Alan Ladd

Contrary to urban myth, Charlie's Angels (1976) actress Cheryl Ladd is not his daughter. However, she is his ex-daughter-in-law, as she was previously married to his son David Ladd for seven years.

At the time of his death, he had expressed an interest in playing Steve McQueen's role in Nevada Smith (1966), a role he had played three years earlier in The Carpetbaggers (1964).

In November 1962 he was found unconscious lying in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his heart, a probable suicide attempt.

In a 1961 interview, Ladd was asked, "What would you change about yourself if you could?" He replied tersely: "Everything".

Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1601 Vine St. on February 8, 1960.

In 1956 he proposed a television series based on his radio series "Box 13". The idea didn't sell. He had played his "Box 13" character Dan Holiday in the "Committed" episode of General Electric Theater (1953) on television. In 1963 he said he hoped to reunite several of his 1940s-era co-stars, including William Bendix and Veronica Lake, for a big-screen version of "Box 13".

In Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Plato (played by Sal Mineo) keeps a photograph of Ladd in his school locker.

In 1954 he and Barbara Stanwyck won the top spots in "Modern Screen" magazine's Star of Stars Award competition as the most popular actors among fans in the previous ten years.

The prisoner he plays in Botany Bay (1952) is keelhauled, marking what may be the only time a Hollywood leading man suffers this particular form of punishment.

In the 1950s he was performing in lucrative but unrewarding films (an exception being what many regard as his greatest role, Shane (1953)).

By the end of the 1950s liquor and a string of so-so films had taken their toll.

Ladd portrayed Dan Holiday on Mutual Radio's "Box 13" (1948-1949). This show was also syndicated.

In 1947 he ranked tenth in popularity in a poll of movie fans conducted by the "Motion Picture Herald". From 1948-50 he ranked #1 in that poll.

In his movies, he suffers two cat-o-nine-tails floggings aboard sailing ships: (1) in Two Years Before the Mast (1946), he receives 10 lashes for striking an officer; (2) in Botany Bay (1952), he receives 50 lashes for attempting to escape from a prison transport ship.

In 1945 he ranked fourth in a "Modern Screen" magazine popularity poll among readers.

He was drafted in January 1943 and discharged in November with an ulcer and double hernia.

After a string of bit parts in "B" pictures--and an unbilled part in Orson Welles' classic Citizen Kane (1941)--he tested for This Gun for Hire (1942) late in 1941. His fourth-billed role as psychotic killer Raven made him a star.

Throughout the 1940s his tough-guy roles packed audiences into theaters and he was one of the very few males whose cover photos sold movie magazines.

His size and coloring were regarded as not right for movies, so he worked hard at radio, where talent scout and former actress Sue Carol discovered him early in 1939.

In 1937, they shared a friend's apartment. They had a son, Alan Ladd Jr. , and his destitute alcoholic mother moved in with them, her agonizing suicide from ant poison witnessed a few months later by her son.

He married his friend Midge in 1936, but couldn't afford her, so they lived apart.

Alan Walbridge Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the only child of Ina Raleigh (aka Selina Rowley) and Alan Ladd, a freelance accountant. His mother was English, from County Durham, and his paternal grandparents were Canadian. His father died when he was four. At age five, he burned his apartment playing with matches, and his mother moved them to Oklahoma City. He was malnourished, undersized and nicknamed Tiny. His mother married a house painter who moved them to California--a la "The Grapes of Wrath"--when he was eight. He picked fruit, delivered papers, and swept stores. In high school he discovered track and swimming. By 1931 he was training for the 1932 Olympics, but an injury put an end to those plans. He opened a hamburger stand called Tiny's Patio, and later worked as a grip at Warner Brothers Pictures.

Frequently attended meetings at the house of director George Cukor from the mid-1930s. Cukor had once been slated to helm The Great Gatsby (1926) for his debut as a film director. Ladd was a fan of the 1926 version and later starred in the remake, The Great Gatsby (1949), in the hopes of being taken seriously as a dramatic actor.

He was the second actor to portray F. Scott Fitzgerald's character Jay Gatsby in a major motion picture. The other actors were Warner Baxter in The Great Gatsby (1926), Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby (1974), and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby (2013).