28 Facts About Mike Todd

Mike Todd was the third of Taylor's seven husbands, and the only one whom Taylor did not divorce - Mike Todd died in a private plane accident a year after their marriage.

Mike Todd was the driving force behind the development of the eponymous Todd-AO widescreen film format.

Mike Todd was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Chaim Goldbogen, and Sophia Hellerman, both of whom were Polish Jewish immigrants.

Mike Todd was expelled in the sixth grade for running a game of craps inside the school.

Mike Todd eventually dropped out of high school, and worked at a variety of jobs, including shoe salesman and store window decorator.

Mike Todd began his career in the construction business, where he made, and subsequently lost, a fortune.

Mike Todd opened the College of Bricklaying of America, buying the materials to teach bricklaying on credit.

Mike Todd he owned with his brother went bankrupt when its financial backing failed in the early days of the Great Depression.

Mike Todd married the former Bertha Freshman on February 14,1927, and was the father of an infant son with no home for his family.

Mike Todd got his first taste of Broadway with the engagement and was determined to find a way to work there.

Mike Todd visited Grover Whalen, president of the 1939 New York World's Fair, with a proposal to bring the Broadway show to the Fair.

Mike Todd ultimately produced 17 Broadway shows during his career, including the immensely successful burlesque revue Star and Garter starring comedian Bobby Clark, The Naked Genius written by and starring stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and a 1945 production of Hamlet starring Maurice Evans.

Mike Todd floated the idea of holding the 1945 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in newly liberated Berlin.

In 1952, Mike Todd made a production of the Johann Strauss II operetta A Night in Venice, complete with floating gondolas at the then-newly constructed Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York.

In 1950, Mike Todd formed Cinerama with the broadcaster Lowell Thomas and the inventor Fred Waller.

Mike Todd was created to exploit Cinerama, a widescreen film process created by Waller that used three film projectors to create a giant composite image on a curved screen.

At age 17, Mike Todd married Bertha Freshman in Crown Point, Indiana, on Valentine's Day 1927.

Mike Todd had been interested in Freshman since age 14, but needed to develop confidence before even asking her out.

Mike Todd and Taylor had a daughter, Elizabeth Frances Mike Todd, born on August 6,1957.

Five days before the crash, Mike Todd flew on this plane to Albuquerque, 78 miles east of the crash site, to promote a screening of Michael Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days.

Mike Todd paid for the installation of two extra fuel tanks in his leased Lodestar aircraft; this made the aircraft weigh more than its official rating when all the tanks were full, without the flight crew, passengers or luggage aboard.

Mike Todd was on his way to New York to accept the New York Friars Club "Showman of the Year" award.

Taylor wanted to travel with her husband, but stayed home with a cold after Mike Todd overruled her pleas to join the trip.

Just hours before the crash, Mike Todd described the plane as safe as he phoned friends, including Joseph Mankiewicz and Kirk Douglas, in an attempt to recruit a gin rummy player for the flight: "Ah, c'mon," he said.

Mike Todd was buried in Forest Park, Illinois, at Beth Aaron Cemetery in plot 66, which is part of Jewish Waldheim Cemetery.

The bag containing Mike Todd's remains was found under a tree near his burial plot.

The bag and casket had been sealed in Albuquerque after Mike Todd's remains were identified following the 1958 crash.

Mike Todd's remains were once more identified through dental records and were reburied in a secret location.