Hollywood Actors
One of the better teen idols of the late ’50s and early ’60s, with a voice that many have compared to that of Buddy Holly. He had a sizable string of hits between 1960 and 1967 for Liberty Records, including “Take Good Care of My Baby”, “Run to Him” (both co-written by Carole King), “Rubber Ball”, “Devil or Angel”, “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”, “Stayin’ In”, “More Than I Can Say” and “Come Back When You Grow U
Andrew Dice Clay September 29, 1957) is an American comedian and actor.[1] He played the lead role in the 1990 film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. Clay has been in several movies and has released a number of stand-up comedy albums. He is the only comedian in history to sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row
IMDB entry:
Andrew Dice Clay was born on September 29, 1957 in Brooklyn, New York, USA as Andrew Clay Silverstein. He is an actor and writer, known for Blue Jasmine (2013), The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990) and Dice Rules (1991). He has been married to Valerie Silverstein since February 14, 2010. He was previously married to Kathleen Monica and Kathleen Swanson. Hi shows include his catch phrases “Dat’s what I think”, “Unbelievable”, and a sharp “Ooh!”. Begins all of his comedy acts with about a minute of just standing on stage, smoking a cigarette, before starting into his material. Often wears a black leather jacket. For his on-stage act, his jacket is usually covered in gold studs, with the word ‘Dice’ spelled out on across his back.Heavy Brooklyn accent. Often wears large, dark sunglasses Has been managed by his father, Fred Silverstein, for most of his career. Even after he made enormous amounts of money with his “Diceman” act he decided to live in his hometown borough of Brooklyn for a number of years. He now resides somewhere in New Jersey, the hometown of his current wife. His trademark “Ooh!” is sampled in the popular dance club song, “Unbelievable”, by EMF. Biography in: “Who’s Who in Comedy” by Ronald L. Smith. Pg. 106-108. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387 Perhaps the only stand-up comic ever to sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row.
Fay Spain had a very prolific US television career especially in the major series of the 1950’s and 60’s. Her movies include “Al Capone” in 1959 and “Black Gold” in 1962. She died at the age of 49 in 1983.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
She was your typical B-movie drive-in bad girl – sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette, always bodacious. A tease, a taunter and a temptress throughout most her career, Fay Spain was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1932. She headed to New York where she initially found summer stock work and a bit of television exposure. One of her earliest TV appearances was not as an actress but as a contestant on the TV game show You Bet Your Life (1950) starring Groucho Marx. By 1956, this fetching starlet was winning episodic roles on the more popular shows of the day, including Perry Mason (1957),Cheyenne (1955) and Gunsmoke (1955). She was also gaining notice on the covers of magazines. This cheesecake attention led directly to her juvenile delinquent debut inDragstrip Girl (1957) with John Ashley and Steven Terrell, where she immediately established herself as the party girl boys are willing to race cars and fight over. Other equally cheap-jack films followed with Teenage Doll (1957), The Crooked Circle (1957), and The Abductors (1957). Fay made an aggressive move into higher quality films withErskine Caldwell‘s best-seller God’s Little Acre (1958), where she played “Darlin’ Jill”, another amoral sexpot, and as Rod Steiger‘s moll in Al Capone (1959), but then it was right back to Grade Z level work with The Beat Generation (1959) co-starring Mamie Van Doren, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) in which she tempts Martin Milner with the old forbidden fruit routine, and a 1962 Italian spectacle as an evil queen trying to thwart the actions of Hercules. Although Fay made some efforts to return to TV work, her career was pretty much over by the mid-60s. One of her last roles was a bit part as a mafioso matriarch in The Godfather: Part II (1974). Fay died of cancer at age 49 in 1983.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
James Donald was born in Scotland in 1917. Tall and thin, he specialised in military figures or those in authority such as doctors and solicitors. His major roles include “The Bridge oin the River Kwai”, “King Rat” and “The Great Escape”. He died in 1993.
Adam Benedick’s obituary of James Donald in “The Independent”
BEFORE the post-war cinema took him under its wing, James Donald had been flying as high in the West End theatre as any young actor of his generation. Tall, lean, dark, intelligent-looking, he seemed to have a care for language and a sharp-edged humour which might lead him to the top in a theatrical era ruled by Gielgud, Olivier, Redgrave and Co.
