todd's casket.
A 1983 government sentencing report maintains that a mobster-turned-informant told authorities that two mob figures were the ones who exhumed Todd. But the story making the rounds in Chicago even today is that Pellicano orchestrated the event to gain publicity in hopes of being hired to help find Chicago candy heiress Helen Brach, who disappeared in 1977.
No comments:
Post a Comment