Ladd at an early age moved to California with his family. As a young man he held a number of menial jobs, and spent two years toiling as a grip on the Warner Bros. lot. He began acting in the early 1930s, taking small roles in local theatrical productions, radio shows, and movies. By 1940 he had graduated to featured roles and onscreen billing, albeit mostly in low-budget B movies for independent studios like Republic and PRC. He ap- peared briefly (as a reporter) in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). He even sang with Rita Rio and Her All-Girl Orchestra in a "soundie" short, I Look at You
… More (1941).
Ladd's career was guided by his agent, former actress Sue Carol, who also became his wife in 1942. That year she was instrumental in getting him cast as the cold-blooded killer in Paramount's screen adaptation of Graham Greene's "A Gun for Sale." Ladd's cool manner and deep voice made him ideally suited for toughguy parts, although his diminutive stature presented casting and production problems: His costars were often forced to walk in shallow trenches alongside him, so as not to tower over him. And Ladd sometimes stood on planks or fruit boxes to make love to tall leading ladies.
Throughout the 1940s Ladd maintained his position in the top rank of Hollywood stars, appearing in Westerns, war dramas, and crime films. He frequently worked with Veronica Lake (most effectively in Gun 1942's The Glass Key and 1946's The Blue Dahlia), partly because their onscreen chemistry was good, and partly because she was shorter than he was. Just as Ladd's career began to wane, he was cast for the leading role in George Stevens' production of Shane (1953), a critical and commercial success that revitalized his career. As he got older however, he apparently realized that his days as a two-fisted leading man were numbered. His son David Ladd had a brief career as a juvenile actor in films like The Big Land (1957, with his father) and on his own in the lead roles of A Dog of Flanders (1959) and Misty (1961). He continued working, into adulthood. His other son, Alan Ladd, Jr., became a successful movie producer and studio executive.
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