Richard Haydn (10 March 1905 – 25 April 1985) was an English comic actor in radio, films and television. Some of his better known performances include Ball of Fire (1941) as Professor Oddley, No Time for Love (1943) as Roger, And Then There Were None (1945) as Thomas Rogers, The Emperor Waltz (1948), Alice in Wonderland (1951) as the Caterpillar and The Sound of Music (1965) as Maximilian Detweiler.

Biography

George Richard Haydon was born on March 10, 1905, in London. After working as a music hall entertainer and overseer of a Jamaican banana plantation, he joined a touring British theatre troupe. He was known for playing eccentric characters, such as Edwin Carp (on a 1964 episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show), Claud Curdle (Mr. Music, 1950), Richard Rancyd (Miss Tatlock's Millions, 1948) and Stanley Stayle (Dear Wife, 1949). Much of his stage delivery was done in a deliberate over-nasalized and over-enunciated manner. He was possibly best noted in his performance as the voice of the Caterpillar in the 1951 Disney animated adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Haydn was particularly memorable as the manservant Rogers in the 1945 adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. He is also well remembered for his role as "Uncle" Max Detweiler in The Sound of Music.

Haydn performed as the nosy neighbor and gossip in Sitting Pretty with Clifton Webb and Maureen O'Hara in 1948, using his over-nasal voice. He was Prof. Summerlee in 1960's The Lost World, and in the same year played opposite Doris Day in Please Don't Eat the Daisies.

In the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks said that Haydn eschewed the Hollywood lifestyle, and that he used gardening and horticulture as a means of escape.

Following a heart attack, Haydn died on April 25, 1985, in Los Angeles, California.

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