Todd, Ann (1909–1993)

British film actor. She played the put-upon concert-pianist heroine of the romantic melodrama The Seventh Veil (1945).

Todd went to Hollywood for one film, Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1948), then played in three major British films directed by David Lean (to whom she was married 1947–57) – The Passionate Friends (1949), Madeleine (1950), and The Sound Barrier (1959) – but they failed to establish her as a box-office draw.

Todd was born in Hartford, Cheshire. She trained for the stage and rapidly achieved a West End reputation in a string of light comedies. Her film debut came in 1931, and she went on to appear in Things to Come (1936), among others. During the 1950s, her screen appearances became sporadic, though she was active on the stage, playing Lady Macbeth during the Old Vic season 1954–55. She directed several travel films, and made a comeback to screen acting in The Human Factor (1979), based on the Graham Greene novel.