Born and schooled in Birmingham, Alabama, Tod Griffin was a bomber pilot in World War II (40 missions) and unsuccessfully attempted to become an airline pilot after the war's end. For two years he attended New York's Theater School of Dramatic Arts and got his first paying acting jobs as a member of the resident cast of the Red Barn Theater, a summer stock company in Westborough, Massachusetts. Next came TV work on both coasts and a handful of Hollywood film roles. Eventually Griffin gave up the acting to work in industrial real estate. He retired in 1983, became a widower in 1997 and died in 2002.