Bob Todd
British actor (1921-1992)
Brian Geoffrey Todd (15 December 1922 – 21 October 1992), known professionally as Bob Todd, was an English comedy actor, mostly known for appearing as a straight man in the sketch shows of Benny Hill and Spike Milligan. For many years, he lived in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
Life and career
Todd was born in Faversham, Kent. One of the great stooges of television comedy, Todd was best known for his lugubrious expression and talent for slapstick, and was known to fellow comedians by the nickname 'Silly Todd'.
Before working in television, Todd trained to be a dentist. The outbreak of the Second World War saw him enlist in the Royal Air Force, where he became a navigator stationed at RAF North Killingholme, Lincolnshire. He had ambitions of becoming a farmer—making money from cattle breeding, whilst working as a manager at London Airport. The farming business, once begun, failed and almost made him bankrupt. Meeting scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in a pub, he bluffed them into believing that he was in fact an actor and ended up with the part of a policeman in the Sid James comedy series Citizen James. He appeared as several characters in Milligan and John Antrobus' stage play The Bed-Sitting Room, which opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January 1963.
“Bob Todd” enters the record as british actor (1921-1992). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Todd, British and actor can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2033820. VIAF identifies the subject as 76526977. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 1992 and 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bob Todd” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.