Could he be one of tomorrow’s men? He had sensitivity and elegance. In some quarters his appeal was rated in the same breath as Scofield’s, Burton’s, Alan Badel’s. There was something Byronic, thoughtful, unpredictable and refreshing in this churchman’s son who had quit Scotland and a flirtation with academia (McGill and Edinburgh universities) for that least-known of theatrical quantities, the London Theatre Studio run for the Old Vic by that intellectual offshoot of the avant-garde French theatre, Michel Saint-Denis.
Saint-Denis was a sort of saint to intelligent young theatrical aspirants: a purist, an inspiration and utterly indifferent to the needs of the ‘commercial’ theatre. Very few of his students ever came to anything. In the days before subsidy and angry young men and social realism, it was Hugh (Binkie) Beaumont who ruled the British stage; but there was still the Old Vic.
After appearing in two of Saint-Denis’ pre-war productions, Bulgakov’s The White Guard, and Twelfth Night (with Michael Redgrave and Peggy Ashcroft) at the Phoenix, Donald found himself with a small part in Granville-Barker’s 1940 production of Lear for Gielgud at the Old Vic and the not exactly onerous but surely honourable task of understudying Gielgud.
When the Old Vic was bombed out of the Waterloo Road, Donald toured as the supercilious young servant Yasha to Athene Seyler’s Ranevska in The Cherry Orchard and, after the Old Vic’s London seasons at the New, in St Martin’s Lane, moved over to the Haymarket Theatre to join Noel Coward’s company in 1943.
There Donald’s success as the comically sanctimonious playwright in Present Laughter put him on the map. Some said he upstaged the self-indulgent Coward himself (as the matinee idol) by remaining so intensely serious as the indignant young writer with the endearing, grating voice.
It was his baptism as a Haymarket actor, and though the bright young men of the next generation might sneer at the label, not all the Haymarket plays in the 1940s and 1950s were ‘safe’ or ‘cosy’ or ‘elegant’. Indeed, Cocteau’s The Eagle Has Two Heads, in which Donald played the lover-assassin of Eileen Herlie’s Ruritanian queen was a test of everybody’s patience, with her record-breaking first-act speech judged by the stop-watches rather than dramatic interest; but Donald, a good listener, knew how to share the romantic limelight tactfully.
His next West End performance came ‘by kind permission of Metro- Goldwyn Mayer’ in Shaw’s You Never Can Tell (Wyndham’s) before his greatest break of all a few months later at – where else? – the Haymarket. In Henry James’s sad story he was the cad who, having courted the ‘plain’ young spinster (Peggy Ashcroft) for her fortune, jilts her. When he comes calling again she turns him down flat. She too has learnt how to be cruel.
It was one of Ashcroft’s greatest nights, but somehow Donald found a touch of pathos for the worthless lover; and so Laurence Olivier gave him the title-role opposite the adored Diana Wynyard in his next production as actor-manager at the St James’s, a new play by a new playwright, Denis Cannan’s Captain Carvallo. It was a high comedy of verbal exuberance and Shavian fancy, and it clinched Donald’s reputation as one of the West End’s most fashionable actors.
If there was no limelight left for him (or anybody else) to share with Edith Evans in Christopher Fry’s The Dark is Light Enough (Aldwych, 1954), his career in films as men of conscience rather than action – The Small Voice (1948), Trottie True (1949), White Corridors (1951), The Gift Horse (1952), Beau Brummell (1954) – was by then going strong.
He also ventured into theatrical management with his wife while continuing as an occasional Haymarket actor (The Doctor’s Dilemma, The Wings of the Dove) in an era of sharply changing theatrical tastes. Firing from the West End at Sloane Square and the East End at Stratford East, the enemy of elegant dialogue and elegant acting was at the gates.
James Donald was not the only player of his kind to find an outlet in the cinema in the coming decades, as one of its most familiar, reliable and agreeable actors whose character stood for decency and common sense – The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), King Rat (1965), The Jokers (1967), David Copperfield (1969), The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969), Conduct Unbecoming (1975). But it was a long way in more ways than one from the theatrical dreams and schemes provoked by Saint-Denis at the London Theatre Studio in the late 1930s.
James Donald “Independent” obituary can be accessed here.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Scottish-born actor James Donald was born in Aberdeen on May 18, 1917, and took his first professional stage bow some time in the late 30s. He finally attained a degree of stardom in 1943 for his sterling performance in Noel Coward‘s “Present Laughter”, which starred Coward himself. Subsequent post-war theatre work included “The Eagle with Two Heads” (1947), “You Never Can Tell” (1948) and “The Heiress” (1949) with Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and Donald Sinden.
Rather humorless in character with a gaunt, intent-looking face and no-nonsense demeanor, James made his debut in British films in 1942, fitting quite comfortably into the stoic war-era mold with roles in such noteworthy military sagas as In Which We Serve (1942) and The Way Ahead (1944). Ably supporting such top-notch actors asSpencer Tracy and Deborah Kerr in Edward, My Son (1949) and Elizabeth Taylor andStewart Granger in Beau Brummell (1954), he also managed to head up a number of films including White Corridors (1951) in which he and Googie Withers play husband and wife doctors who try to balance career and marriage; Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers(1952) as “Nathaniel Winkle”, and Project M7 (1953) as a scientist obsessed with his work. In addition, he earned superb marks for a number of quality films in the 1950s and 1960s. His portrayal of painter ‘Vincent Van Gogh”s brother “Theo” in Lust for Life (1956) with Kirk Douglas, was quite memorable, as was his trenchant work in the WWII POW dramas The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Great Escape (1963), and King Rat(1965). Most of the men he played were intelligent, moral-minded and honorable. While continuing to perform on stage, he also gained TV exposure. James received an Emmy nomination for his role as “Prince Albert” opposite Julie Harris in Victoria Regina (1961), and performed the part of the cruel-eyed stepfather “Mr. Murdstone” in the period remake of David Copperfield (1969) toward the end of his career. Off the screen for a number of years, he died of stomach cancer on August 3, 1993 in England. He was 76.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.ne
Ingrid Boulting
Ingrid Boulting was born in Transvaal in 1947 – daughter of English film-maker John Boulting and niece of Ray Boulting and Sydney Boulting a.k.a. Peter Cotes. She was a ballerina and model,[2] before embarking on an acting career. In 1976, Ingrid starred in, “The Last Tycoon (film),” the last film directed by famed director Elia Kazan, written by Harold Pinter based on F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s Hollywood novel, “The Love of the Last Tycoon,” produced by Sam Spiegel.
William Petersen was born in 1953 in Evanston, Illinois. He is best known now for his on TV in “CSI”. His movies include “Manhunter” in 1986 and”Cousins” with Isabella Rossellini.
TCM overview:
A powerful, brooding figure in features and on television since the early 1980s, William Petersen explored the darker corners of the lawman’s psyche in “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985) and “Manhunter” (1986) before becoming a household name on “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (CBS, 2000- ). A veteran of the Chicago theater community, he burst onto the Hollywood scene with forceful turns in the aforementioned crime dramas, but neither had the box office clout to turn him into a major movie star. Instead, he concentrated on the stage while delivering consistently believable turns in films like “Young Guns II” (1990) and “Fear” (1991), as well as numerous television efforts. His cool, withdrawn investigator Gil Grissom on “CSI” thrust him into the limelight, making him a major TV star, but he walked away from the hit series in 2008 to return to his roots. One of the most eclectic figures in entertainment, his professional choices and performances earned the enduring respect of his peers and admirers.
Born William Louis Petersen in Evanston, IL on Feb. 21, 1953, he was the youngest of six children born to Danish and German parents who worked as retailers. An admittedly poor student with an independent streak, he left Evanston to live with an older brother in Boise. There, he continued to ignore his studies while attending Bishop Kelly High School, preferring instead to devote his attention to sports and parties. He gained entry to Idaho State University on a football scholarship, but was prevented from playing due to failing grades. The sports department put him into the theater program in a last-ditch attempt to boost his grade point average. However, the move had an unexpected affect: Petersen fell in love with stage acting, and later moved to Spain with his first wife, Joanne, and a college professor to launch a Shakespeare company.
