ALAN LADD Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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ALAN LADD

            Ladd with another classic suicide, Marilyn Monroe, 1954.                       
      Alan Ladd September 3, 1913 - January 29, 1964.                                     
      Alan Ladd made two film masterpieces -- Shane in 1953, and a small role as           
      a reporter in Citizen Kane (1941). He made dozens of film that are either           
      entertaining or better. Almost all of his other films are entertaining or           
      better, if for his presence alone. The best of these are Carpetbaggers,             
      The (1964), Badlanders, The (1958), Appointment with Danger (1951), O.S.S.           
      (1946), Blue Dahlia, The (1946), Glass Key, The (1942), and This Gun for             
      Hire (1942).                                                                         
      Ladd's father died when he was four. At age five he burned down the                 
      apartment playing with matches. He was malnourished, undersized, and                 
      nicknamed Tiny. In high school he discovered track and swimming. By 1931             
      he was training for the 1932 Olympics, but an injury cancelled plans.               
      He opened a hamburger stand, Tiny's Patio, then worked as a grip at                 
      Warner's. He married friend Midge in 1936 but couldn't afford her so they           
      lived apart. In 1937 they shared a friend's apartment. She delivered Alan,           
      Jr. Meanwhile Ladd's destitute, alcoholic mother moved in with them -- her           
      agonizing suicide from ant poison witnessed a few months later by her son.           
                                                                                           
      His fourth billing role as the psychotic killer Raven in This Gun for Hire           
      made him a star. He was drafted January 1943 and discharged in November             
      with an ulcer and double hernia.                                                     
      By the end of the fifties, liquor and a string of so-so movies had taken             
      their toll on the 5'5" actor. In November 1962 he was found unconscious             
      lying in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his heart. His first and           
      only unsuccessful suicide attempt. (Next time he got it right.)                     
      Shortly after his fiftieth birthday, in January 1964 he was found dead,             
      apparently due to an "accidental" combination of alcohol and sedatives.             
      Ironically, in his last film, an adaptation of Harold Robbins' The                   
      Carpetbaggers Ladd had been cast as an aging, washed-up movie star.                 
      Ladd was the father of David Ladd, and Academy Award winning producer Alan           
      Ladd Jr ("Laddie"). David Ladd married Cheryl Ladd. And they had Person of           
      the Week, Jordan Ladd, Alan's granddaughter.                                         
      Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Freedom                   
      Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage.