Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American film actor. He was famous for his emotionless demeanor and small stature. Reports of his height vary from 5'5" to 5'6" (1.65 to 1.68 m), with 5'5" (1.65 m) being the most generally accepted today.[1][2]
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" 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.[2] Intent on acting, he found work in radio. His rich baritone voice got him increasingly more work.
Career
He appeared 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.
Ladd married his agent/manager and former movie actress Sue Carol in 1942. 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 Raymond Chandler's story The Blue Dahlia alongside the similarly diminutive Veronica Lake (5'2" or 1.57 m), with whom he had been paired in This Gun for Hire. His Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950) was notable for its soundtrack containing Nat King Cole's classic song, "Mona Lisa".
Jean Arthur and Alan Ladd in Shane (1953)
He formed his own production companies for film and radio and starred in his own syndicated series Box 13, which ran from 1948 to 1949. Ladd became most famous for his title role as a gunslinger in the classic 1953 western Shane. Ladd made the Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll 3 times, in 1947, 1953 and 1954.[2]
Clinical depression, which Ladd had inherited from his mother, combined with age and aggravated by alcoholism, began to affect both his appearance and his personal life. In 1962, he suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound that was explained in various ways at various times.[2] In 1963, 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 be dead before the film was released. In 1964 Ladd died 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.[3] 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 Alan Ladd, Jr., by his first wife Midge Harrold, 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. Actress Jordan Ladd is his granddaughter.[4]
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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