Alan Walbridge Ladd
(September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American
film actor.
Early life
Ladd was
born in Hot Springs,
Arkansas
to an American
father (Alan Ladd, Sr.) and an English-American mother (Ina Raleigh
Ladd). His father died when the boy was four, and
his mother relocated to Oklahoma City
, where she married Jim Beavers, a
housepainter. The family moved again, to North Hollywood
, California
. There Ladd became a high-school swimming
and diving champion. Burdened with a hated nickname ("Tiny"), the
then-5' 4" (162 cm) student fell under the spell of high
school dramatics and set his mind toward becoming an actor. He
opened his own hamburger and malt shop, which he called Tiny's
Patio in defiance of the nickname's negative aspect. He worked
briefly as a studio carpenter (as did his stepfather) and for a
short time was part of the
Universal
Pictures studio school for actors. But Universal decided he was
too blond and too short and dropped him. Intent on acting, he found
work in radio. His rich baritone voice got him increasingly more
work.
Career
Ladd began by appearing in dozens of films in bits and small roles,
including
Citizen Kane. These
barely kept him and his household afloat. (He had married a
high-school acquaintance, Midge Harrold, with whom he had a son,
Alan Ladd, Jr.) His stepfather died
suddenly. Then his mother, who suffered from
depression, committed suicide by
poison.
In 1942, Ladd married his agent/manager, former movie actress
Sue Carol. It was at this point that Carol
found a vehicle which made Ladd's career,
This Gun for Hire. His performance as
a hitman with a conscience made him a sensation.
Ladd went on to become one of
Paramount Pictures' most popular stars. A
brief timeout for military service with the
United States Army Air Force's
First Motion Picture Unit
did not diminish his popularity. None of his subsequent films of
the 1940s were as notable as
This Gun for Hire, but he did
appear to good effect in
Dashiell
Hammett's story
The Glass
Key and the
Raymond
Chandler original mystery
The
Blue Dahlia, both alongside the similarly diminutive—4
feet 11½ inches (1.51 m) --
Veronica
Lake, with whom he had been paired in
This Gun for
Hire.
Jean Arthur and Alan Ladd in
Shane (1953)
He formed his own production companies for film and radio and then
starred in his own syndicated series
Box
13, which ran from 1948-49. Ladd and
Robert Preston starred in the 1948
western film,
Whispering
Smith, which in 1961 would become a short-lived
NBC television series,
starring
Audie Murphy.
In 1949's version of
The Great
Gatsby, Ladd had the featured role of Jay Gatsby.
Ladd became most famous for his title role as a reformed gunslinger
in the classic 1953
western
Shane. The film was nominated
for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was listed at
No. 45 on the American Film Institute's 2007 ranking of "100 Years
... 100 Movies."
Ladd made the
Top Ten
Money Making Stars Poll three times: in 1947, 1953 and
1954.
Age,
alcoholism, and depression, from
which Ladd's mother had also suffered, began to affect both his
appearance and his personal life. In November 1962, he was found
lying unconscious in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his
heart, an unsuccessful
suicide attempt. In
1963, nevertheless, Ladd co-starred in one of the biggest film
productions of his career,
The Carpetbaggers, not as a
leading man but as a supporting actor.
He would not live to
see its release: on January 29, 1964 he was found dead in Palm Springs,
California
, of an acute overdose of alcohol and sedatives at
the age of 50, a probable suicide. He was entombed in the
Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Cemetery
in Glendale, California
.
Alan Ladd
has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1601 Vine
Street. His handprint appears in the forecourt of
Grauman's
Chinese Theater
, in Hollywood.
Personal life
Thanks to wise business investments, Ladd became a wealthy man,
with properties in Beverly Hills and, in Palm Springs, Alan Ladd
Hardware. His son by his first wife Midge Harrold, (named
Alan Ladd, Jr., although the correct
appellation would be "Alan Ladd III," since the son is actually the
third in line with the name), is a motion picture executive and
producer and founder of
The Ladd
Company. His daughter Alana is married to the veteran talk
radio broadcaster
Michael Jackson. Another
son, actor
David Ladd, who co-starred as
a child with his father in
The Proud
Rebel, married
Charlie's
Angels star
Cheryl Ladd,
1973-1980. Actress
Jordan Ladd is his
granddaughter.
He was famous for his emotionless demeanor and small stature.
Reports of his height vary from 5'5" to 5'7" (1.65 to 1.70 m), with
5'6" (1.68 m) being the most generally accepted today.
Filmography
Features
Short subjects
- Unfinished Rainbows (1940)
- Meat and Romance (1940)
- Blame It on Love (1940)
- American Portrait (1940)
- I Look at You (1941)
- Training Film No. A-3: Military Training
(1941)
- Letter from a Friend (1943)
- Screen Snapshots: Hollywood in Uniform (1943)
- Skirmish on the Home Front (1944)
- Hollywood Victory Caravan (1945)
- Screen Snapshots: The Skolsky Party (1946)
- Eyes of Hollywood (1949)
- Grantland Rice Sportlight No. R11-10: A Sporting
Oasis (1952)
References
External links
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