A small package, a handsome face with gentle features, blond hair and fair complexion, “restrained masculinity” and an invisible melancholy.

With these characteristics, Mr Alan Land he will erase a great course in American cinema and indeed in films such as adventures, film noirs or westerns, which basically wanted tough guys as protagonists, with chiseled faces and sometimes ready to be flattened for the eyes of a femme fatale.

However, his brilliant course, which will bring him among the ten most commercial Hollywood actors in the 40s and 50s, it will be short, as the tormented childhood years and the mental traumas from his mother’s suicide, suffered him unimaginably, his health and especially his mental health, will be particularly fragile and will ultimately lead to suicide.

Alan Land, who also had a problem with his height, as many of his co-stars – and most importantly, his co-stars – were much taller, will manage to become a star of noir, but surprisingly also of the western, where the ” sports kids” John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck and Joel McCrae.

After all, the reason he made a wonderful cinematic couple with the famous Veronica Lake it was also her height, which did not exceed 1.5 meters.

Although he never won an Oscar, Ladd left behind some great performances, was named the most popular star in 1953, won a Golden Globe for Outstanding Western “Earth Grabbers” (“Shane”), while his conquests in the female sex were not few.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his untimely death (January 29, 1964) it is an opportunity to remember his best moments in the cinema, but also all that tormented him in his turbulent life, which will also bring him to a peculiar competition of misery with Veronica Lake.

Destitute and orphaned

Alan Weybridge Land was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas on September 3, 1913. His father, an accountant by profession, would die in front of his four-year-old son of a heart attack, while his mother, Ina, was an Englishwoman of humble origins who had emigrated in America at the age of 19. Young Alan will grow up as an orphan in a very poor home, from which even daily food was missing. Malnutrition is probably also due to his small stature, which was the reason for him to accept the sad teasing of his peers, something that will affect him decisively.

His mother will remarry in 1920 a painter and decorator, Jim Beavers and they will move, together with little Alan, to California, first to Pasadena and shortly after to Hollywood, where they lived with meager means and their most frequent food was potato soup.

From the pool to the canteen

When Lund turned 14, he began working in a grocery store, while excelling in sports, especially swimming. The 16-year-old Lund will have his first contact with the theater in high school, although he will continue to succeed in swimming pools and with a lot of training he was preparing for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, until he was seriously injured. After school, Lund decided to pursue a career in acting, but until he succeeded, he would work various jobs, from lifeguard to waiter.

Looking for an opportunity

Eventually, Lund will join her acting school Universal Pictures, with the financial help he received from a family friend, while simultaneously working at Warner studios as a carpenter. Looking for every opportunity to get on film sets, he worked hard to improve his voice. Studio executives rejected him, mainly for his physique and light colors that did not offer photogenicity.

The defining marriage

However, with great persistence, he will manage in the mid-thirties to get some roles, while a few years later he will receive the first relatively notable roles in films, while in 1941 he will embody the role of a reporter in “Citizen Kane». In 1942, he will make his most important appearance up to that time, in the RKO film “Joan of Paris». Two months after the film’s release, he would marry his agent Sue Carroll, which proved to be an important move for his development. Carroll would bring Lund to Paramount, who would immediately offer him meaningful roles, which the up-and-coming actor would make the most of.

Pairing with Veronica

His breakout role will be in Frank Tuttle’s film noir “Killer for Hire” (1942), co-starring Veronica Lake for the first time. The chemistry between the two leads was incredibly appealing to the audience and the two would go on to continue their success in six more films. It was the beginning of a golden period for Lund, as soon after he would shoot the classic noir “The Glass Key”with the blonde beauty.

However, Lund would interrupt his career when America entered World War II to spend most of 1943 in the Army Air Forces.

At the top of Hollywood

Lund will return to the movie sets with a vengeance and continue to climb the ladder of establishment to become one of Hollywood’s leading men. In 1946 alone he will act in three very successful films, delivering remarkable performances. Among them the now famous film noir “The Blue Dahlia”with Veronica Lake by his side.

Lonely cowboy

His movies, like westerns “Whispering Smith” the “Botany Bay”, will feature permanently in the Top Ten, while his peak moment will come in 1953, with the western “Earth Grabbers” by George Sevens, brilliantly interpreting the role of a mysterious gunslinger who wants to leave the past behind. The scene of the finale with Lund riding off as a monk with his horse into the sunset and the young son of the family crying and shouting “Shane, come back” has remained legendary.

The film is rightfully considered one of the best and most influential westerns.

This western would mark the pinnacle of his career, as he subsequently failed to find a role worthy of Shane, and he would soon leave Paramount, after disagreements, to set up his own production company, Jaguar Productions, with which he would made three good films in England. Previously, he had returned to Greece, making it famous Hydrathe movie “The Child and the Dolphin”, having the sparkling one by his side Sophia Loren.

A lifetime of trauma and misery

The stormy life of Alan Lund was not only poverty and the unexpected death of his father. At the age of five, he and a friend will accidentally burn down the family’s apartment, playing with matches, while the suicide of his alcoholic mother in 1938 will play a decisive role in his disturbed mental health.

He would marry twice, to Majorie Jane Harrold in 1936 and to Sue Carroll in 1942, with whom he would have a daughter and a son, Alan Lund Jr., a major motion picture producer who made great films and produced great actors and actresses. directors. He also had many accidents and several serious illnesses, which will accelerate his melancholy. Suffering from insomnia, he found solace in copious amounts of drink and tranquilizers, and in November 1962 he made an unsuccessful suicide attempt with a gun.

Finally, he will be able to put an end to his tortured life, when he will be found dead on January 29, 1964 at his home in Palm Springs, California, from an overdose of tranquilizers and a large amount of alcohol. His death will then be classified as an accident. Hollywood had once again intervened in the alteration of reality…