Alan Ladd popped into the world on 3 September 1913. He died young. He was the victim of the pox of barbiturates. Doctors seemed to have given them out like candy to actors in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ladd starred in four crime dramas with Veronica Lake. For years, people have claimed this is because he was short and she was one of the few female actors who made him look tall. This makes no sense.

For one thing, Ladd wasn’t that short. He was 5’7″. This was the average height of men his age. And there were plenty of actors the same height or shorter: Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, James Cagney — to name a few.

But more important, there were plenty of petite female actors. Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, and Lana Turner were all just a smidge over five feet. (Sources claim Lake was anywhere from 4’11” to 5’2″. Take all quoted heights of all actors with a grain of salt. Actors are notoriously neurotic about their heights and numbers usually come from their publicists.)

Anyway, I don’t especially care about Alan Ladd as an actor. But he was in a lot of good films. And I think he was impressive in Shane because he doesn’t especially look the part. Here’s a hot take: he did it better than Clint Eastwood, who had several tries.

Let’s celebrate Alan Ladd’s birthday by watching probably my favorite of his films, The Blue Dahlia. Here’s an excellent print from Archive:

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Alan Ladd via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.