Petersen eventually returned to the United States, where he worked odd jobs while seeking out acting gigs. The search was arduous, and for a time, Petersen, his wife and their new daughter, Maite, lived with his parents in Evanston. There, he began involved with the newly active Chicago theater scene. After earning his Actor’s Equity card in 1978, he became a staple of the region’s plays, appearing in productions by the famed Steppenwolf and Organic Theatre companies, as well as with his own group, the Remains Theater Company, which he launched with fellow stars-in-training Gary Cole and Ted Levine. Petersen netted a Joseph Jefferson Award – the city’s top theater laurel – for playing convicted killer Jack Henry Abbott in “Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison.” In 1981, he made his feature film debut as a hotwired bartender in Michael Mann’s “Thief.” He was billed as William L. Petersen for the appearance, and would alternately retain and drop the middle initial throughout his career.
While appearing in “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, Oscar-winning director William Friedkin caught his performance and asked Petersen to read for a new action film he was directing. After just two lines, Friedkin hired him on the spot as a reckless FBI agent on the trail of a counterfeiter (Willem Dafoe) in “To Live and Die in LA” (1985). Petersen’s intense performance and willingness to play a dangerous and non-heroic character in his first starring role impressed critics, many of whom cited him as a star on the rise. Petersen followed this appearance with another heavyweight turn as an FBI profiler with a knack for understanding the motives of serial killers in Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” (1986). As the physically and psychologically scarred agent Will Graham, Petersen’s pursuit of a vicious psychopath (Tom Noonan) brought him in contact with Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Brian Cox), whom Graham captured years before. A taunt exercise in suspense, the film failed to connect with an audience in the same way that “Silence of the Lambs” (1991), its follow-up, would. Petersen himself found the experience exhausting, and after the film’s completion, shaved his beard and dyed his hair to distance himself from the role.
In the years that followed his initial Hollywood launch, Petersen focused more on projects that he found artistically challenging rather than ones that would forward his career. Stage remained his main focus, while films and television kept him financially. He famously turned down the chance to appear in Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” (1986) because he did not want to be away from his family for six weeks, and later refused to play Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (1986). Instead, Petersen’s cinematic output in the 1980s and 1990s was filled with modest hits and near-misses: he was the coach of a minor-league baseball team in the 1986 comedy “Long Gone” (HBO), then played the stoic Pat Garrett in “Young Guns II” (1990). A rare hit during this period was the thriller “Fear” (1991), with Petersen as a suburban father who attempts to protect his daughter (Reese Witherspoon) from Mark Wahlberg’s homicidal hoodlum-turned-stalker.
Television eventually became Petersen’s main outlet. He had done solid work as the formidable Joseph P. Kennedy in the 1990 miniseries “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” (ABC), and later played his son, President John F. Kennedy, in the HBO drama “The Rat Pack” (1998). Small screen work eventually filled his work schedule; some it was top-notch, like William Friedkin’s 1997 adaptation of “12 Angry Men” (Showtime) with George C. Scott, Jack Lemmon, James Gandolfini Edward James Olmos. Petersen portrayed Juror #12, whose high-profile job as an ad executive prevented from grasping his role in deciding the fate of a young man on trial. Some were adequate time-wasters, like Peter Benchley’s “The Beast” (1996), with Petersen as a marine expert battling a giant squid off the Florida coast. In the early 1990s, he attempted to wrest some control over his projects by launching his own production company, High Horse Films, with longtime acting peer Cynthia Chvatal. Among their offerings were the indie drama “Hard Promises” (1991), with Petersen as a wayward divorcé who attempted to stop his wife (Sissy Spacek) from marrying again, and “Keep the Change” (TNT, 1991), a likable drama about a failed artist who became entangled in small town dramas after returning to his birthplace out West.
In 2000, Petersen landed the role for which he would become best known to audiences, that of forensic investigator Gil Grissom on “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” A dedicated scientist with a passion for insects, Grissom’s vast intellect gave him almost supernatural insight into the motives and execution of fatal crimes, but also made it difficult for him to connect with his co-workers and others on a basic human level. The laboratory was his true home, where he could experiment to his heart’s content; only when his hearing began to fail did a sense of vulnerability creep into Grissom’s persona. A romance with deeply troubled co-worker Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) also showed a heart beating beneath his lab coat, and the couple eventually overcame their various personality quirks to marry in 2010. A colossal hit for CBS during its decade-plus run, the show also made Petersen financially solvent, as he served as one of its producers from its initial episode.
