Alan Ladd--"Shane"

 

Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American actor and film producer. Ladd found success in film in the 1940s and early 1950s, particularly in films noir and Westerns. He was often paired with Veronica Lake in films noir, such as This Gun for Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942), and The Blue Dahlia (1946). Whispering Smith (1948) was his first Western and color film, and Shane (1953) was noted for its contributions to the genre. Ladd also appeared in ten films with William Bendix; both actors coincidentally died in 1964.

His other notable credits include Two Years Before the Mast (1946) and The Great Gatsby (1949). His popularity diminished in the mid 1950s, though he continued to appear in numerous films, including his first supporting role since This Gun for Hire in the smash hit The Carpetbaggers released in 1964. He died of an accidental combination of alcohol, a barbiturate, and two tranquilizers in January 1964.

 Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on September 3, 1913. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh (also known as Selina Rowley) (1888–1937), and Alan Ladd (1874–1917), a freelance accountant. His mother was English, from County Durham, and had migrated to the U.S. in 1907 when she was 19. His father died of a heart attack when Ladd was four. On July 3, 1918, young Alan accidentally burned down the family home while playing with matches. His mother moved to Oklahoma City, where she married Jim Beavers, a house painter (d. 1936).

In the early 1920s an economic downturn led to Ladd's family moving to California, which took four months. They lived in a migrant camp in Pasadena, California, at first and then moved to the San Fernando Valley, where Beavers went to work at FBO Studios as a painter.

Ladd enrolled in North Hollywood High School on February 18, 1930. He became a high-school swimming and diving champion and participated in high school dramatics in his senior year, including the role of Ko-Ko in The Mikado. His diving skills led to his appearance in the aquatic show Marinella in July 1933.

Ladd's performance in The Mikado was seen by a talent scout. In August 1933 Ladd was one of a group of young "discoveries" signed to a long-term contract with Universal Pictures. The contract had options that could continue for seven years, but they were all in the studio's favour. Ladd appeared unbilled in Once in a Lifetime (1932), but the studio eventually decided Ladd was too blond and too short, and it dropped him after six months. (All of Ladd's fellow "discoveries" eventually were dropped, including a young Tyrone Power.)

At 20, Ladd graduated from high school on February 1, 1934. He worked in the advertising department of the San Fernando Sun Valley Record, becoming the newspaper's advertising manager. When the paper changed hands, Ladd lost his job. He sold cash registers and borrowed $150 to open his own hamburger and malt shop, across from his previous high school, which he called Tiny's Patio (his nickname at high school was Tiny), but he was unable to make a success of the shop.

In another attempt to break into the film industry, Ladd went to work at Warner Bros. as a grip and stayed two years. He was injured falling off a scaffold and decided to quit.

Ladd managed to save and borrow enough money to attend an acting school run by Ben Bard, who had taught him when he was under contract at Universal. Ladd appeared in several stage productions for Bard. Bard later claimed Ladd "was such a shy guy he just wouldn't speak up loud and strong. I had to get him to lower his voice too; it was too high. I also insisted that he get himself a decent set of dentures."

In 1936, Ladd played an unbilled role in Pigskin Parade. He had short-term stints at MGM and RKO and got regular professional acting work only when he turned to radio. Ladd had worked to develop a rich, deep voice ideal for that medium, and in 1936 he was signed by station KFWB as its sole radio actor. He stayed for three years at KFWB, working as many as 20 shows per week

 One night Ladd was playing the roles of a father and son on radio when he was heard by the agent Sue Carol. She was impressed and called the station to talk to the actors and was told it was one person.^[14] She arranged to meet him and, impressed by his looks, she signed him to her books and enthusiastically promoted her new client in films as well as on radio. Ladd's first notable part under Carol's management was the 1939 film Rulers of the Sea, in which he played a character named Colin Farrell, at $250 per week. He also received attention for a small part in Hitler – Beast of Berlin (1939).

Ladd tested unsuccessfully for the lead in Golden Boy (1939) but obtained many other small roles in films such as the serial The Green Hornet (1940), Her First Romance (1940), The Black Cat (1941), and the Disney film The Reluctant Dragon (1941). Most notably, he had a small uncredited part in Citizen Kane, playing a newspaper reporter toward the end of the film.

Ladd's career gained extra momentum when he was cast in a featured role in Joan of Paris (1942), a wartime drama made at RKO. It was only a small part, but it involved a touching death scene that brought him attention within the industry. RKO eventually offered Ladd a contract at $400 per week. However, he soon received a better offer from Paramount. 

