He was cold, indifferent, cruel, ruthless, calm, hard, bitter, and handsome. He removed his shirt whenever he could, and in the words of critic Richard Schickel,'...succeeded in reducing murder to an act as irrelevant as crossing the street.' He was a rarity in his persona as a tough guy ... he was only five-foot-six and he was blonde.
Alan Ladd was born Sept. 3, 1913, in Hot Springs, Ark. His father, an accountant, died when he was three. To escape their genuine poverty, Alan's mother grabbed her son and they found their way to Denver. There, she remarried and the family later moved to California, where athletic swimmer Alan became the West Coast diving champion in 1932.
Ladd worked at an enormous variety of jobs which included running a hot-dog stand named Tiny's, salesman for the National Cash Register Company, lifeguard, and a gas station attendant. Lured and fascinated by the movies, he took a job as a grip to get close to the business. He balanced on the catwalks for two years as he fixed lights for the actors 40 feet below, where he almost landed when he fell twice.
Ladd joined an acting school and landed a few minor parts, which did nothing to launch his career. Among them he was a sailor in Souls At Sea ( 1937 ) , which starred Gary Cooper and George Raft, and a waiter in Last Train From Madrid ( 1937 ) , starring Dorothy LaMour and Anthony Quinn.
However, Alan was also doing radio, and at one point was part of 19 shows a week that had a budget of $5 for nine people. Sometimes he received salary checks as low as 50 cents. After one season ended, Ladd got a job on a golf course. Back on the radio, one show in particular had him playing the parts of both an old man and a son. Sue Carol, an agent who was once an actress in silent films and early talking pictures, heard the show and was most impressed. She was more impressed when she discovered that the good-looking man had performed both roles. Persuading him to sign with her, Carol worked hard to sell Ladd, who was one of her first clients and the man she was falling in love with. He became her husband in 1942. Both Ladd and Carol had a child from a previous marriage. She a daughter, and he a son. [ Alan Ladd Jr. became a Hollywood film producer. ]
Playing opposite several leading ladies, the diminutive Ladd had to stand on boxes to reach a visually desirable height, unless his co-star agreed to stand in a trench. When he was hired to play the psychopathic, ruthless Raven opposite the petite and beautiful Veronica Lake, they made a perfect team, and their height was no visual problem. Their first film together, This Gun For Hire ( 1942 ) , catapulted the pair into instant stardom, and they quickly became the most popular couple of the early 1940s. Ladd's handsome, blonde, green-eyed, viscious trenchcoated persona knocked the eyes out of audiences, where in some theaters they hissed at the police as they moved in on him. For this film performance Ladd was awarded a Gold Medal by the readers of the British Magazine Picturegoer. It was to be the only acting award he ever won.
The enormous success of the film brought Ladd and Lake together again for The Glass Key ( 1942 ) . After several successful starring roles on his own, Ladd teamed with Lake for the third and final time in the popular Raymond Chandler thriller, The Blue Dahlia ( 1946 ) .
Ladd's career diminished somewhat in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when he starred in Saigon ( 1947 ) , The Great Gatsby ( 1949 ) , Chicago Deadline ( 1949 ) , Branded ( 1950 ) , Appointmnet With Danger ( 1951 ) , and The Iron Mistress ( 1952 ) . Then, he starred in the film he is most associated with, Shane ( 1953 ) , a beautiful western with Jean Arthur, Brandon De Wilde, and Jack Palance. The popular film became Alan Ladd's greatest monument.
Ladd's final role, the last of his 92 Hollywood films, was a memorable one, though the star was looking much older than his years as Nevada Smith in The Caretbaggers ( 1964 ) . Still married to Sue Carol, Alan Ladd died of a heart attack brought on from a lethal mixture of sedatives and alcohol Jan. 29, 1964. He was only 50 years old.
Deborah Kerr once stated of Alan, 'He was awfully good in putting across what he had, in his looks and in his manner; he had something very attractive—a definite film personality which he had worked hard to perfect.'
Dilys Powell wrote in The Sunday Times, 'He had the gift of creating a durable popular image. And the cinema can ill afford to lose its idols.'
Sources; Great Lovers of the Movies by Jane Mercer; The Great Movie Stars—The Golden Years by David Shipman; The Stars by Richard Schickel; Encyclopedia of Film Stars by Douglas Jarvis; Hollywood Album from the pages of The New York Times; The Movie Stars Story by Robyn Karney; Gods and Goddesses of the Movies by John Kobsa; Celebrity Register edited by Cleveland Amory.
Steve Starr is the author of Picture Perfect—Art Deco Photo Frames 1926-1946, published by Rizzoli International Publications, 1991. A designer, artist, writer and chronicler of movie stars, he is the owner of Steve Starr Studios, specializing in Art Deco photo frames and artifacts and celebrating its 38th anniversary in 2005. Steve Starr's personal collection of more than 950 gorgeous, original Art Deco frames is filled with photos of Hollywood's most elegant stars.
Steve Starr's column, STARRLIGHT, about movie stars of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, appears in various publications, including the Chicago Art Deco Society Magazine, and the Windy City Times in the first issue of each month.
Visit www.SteveStarrStudios.com where you can view many of his framed stars, read STARRLIGHT stories, and enjoy his collection of autographs, letters and photos he has received from some of his favorite luminaries. In person, you can visit the Steve Starr Satellite Studio at the Ravenswood Antique Mart, 4727 N. Damen Avenue, Chicago, Ill., 60640. Phone 773-271-3700.
You can email Steve at sssChicago@ameritech.net .
Photo of Steve Starr June 25, 2002, by Albert Aguilar.
