Alan Ladd: “I have the face of an aging choirboy and the build of an undernourished featherweight.
If you can figure out my success on the screen, you’re a better man than I.”
John Houseman figured it was Ladd’s eyes.
After Dick Cavett made a disparaging remark to Houseman about Ladd’s minimal acting talents, Houseman replied, “You would be in despair.
You would go down to the set and you would say, ‘Why are we even making this film?’ Then you would go to the rushes, and there would be these beautiful eyes, full of hidden thoughts. A marvelous film actor.”
Most of his biographical sources speculate on Ladd’s height, which legend contends was slight.
Reports of his height vary from 5’5” to 5’9”, with 5’6” being the most generally accepted today. His U.S. Army enlistment record, however, indicates a height of 5’7”.
Ladd and Veronica Lake became a particularly popular pairing because, at 4’11”, she was one of the few Hollywood actresses substantially shorter than he was.
In his memoirs, Houseman wrote of Ladd: “Since he himself was extremely short, he had only one standard by which he judged his fellow players: their height.”
To compensate for Ladd’s height, during the filming of “Boy on a Dolphin” (1957, below), co-starring the 5’8”Sophia Loren, the cinematographer used special low stands to light Ladd and the crew built a ramp system of heavy planks to enable the two actors to stand at equal eye level.
In outdoor scenes, trenches were dug for Loren to stand in.
For the film “Saskatchewan” (1954), director Raoul Walsh had a six-inch hole dug for 6′ co-star Hugh O’Brian to stand, while using the excavated dirt to build a mound for Ladd to stand, thereby overcoming the disparity in height. (IMDb/Wikipedia)
Happy Birthday, Alan Ladd!