Paramount had owned the film rights to A Gun for Sale, a novel by Graham Greene, since 1936 but waited until 1941 before making a movie out of it, changing the title to This Gun for Hire. Director Frank Tuttle was struggling to find a new actor to play the role of Raven, a hit man with a conscience. Ladd auditioned successfully, and Paramount signed him to a long-term contract in September 1941 for $300 per week. The New York Times wrote that:

Tuttle and the studio are showing more than a passing enthusiasm for Ladd. He has been trying to get a foothold in pictures for eight years, but received no encouragement, although he tried every angle known to town—extra work, bit parts, stock contracts, dramatic schools, assault of the casting offices. Sue Carol, the former silent star who is now an agent, undertook to advance the youth's career two years ago, and only recently could she locate an attentive ear. Then, the breaks began.

According to author David Thomson in 1975, "Once Ladd had acquired an unsmiling hardness, he was transformed from an extra to a phenomenon. Ladd's calm slender ferocity make it clear that he was the first American actor to show the killer as a cold angel." John Houseman later wrote that Ladd played "a professional killer with a poignant and desolate ferocity that made him unique, for a time, among the male heroes of his day."

Both the film and Ladd's performance played an important role in the development of the gangster genre: "That the old-fashioned motion picture gangster with his ugly face, gaudy cars, and flashy clothes was replaced by a smoother, better looking, and better dressed bad man was largely the work of Mr. Ladd." – The New York Times obituary (January 30, 1964).

Though the romantic lead went to established star Robert Preston, Ladd's teaming in support with female lead Veronica Lake captured the public's imagination. Their overnight sensation pairing continued in three more films and included three more in guest spots in wartime all-star Hollywood musical revues. 

Even during the filming of This Gun for Hire, Paramount knew it had a potential star and announced Ladd's next film, an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's story, The Glass Key (1942). This had been a successful vehicle for George Raft several years earlier, and Paramount wanted "a sure-fire narrative to carry him on his way." There had also been talk Ladd would appear in Red Harvest, another story by Hammett, but this was never produced.

The movie was Ladd's second pairing with Lake, with Ladd offering confident support of Brian Donlevy—so confident he even ended up with Donlevy's girl. Ladd's cool, unsmiling, understated persona proved popular with wartime audiences, and he was voted by the Motion Picture Herald as one of the 10 "stars of tomorrow" for 1942. His salary was raised to $750 per week, According to critic David Shipman:

Paramount of course was delighted. The majority of stars were earmarked as such when they appeared on the horizon—from Broadway or from wherever they came; if it seemed unlikely that public acceptance would come with one film they were trained and built up: The incubation period was usually between two and five years. As far as Ladd was concerned, he was a small-part actor given a fat part faute de mieux, and after his second film for them, he had not merely hit the leading-men category, but had gone beyond it to films which were constructed around his personality.

Ladd then appeared in Lucky Jordan (1943), a lighter vehicle with Helen Walker, playing a gangster who tries to get out of war service and tangles with Nazis. His new status was reflected by the fact he was the only actor billed above the title. He had a cameo spoofing his tough guy image in Star Spangled Rhythm, which featured most of Paramount's stars, and then starred in China (1943) with Loretta Young for director John Farrow, with whom Ladd made a number of movies. Young did not like working with Ladd:

I found him petulant... I don't remember hearing him laugh, or ever seeing him laugh. Everything that concerned him was very serious... He had a certain screen personality... but as an actor... I never made any contact with him. He wouldn't look at me. He'd say "I love you...", and he'd be looking out there some place. Finally, I said "Alan, I'm he-ere!!"... I think he was very conscious of his looks. Alan would not look beyond a certain point in the camera because he didn't think he looked good... Jimmy Cagney was not tall but somehow Jimmy was at terms with himself, always. I don't think Alan Ladd ever came to terms with himself.

Ladd's next film was meant to be Incendiary Blonde, opposite Betty Hutton, but he was inducted into the army on January 18, after reprising his performance in This Gun for Hire on radio for Lux Radio Theatre.

Ladd briefly served in the United States Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit. Initially, he was classified 4-F—unfit for military service because of stomach problems—but he later enlisted for military service on January 19, 1943. He was posted to the Walla Walla Army Air Base at Walla Walla, Washington, attaining the rank of corporal. He attended the Oscars in March 1943 and in September he appeared in a trailer promoting a war loan drive titled Letter from a Friend.

