Alan Ladd Jr
Oscar-winning producer who championed Star Wars when no other studio executive would touch it
ALAN LADD JR, who has died aged 84, was the son of the tough-guy actor remembered for Shane, and a leading Hollywood producer whose films secured more than 150 Oscar nominations and won more than 50.
Affectionately known to all and sundry as “Laddie”, as head of creative affairs at Twentieth Century Fox, then president of its film division, Ladd “greenlit” (gave the go-ahead to) such 1970s box-office hits as Young Frankenstein, The Omen and Alien.
Later, as chairman and CEO at MGM, he played midwife to
Moonstruck, A Fish Called Wanda and
Thelma & Louise, while as an independent he brought Chariots of Fire to US cinema screens, and greenlit Blade Runner and Braveheart.
But his finest hour was when he gave a young film director called George Lucas the green light to make what Lucas pitched to him as “a kind of space opera, Flash Gordon kind of movie”. The result was Star Wars (1977).
“I was a nobody,” Lucas recalled. “I’d made one movie that nobody had seen – THX 1138 – and my second movie was so bad they wouldn’t release it.”
Lucas had developed a script called “The Story of Mace Windu”, set in outer space and featuring a young hero called Luke and a mysterious phenomenon called the Force. The idea of turning the story into a film was treated with derision by studio executives – all except Ladd at Fox .
Production was plagued by problems, and not even Lucas believed the film would be a success. “I showed it to all of my friends early on,” he recalled. “They saw it and [said] ‘Poor George. What were you thinking?’” Harrison Ford, the little-known actor cast as Han Solo, confronted Lucas during filming objecting to the script: “You can type this s--- but you sure as hell can’t say it.”
When the film was released in 1977 Lucas decamped to Hawaii to avoid the reviews. But a few days later he got a call from Ladd who told him: “It’s a fantastic hit! There are lines around the block!”
“My biggest contribution to Star Wars was keeping my mouth shut and standing by the picture,” Ladd recalled. The film, later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, spawned a extensive multimedia franchise with an estimated value in 2020 of
$70 billion.
Described by one Hollywood tycoon as the “least dynamic person I’ve ever met”, Ladd owned up to being “pathetically shy and quiet by nature”. But his ability to listen and read character meant that he often saw potential where others did not. He had not been greenlighting Star Wars, he told Lucas, so much as greenlighting Lucas himself.
Alan Walbridge Ladd Jr was born in Los Angeles on October 22 1937, the only child of the actor Alan Ladd from his brief first marriage to Marjorie Harrold. His parents divorced when he was two and at first the boy lived with his mother, who later remarried, but after she developed health problems he moved in with his father.
He described their relationship as “basically non-existent”, and as he grew older he escaped his feelings of emotional deprivation and isolation by going to the cinema 20 or more times a week.
After service in the US Air Force and a brief stint working for his stepfather, Ladd joined a Hollywood talent agency, starting in the mailroom. He became an agent and built up a client list which included Joan Collins, Robert Redford, Peter Sellers, Natalie Wood, and Judy Garland, whom he described as “a little crazy. She’d call at all hours saying, ‘I cut my wrists, you’d better come over right away.’”
In 1969, Ladd moved to London to work as an independent producer, making nine films, including The Walking Stick, A Severed Head, Villain and The Nightcomers, which starred Marlon Brando.
He returned to the US in 1973 as head of creative affairs at 20th Century Fox. In 1976 he was appointed president of the film division.
His youthful film-going gave him an instinctive understanding of cinematic storytelling. It was he who advised the director Richard Donner not to kill off Damien at the end of The Omen (1976). The final scene, in which the infernal child calmly smiles at the camera as his “father’s” funeral procession rolls past, is one of the most chilling in cinema.
Mel Brooks recalled that he originally had trouble pitching Young Frankenstein (1974) to producers because it was to be filmed in black and white. Ladd, remembering the monochrome thrillers he had enjoyed as a lad, took it on. It proved a hit, though when Brooks came to him with plans for Silent Movie (1976) Ladd protested: “The first movie you make for me is in black and white, now you want to take sound away!” But that too was a hit.
Throughout his career Ladd won a reputation for promoting women, nurturing the careers of numerous female studio executives. It was he who suggested to the director Ridley Scott that Ripley, the spaceship survivor battling the salivating extraterrestrial intruder in Alien,
should be a woman, thereby launching the career of Sigourney Weaver.
Ladd also supported the British film
Chariots of Fire (1981), based on the story of the athletic rivalry between Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams. Fox put up 50 per cent of the finance in return for foreign distribution rights but could not be persuaded to distribute it in the US, the head of distribution telling Ladd that “it was the worst piece of garbage he had ever seen in his life”.
In 1979 Ladd left Fox, fed up with what he called the “management by objectives crap”, to set up his own production company, the Ladd Company, and picked up the film as his first project. Chariots of Fire went on to be nominated for seven Oscars and win four, including Best Picture.
In 1985, Ladd joined MGM/UA, eventually becoming chairman and CEO of Mgm-pathé Communications. It was he who recommended that the two stars of the female buddy road crime film Thelma and Louise (1991) be killed off in dramatic style at the end of the film – and suggested the moment should be caught in freeze-frame, with their car in mid-air.
While at MGM, Ladd was also given the script for Braveheart (1995), based on the story of the 13th-century Scottish hero William Wallace. He wanted Mel Gibson to play the lead but Gibson was busy on other projects.
Determined to see the film made, when he retired from MGM Ladd took the script with him, reformed the Ladd Company and signed a deal with Paramount. Gibson subsequently approached Ladd and was delighted when he agreed to allow him not just to star in but also to direct the film.
Things were not plain sailing. During filming in Scotland Paramount got cold feet and wanted to slash the budget, so Ladd brought in his old employers Fox as a partner. Braveheart went on to win five Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture, the award being presented to Gibson, Bruce Davey, and Ladd, whose acceptance speech consisted of eight words: “I’d like to thank my family. Thank you.”
“I never heard Laddie say so many words in my life,” the director Richard Donner told the Los Angeles Times.
Ladd’s last production credit was for
Gone Baby Gone (2007), a crime thriller which marked a directorial debut for Ben Affleck.
In 1959 Ladd married Patricia Beazley. The marriage was dissolved, and in 1985 he married Cindra Pincock. She survives him with three daughters. Another daughter died last year.