In 2008, Petersen announced that he would leave the massively successful procedural to return to stage acting. He expressed his gratitude for the show’s success, but felt that he was beginning to atrophy as a performer by remaining in the same role for too long. His final episode drew 23 million viewers. In the aftermath, he remained an executive producer on the series, and was reported to be involved in a feature film based on the series. In 2009, Petersen received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for which he was joined by most of his “CSI” castmates. That same year, he won his third Joseph Jefferson Award for his turn in “Blackbird” at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.
Matt Dillon was one of the famous ‘brat pack’ of the early 1980’s. His movies include “Little Darlings”, “Over the Edge” and “Rumble Fish”. He was born in New Rochelle in 1964.
IMDB entry:
Originally a teen star (generally in “troubled youth” roles), who has since matured into one of Hollywood’s most enjoyable actors to watch on screen with a wonderful versatility in his acting range, tall, lean and handsome Matt Dillon was born in February 1964 in New Rochelle, New York, and was discovered by pure chance. Talent scouts were roaming the halls of Hommocks School, spied the good-looking Dillon, and asked him to attend a casting call. He showed up, put on a swagger and petulant attitude for the casting director and landed his first film role, appearing in Over the Edge (1979), a “troubled-youth” film about bored Colorado teenagers fighting developers, their parents and the police. His next role was as a teen bully who gets his comeuppance in the “feel-good” movie My Bodyguard (1980). He was the object of teenage female desire in Little Darlings (1980), and followed that as a poor boy eloping with a rich girl in Liar’s Moon(1982).
Dillon was now a hot property, and his next three film roles were in quality productions of best-selling novels, by author S.E. Hinton, that cemented him as the US’ #1 teen star. First, he starred as a fatherless country boy in Tex (1982), then he headlined a cast of superb young actors, including Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze, in the moving The Outsiders (1983), and, finally, he was back in trouble once more in the superb Rumble Fish (1983). As his looks matured, Dillon moved into broader roles such as a Brooklyn teenager from a hard-working middle class family, who gets involved in the lives of the wealthy members of the “El Flamingo Beach Club” on Long Island, in 1963, inThe Flamingo Kid (1984). He made his first foray into adult action with Gene Hackman in the thriller Target (1985), followed by several B-grade romantic efforts, before striking gold with the critics with his performance in the uncompromising ‘Gus van Sant’ film about drug addicts, Drugstore Cowboy (1989). Unfortunately, his next few films fell back into a degree of mediocrity until another intriguing performance as a young schizophrenic in The Saint of Fort Washington (1993), then another romantic comedy role in Mr. Wonderful (1993). He worked again with van Sant as naive husband “Larry Maretto” opposite murderous Nicole Kidman in the icy thriller To Die For (1995).
Dillon remained busy and turned in excellent performances in the sexy thriller of murder and double-crosses, Wild Things (1998). He was hilarious as a sleazy private eye lovestruck by Cameron Diaz in the box-office smash There’s Something About Mary(1998). He starred in the black comedy One Night at McCool’s (2001), made his feature film directorial debut with City of Ghosts (2002), had a day that goes from bad to worse in Employee of the Month (2004). And, for his work in the Best Picture Academy Award winner Crash (2004), Dillon received a long-overdue Oscar nomination, as Best Supporting Actor.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: firehouse44@hotmail.co
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Alan Ladd was one of the major movie stars of the 1940’s and 50’s. He was born in 1913 in Hot Springs.. He had a leading role in the film noir “This Gun For Hire” opposite Veronica Lake in 1942. His films include “O.S.S.”, “The Glass Key”, “Calcutta” and of course the classic Western “Shane”. He died at the age of 50 in 1964.