While Ladd was in the armed services, a number of films that had been announced for him were postponed and/or made with different actors, including Incendiary Blonde, The Story of Dr. Wassell, Ministry of Fear, and The Man in Half Moon Street. Paramount started promoting Ladd replacements, such as Sonny Tufts and Barry Sullivan. Old Ladd films were reissued with his being given more prominent billing, such as Hitler, Beast of Berlin. He was reportedly receiving 20,000 fan letters per week. The New York Times reported that "Ladd in the brief period of a year and with only four starring pictures to his credit... had built up a following unmatched in film history since Rudolph Valentino skyrocketed to fame." In December 1943, he was listed as the 15th most popular star in the U.S.

Ladd fell ill and went to the military hospital in Santa Barbara for several weeks in October. On October 28, he was given an honorable medical discharge because of a stomach disorder complicated by influenza.

 When Ladd returned from the army, Paramount announced a series of vehicles for him, including And Now Tomorrow and Two Years Before the Mast.^[44] And Now Tomorrow was a melodrama, starring Loretta Young as a wealthy deaf woman who is treated (and loved) by her doctor, played by Ladd; Raymond Chandler co-wrote the screenplay, and it was filmed in late 1943 and early 1944. According to Shipman:

It was a pitch to sell Ladd to women filmgoers, though he had not changed one iota and he did not have a noticeable romantic aura. But Paramount hoped that women might feel that beneath the rock-like expression there smouldered fires of passion, or something like. His black-lashed eyes, however, gave nothing away; it was 'take me as I am' or 'I'm the boss around here'. He never flirted nor even seemed interested (which is one of the reasons he and Lake were so effective together).

In March 1944, Ladd took another physical and was reclassified 1A. He would have to be reinducted into the army, but a deferment was given to enable Ladd to make Two Years Before the Mast (the release of which was postponed two years). He was meant to be re-inducted on September 4, 1944,^[47] but Paramount succeeded in getting this pushed back again to make Salty O'Rourke. He also found time to make a cameo in a big-screen version of Duffy's Tavern.

Ladd's reinduction was then set for May 1945. Paramount commissioned Raymond Chandler to write an original screenplay for him titled The Blue Dahlia, made relatively quickly in case the studio lost Ladd to the military once again.^[51][52] However, in May 1945, the U.S. Army released all men 30 or over from induction, and Ladd was finally free from the draft. Along with several other film stars likewise spared, Ladd promptly enlisted with the Hollywood Victory Committee for the entertainment industry's overseas arm, volunteering to tour for USO shows.

Ladd next made Calcutta (1947), which reteamed him with John Farrow and William Bendix. Release for this film was delayed. 

Ladd was meant to make California with Betty Hutton, but he refused to report for work in August 1945. "It wasn't on account of the picture", said Ladd. "There were other issues." Ladd wanted more money, and Paramount responded by suspending him.^[54][55] The two parties reconciled in November with Ladd's getting a salary increase to $75,000 per film, but without story approval or the right to do outside films, which he had wanted.^[45][56][57] Exhibitors voted him the 15th-most popular star in the country.^[58]

"When a star's off the screen, he's 'dead'", Ladd later reflected. "I like my home and my security and I don't intend to jeopardize them by being difficult at work."^[59]

Ladd's next film was O.S.S, a wartime thriller,^[60] produced by Richard Maibaum. He then convinced Ladd that he should play the title role in an adaptation of The Great Gatsby, to which Paramount held the film rights; Ladd became enthusiastic at the chance to change his image, but the project was delayed by a combination of censorship wrangles and studio reluctance.^[61]

Eventually, The Blue Dahlia was released to great acclaim (Raymond Chandler was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay), quickly followed by O.S.S., and finally, Two Years Before the Mast. The first two films were solid hits, each earning over $2 million in rentals in the U.S. and Canada; Two Years Before the Mast was a blockbuster, earning over $4 million and ranking among the top 10 most popular films of the year. Ladd's roles in This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key, and The Blue Dahlia, firmly established him as a no-nonsense tough guy in a popular genre of crime films later to become known as film noir.

Ladd earned a reported $88,909 for the 12 months up to June 1946. (The following year, he earned $107,000.)^[63] In 1947, he was ranked among the top 10 popular stars in the U.S. That year finally had the release of Calcutta, along with Wild Harvest, where he reteamed with Robert Preston.

Ladd made a cameo appearance as a detective in the Bob Hope comedy, My Favorite Brunette (1947), and he made another cameo in an all-star Paramount film, titled, Variety Girl, singing Frank Loesser's "Tallahassee" with Dorothy Lamour. He was reteamed with Lake for the final time in Saigon (1948), then made Whispering Smith (1948), his first Western since he became a star (and his first movie in color). He followed this with Beyond Glory (1948), a melodrama with Farrow, which featured Audie Murphy in his film debut (and was released before Whispering Smith).  Wikipedia