Mike Todd

Michael Todd (June 22, 1909 – March 22, 1958), born Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen, was an American theater and film producer renowned for his flamboyant showmanship, technical innovations in widescreen filmmaking, and the production of the 1956 Best Picture Oscar winner Around the World in 80 Days.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Polish Jewish immigrant parents—his father an Orthodox rabbi—Todd moved with his family to Chicago after World War I, where he grew up in a working-class environment. Expelled from school in the sixth grade and later dropping out of high school, he took on odd jobs such as soda jerk and shoe salesman before entering the construction business, which he built into a multimillion-dollar enterprise only to lose it during the Great Depression. His entry into entertainment came in 1933 with the production of the dancing revue Flame Dance at Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition, marking his debut as a showman. By the late 1930s, Todd had transitioned to Broadway, producing over 30 shows, including the all-Black revue The Hot Mikado (1939), the wartime hit Something for the Boys (1943) starring Ethel Merman, and the musical Up in Central Park (1945).

Mike Todd was born Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen on June 22, 1909, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, though contemporary accounts and family recollections dispute the exact date, with some citing December 1908 or even 1910–1911, and no birth certificate exists to confirm. He was the youngest of nine children in a poor family of Polish Jewish immigrants; his father, Chaim (Harry) Goldbogen, an Orthodox rabbi who worked as a kosher slaughterer and later took jobs as a pharmacist and insurance salesman to support the household, while his mother, Sophia Hellerman Goldbogen, managed the home amid frequent financial instability. The family included seven siblings—Frank, Carl, Joe, Edith, Shirley, Sadie, and David—who shared in the hardships of immigrant life, with Chaim often leading religious observances as president of Minneapolis's Northwest Synagogue and shammis for a struggling congregation on Crystal Street.

As a child, Avrom earned the affectionate nickname "Toat" from mispronouncing "coat" as a baby, which family members later adapted to "Toddy" before he adopted "Mike Todd" in his youth, possibly evolving from playful mispronunciations of "kid" during street games. The Goldbogens endured economic hardships typical of Jewish immigrant communities, living in a rat-infested apartment on Lyndale Avenue where meals often consisted of soup bones; young Avrom contributed by shining shoes and running errands on Hennepin Avenue, once surviving a harrowing incident at age seven when a knife pierced his neck during play. Cultural influences from the Orthodox Jewish milieu shaped daily life, including Yiddish phrases, religious rituals, and a "tremendous faith" that sustained them through failed family businesses and poverty, fostering a resilient identity amid the vibrant but challenging immigrant enclave in Minneapolis and nearby Bloomington. During this time, Avrom gained early exposure to theater by managing the stage for a school production of The Mikado at Bloomington Consolidated Grade School and frequenting the Zone Theater. These formative experiences in the Jewish immigrant community sparked a lifelong interest in show business.

Todd's most celebrated romance was with Elizabeth Taylor, which ignited a passionate affair leading to their marriage on February 2, 1957, in Acapulco, Mexico, officiated by the town's mayor in a lavish ceremony attended by close friends including Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. The couple's connection deepened during Todd's production of Around the World in 80 Days, fostering their whirlwind courtship despite a 23-year age difference. Taylor, who had not converted to Judaism prior to or during the marriage despite Todd's Jewish heritage (born Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen), underwent the conversion in 1959 following his death, as a tribute to him.