Alan Ladd was an actor.
Alan Walbridge Ladd ( September 3 , 1913 -- January 29 , 1964 ) was an American actor and film and television producer . Other notable credits include Two Years Before the Mast ( 1946 ) , Whispering Smith ( 1949 ) and The Great Gatsby ( 1949 ) . The Great Gatsby (1949 film) . The film stars Alan Ladd , Betty Field , Macdonald Carey , Ruth Hussey , and Barry Sullivan and features Shelley Winters and Howard Da Silva , the latter of whom would later appear in the 1974 version . Whispering Smith ( 1948 ) is a Western film starring Alan Ladd as a railroad detective assigned to stop a gang of train robbers .