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, as Baron Popoff in The Merry Widow (1952), and The Sound of Music (1965) as Maximilian "Max" Detweiler.

Biography

George Richard Haydon was born on 10 March 1905 in London. After working as a music hall entertainer and overseer of a Jamaican banana plantation, he joined a touring British theatre troupe.[1] 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. While he was noted for his performance as the voice of the Caterpillar in the 1951 Disney animated adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, Haydn is probably best known to modern audiences for the small role of Herr Falkstein in the 1974 Mel Brooks classic comedy Young Frankenstein. Haydn was also 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 25 April 1985 in Los Angeles, California.

Television and film

In The Twilight Zone episode "A Thing About Machines", he portrayed Mr. Bartlett Finchley, a quirky, self-absorbed, technophobe who is confronted by every machine in his home. On 1 April 1964, he reprised the Edwin Carp character, a poet and an expert on fish, in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show which saluted several old-time radio performers.

On 11 April 1968 he appeared as a Japanese businessman on the episode of Bewitched entitled "A Majority of Two". On 23 February 1969, he played the Magician who had twin daughters on the episode of Bonanza entitled "The Lady and the Mountain Lion" (S10/Ep21). On 12 January 1973 he appeared as Edward the butler in season 4 episode 15 of Love American Style entitled "Love And The Impossible Gift".

Perhaps his most acclaimed role was in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1965 film musical The Sound of Music, in which he played the Von Trapps' family friend Max Detweiler.

Other work

He was a regular on the Burns and Allen radio show. Haydn authored one book, The Journal of Edwin Carp, in 1954.

Select filmography

• Charley's Aunt (1941) as Charley Wyckham
• Ball of Fire (1941) as Professor Oddley
• Are Husbands Necessary? (1942) as Chuck
• Thunder Birds (1942) as George Lockwood
• No Time for Love (1943) as Roger Winant
• Forever and a Day (1943) as Mr. Fulcher
• Super-Rabbit (1943) as Professor Cannafraz (voice)
• Tonight and Every Night (1945) as Specialty
• And Then There Were None (1945) as Thomas Rogers
• Adventure (1945) as Limo
• The Green Years (1946) as Jason Reid
• Cluny Brown (1946) as Jonathan W. Wilson
• The Beginning or the End (1947) as Dr. Chisholm
• The Late George Apley (1947) as Horatio Willing
• Dear Ruth (1947) as Early Riser
• Singapore (1947) as Deputy Commissioner Hewitt
• The Foxes of Harrow (1947) as Andre Le Blanc
• Forever Amber (1947) as Earl of Radcliffe
• Sitting Pretty (1948) as Mr. Clarence Appleton
• The Emperor Waltz (1948) as Emperor Franz-Josef
• Miss Tatlock's Millions (1948, also directed) as Fergel
• Dear Wife (1949, also directed) as Early Riser
• Alice in Wonderland (1951) as Caterpillar (voice)
• The Pride of St. Louis (1952) as Johnny Kendall
• The Merry Widow (1952) as Baron Popoff
• Never Let Me Go (1953) as Christopher Wellington St. John Denny
• Money from Home (1953) as Bertie Searles
• Her Twelve Men (1954) as Dr. Avord Barrett
• Jupiter's Darling (1955) as Horatio
• The Toy Tiger (1956) as John Fusenot
• Twilight for the Gods (1958) as Oliver Wiggins
• Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960) as Alfred North
• The Lost World (1960) as Prof. Summerlee
• Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962) as Sir Henry Vining
• Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) as Horticulturalist William Brown
• The Sound of Music (1965) as Maximilian Detweiler
• Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion (1965) as Rupert Rowbotham
• The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967) as Quentin Bartlett
• Young Frankenstein (1974) as Solicitor Herr Falkstein
• The Hugga Bunch (1985) as Bookworm (voice, uncredited)