TCM overview:
A stoic, masculine icon despite his diminutive frame, Alan Ladd became an overnight star by playing Raven, a sensitive hit man, in “This Gun for Hire” (1942). His soft-spoken strength set him apart from his less subtle peers, instantly endearing him to audiences who admired his new brand of onscreen masculinity. During the 1940s, Ladd one of the era’s top box office draws for many years. Frequently cast opposite Veronica Lake, he scored with the noir smashes “The Glass Key” (1942) and “The Blue Dahlia” (1946), in the adventure “Two Years before the Mast” (1946), and in the adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” (1949). His most iconic role came as the mysterious former gunslinger “Shane” (1953), considered to be one of the all-time greatest Westerns of all time. Ladd continued his streak of playing tough guys with films like “Hell below Zero” (1954) and “All the Young Men” (1960) opposite Sidney Poitier, and ended his career with a supporting turn in “The Carpetbaggers” (1964). After a lifetime of struggling with personal demons and a tumultuous childhood, the actor attempted suicide in 1962; on Jan. 29, 1964, he was found dead of an accidental drug overdose. His children, most notably film executive Alan Ladd, Jr., continued the family business. Although he rarely received the critical acclaim of many of his noir-era peers, Alan Ladd became one of the most popular movie stars of all time – a magnetic, unique performer who left a lasting mark on Hollywood in more ways than one.
Born Sept. 3, 1913 in Hot Springs, AR, Alan Walbridge Ladd was the son of an English mother who struggled to keep the family afloat after becoming a widow when her son was four. Tragedy struck again a year later when the child accidentally burned down their apartment, causing them to move to Oklahoma City, OK, where she married a housepainter. His childhood marked by malnourishment and stints of homelessness, Ladd grew up short and small of stature, which led to years of taunts from his peers. The family moved to California when he was eight, and the boy was forced to pick fruit, deliver papers and sweep floors to make ends meet. Although he appeared to be frail, Ladd demonstrated a world-class ability in swimming and track and began training for the 1932 Olympics in earnest. His dreams of glory were cut short by an injury, but his discipline paid off in other aspects of his life, helping him maintain a series of odd jobs that led to him opening his own hamburger shop, Tiny’s Patio, so-called in honor of his family nickname. So poor that when he married his high school sweetheart he could not afford to have her move in with him, Ladd applied his amazing work ethic to garnering small radio and theatrical roles and a job as a Warner Bros. studio grip.
Rejected at first for major film work because of his diminutive frame, Ladd’s persistence on the radio and in minor film roles helped him become one of talent scout Sue Carol’s clients, and she orchestrated his ascent with a string of minor roles, including a role as a reporter in “Citizen Kane” (1941). Divorced from his first wife, he married the controlling Carol in 1942, who helped him score a studio contract at Paramount. That same year, she was critical in her husband being cast in his star-making role, playing hitman-with-a-conscience Raven in Graham Greene’s “This Gun for Hire” (1942). Ladd’s stylish, ultra-serious persona immediately clicked with audiences – particularly female – who responded to his new brand of onscreen masculinity with a layer of vulnerability underneath. Showing enormous chemistry with co-star Veronica Lake, the two would often be paired together in several Paramount productions, as they brought out the best in each other; their cool, blond looks meshed perfectly, but equally important was the fact that she was the only actress on the lot shorter than Ladd.
Although critics generally overlooked him and Ladd himself would claim not to understand his own appeal, he became one of the most popular male actors of the 1940s and one of the era’s top box office draws year after year. He reunited with Lake for the Dashiell Hammett noir classic “The Glass Key” (1942) and earned his first leading man role as the titular gangster “Lucky Jordan” (1942). Ladd’s professional ascent continued with his acclaimed turn in the maritime adventure “Two Years before the Mast” (1946), the espionage thriller “O.S.S.” (1946) and another noir smash opposite Lake, the Raymond Chandler-penned classic “The Blue Dahlia” (1946). Empowered by his success and ever-enterprising, Ladd formed his own production company which spawned his own radio series about a mystery novelist in search of new plot ideas and adventures called “Box 13.” He scored another success in the Western “Whispering Smith” (1948), toplined the sleek 1949 adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” and essayed a wrongly imprisoned medical student ready to mutiny in the drama “Botany Bay” (1953).
