Ann E. Todd
Images & Pictures Gallery

You're doing an admirable job. It must be difficult to locate us old codgers.

For people who are interested in "what ever became of. . .," after I left films & TV, I came to UC Berkeley to finish a master's degree in music history that I had begun at UCLA; I have lived here ever since. I had a job teaching music history for 3 years in a college in San Francisco, then was a music librarian at UCB for 21 years, and now have my own publishing company (to be seen at www.fallenleafpress.com). I was married for 38 years and am now widowed, and have two grown children. I like northern California, but I still remember Los Angeles with pleasure. The concert life in the early '50s was amazing--both Stravinsky and Schoenberg were living there at the time. I loved the "Evenings on the Roof" (now "Monday Evening Concerts") in L.A. When I was in my teens, I used to usher for concerts: the L.A. Philharmonic (where I first learned to like Brahms) and the Hollywood Bowl. I was a Gershwin fan and once met Oscar Levant, a high point of my teen years.

Except for my fifteenth year, I never wanted to be an actress--just thought it was something one did. (My grandparents plopped me into the movies when I was about 6, hoping, I supposed, that I would be "another Shirley Temple.") Mu ambition as a child: to be a pilot, like Amelia Earhart. But I loved going on location (as in "Brigham Young") and riding in buckboards and dressing up in clothes from another period--all those things, in fact, that any child would enjoy. Some people in Hollywood (Jose Iturbi, Ingrid Bergman, and John Garfield, among others) were kind to me; but my friends never came from that circle. I became star-struck when I was 15, but that didn't last long. After that, I worked in TV to make my way through UCLA.

I was both startled and touched to see that old photo of me from "Intermezzo." Brings back memories. My birthday, Aug. 26, will see me turn 67, if I get that far. No wonder "Intermezzo" seems so far away and long ago!