calsfoundation@cals.org
July 3, 1918
Four-year-old Alan Ladd found a box of matches to play with and burned down the shabby apartment building that he and his mother lived in in Hot Springs (Garland County). He later rose from poverty and became an actor, starring in forty-seven films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. He often portrayed a solitary hero with a conscience and is best known for his title role in the classic western Shane (1953).