Correct Answer : 2nd Mar 2022
Alan Ladd Jr., an Oscar-winning producer and former studio boss who, as a top executive at 20th Century Fox in the 1970s, was best known for greenlighting George Lucas’ landmark blockbuster “Star Wars,” has died at his home in Los Angeles.
Ladd died early Wednesday(2nd Mar 2022), daughter Amanda Ladd-Jones, who directed the documentary “Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies,” wrote on the film’s Facebook page. He was 84. No cause was given.
Once described as “one of Hollywood’s favorite sons,” Ladd was the namesake of the legendary star of the 1953 classic western “Shane.”
Known as Laddie, the shy and laconic Ladd was known as one of Hollywood’s most likable and respected movie executives and producers.
A former talent agent who became an independent producer in London in the late `1960s, Ladd became vice president of creative affairs at 20th Century Fox in 1973. Three years later, he was appointed president of Fox’s feature film division.
At Fox, Ladd reportedly was so enthused at viewing an early, smuggled print of “American Graffiti,” the 1973 Universal Pictures release directed by Lucas, that he leaped at Fox’s opportunity to do the young filmmaker’s next film: “Star Wars.”
“Laddie believed in me when no one else did and gambled on a young kid with a crazy idea for a science-fiction adventure — something that wasn’t exactly marketable at the time,” Lucas told Variety in 2007..
Source : Techi Live