Frequently cast in tough-guy roles in rugged tales of adventure, Ladd’s most iconic role came in the masculine weeper “Shane” (1953). As the mysterious titular former gunslinger, Ladd played a man trying to escape from his past, who bonds with the young son of his employer, serving as a male role model and surrogate father. Forced by circumstances to use his deadly talents to ensure justice, Shane is wounded in the final battle but retains his powerful self-control and sense of heroism, riding away to an uncertain fate as the young boy plaintively cries “Shane! Come back!” in the film’s most famous scene. Considered a masterpiece of both the Western genre and of film itself, “Shane” was nominated for six Oscars and won for Best Cinematography. While Ladd was overlooked, the cultural impact of his turn could not be overstated, and the character’s legacy would be referenced repeatedly in films as diverse as Clint Eastwood’s “Pale Rider” (1985), Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Nowhere to Run” (1993) and Samuel L. Jackson’s “The Negotiator” (1998). “Shane” proved Ladd’s professional high point, and epitomized his unique brand of cold-but-caring strength. Although he continued to work, most often playing badasses in films like “Paratrooper” (1953), “Hell below Zero” (1954) and “The Black Night” (1954), Ladd’s professional ascent slowed. He formed a new production company to release his films, including the racially charged Korean War drama “All the Young Men” (1960) opposite Sidney Poitier.
While he enjoyed widespread acclaim from audiences, in his personal life, Ladd was troubled by many personal demons. Early in his career, after his stepfather’s death, his mother had moved in with his young family and then, battling depression, killed herself. Ladd continued the cycle when, in November 1962, he was found unconscious with a bullet wound near his heart after a failed suicide attempt. The studio rushed to cover it up, calling it a gun-related accident. The actor’s last screen role came with a supporting turn in “The Carpetbaggers” (1964), but tragically, he never saw its release. On Jan. 29, 1964, Alan Ladd was found dead in Palm Springs, CA of a drug overdose, which was ruled accidental. Besides his own legacy, both onscreen and in the hearts of fans, Ladd left behind several children who would continue the family business, keeping the family name at the forefront. These included motion picture executive Alan Ladd, Jr. -famous for being the one executive to greenlight a film called “Star Wars” (1977) at 20th Century Fox – actress Alana Ladd, actor David Ladd (who married Cheryl Ladd) and actress Jordan Ladd. Although his story ended tragically, Alan Ladd displayed immense discipline and ambition, carving out his own share of pop culture immortality on the strengths of his inimitable and mysterious charisma.
By Jonathan Riggs
To view website on Alan Ladd, please click here.
Doug McClure is fondly remembered for his role as ‘Trampas’ in TV”s “The Virginian”. He was born in 1935 in Glendale, California. He had some very minor roles in major movies of the late 1950’s such as “Enemy Below” with starred Robert Mitchum and Curd Jurgens and “South Pacific”. “The Virginian” ran from 1962 until 1971. In the late 1960’s he starred in such movies as “Beau Geste” and “The King’s Pirate”. Hos best film was probably “Shenandoah” with James Stewart in 1965. Doug McClure sadly died in 1995.
David Shipman’s “Independent” obituary:
In 1971 McClure starred in The Law and Jake Wyler, one of several television projects produced and written by the prolific team of Richard Levinson and William Link. He was one of two parolees – James McEachin was the other – helping the judge do some detective work. The judge was Bette Davis, whose agent had indicated that she was ready to do a television series. But that wasn’t to be: nobody liked the pilot, which went out on NBC as a telemovie in 1972, with added footage.
In 1975 McClure came to Britain to star in The Land That Time Forgot, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1918 science fiction novel. It was strictly double-bill fare, if not exactly a cheapie, and he appeared in three follow-ups: At the Earth’s Core (1976), The People That Time Forgot (1977) and Warlords of Atlantis (1978). Amicus produced, with co-operation on the last two from American International Pictures, temporarily deserting teenagers on motor-bikes. Fighting dinosaurs and such, McClure was energetic, especially as he looked as if he had had a heavy night.
Later movie appearances included Cannonball Run II (1983) and Omega Syndrome (1986). McClure has been regularly parodied as Troy McClure, an ageing star of the 1950s, in the television series The Simpsons, usually introducing promotional videos. Maverick(1994) had Mel Gibson in James Garner’s old television role, with Garner in support, reminding us how entertaining he always was; and McClure, in his last movie role, with a “walk-on” as one of the poker-players.
David Shipman Doug McClure, actor: born Glendale, California 11 May 1934; married three times; died Los Angeles 5 February 1995.
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.