Alan Ladd
(Alan Walbridge Ladd; Hot Springs, 1913-Palm Springs, 1964) American film actor.After standing out as an athlete in college despite his short stature (1.68), he worked in the most varied jobs and then moved to Hollywood, where he debuted with small roles.Blank-faced, he seemed to lack the qualities necessary to become a star and, for a few years, played supporting roles.But thanks to the perseverance of his agent, former actress Sue Carol (who was also his wife), he began to land better contracts.
In 1942, with The Raven , he had his first great success; Directed by Frank Tuttle, Ladd first shared a cast with Veronica Lake and was brilliant in his portrayal of a hit man, a role that earned him recognition as a particularly suitable actor for film noir.Blond and attractive, his impassive face and icy gaze matched the provocative coldness of his partner, Veronica Lake, with whom he shot other memorable titles of the genre, such as The Crystal Key (1942), based in Dashiell Hammett's novel, or The Blue Dahlia (1946), with a screenplay by Raymond Chandler.
Alan Ladd in The Cuervo (1942) and in Deep Roots (1953)
During the 1950s he continued to play roles written to suit him But, with the exception of Deep Roots (1953) by George Stevens, few of his films surpassed the quality of those for simple consumption.Ladd played in this western the main gunman, who, tormented by his violent past, seeks peace of mind away from arms; However, he ends up in a territory dominated by confrontations between farmers and ranchers, and cannot avoid, no matter how hard he tries, his involvement in the conflict.The professionalism of the director, the beautiful photography of Loyal Griggs, which would be rewarded with an Oscar, and a suggestive script by AB Guthrie Jr., which, starting from a Jack Schaefer novel, perfectly pulsed the mythical springs of the genre, made Deep roots the most significant of the superwesterns that were made in the 1950s.
Called for his physicist "the angel of film noir", Alan Ladd knew how to create characters that were both tough and vulnerable, but he was not always right in the choice of scripts; For this reason, his filmography includes an excessive number of forgotten titles, with the exception of films such as those mentioned and some others such as Calcutta (John Farrow, 1947), Rebellion in the fort ( Raoul Walsh, 1954), The Proud Rebel (Michael Curtiz, 1958), in which he starred alongside Olivia de Havilland, and The Insatiable (Edward Dmytryk, 1964).The actor died prematurely at age fifty, the victim of an overdose of painkillers.
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