Ladd, a Toledo, Ohio native, graduated from Scott High School in 1945 and from Ohio State University in 1949 with degrees in radio and speech. As a child, he did impersonations of movie stars including Betty Boop. When Ladd was in high school, he liked a radio program for children called Let's Pretend, which dramatized children's stories, which would serve an inspiration for him producing anime. Upon moving to the New York City area, Ladd got a year-long job at an FM radiostation and then was employed at Cayton, Inc., an advertising agency that dabbled in film production. The agency acquired several naturedocumentaries, and Ladd was given the job of repackaging them into a feature film. Rather than an outright sale, the film was offered in trade to European distributors, in exchange for marketable local film productions. The deal resulted in the acquisition of animated cartoons, and Ladd was given the job of repackaging and dubbing the films for the Americanmarket. Ladd became the house specialist in the "Westernizing" of overseas animated programming. A 1937 Germanshort film on the future of space travelWeltraumschiff 1 startet was acquired, and the special effects sequences were excised by Ladd. His re-edited footage was augmented by new animated sequences and became part of a series entitled The Space Explorers which was syndicated to local TV stations from the late 1950s through the early 1960s. Ladd co-operated with William Cayton in producing a film and television serial version of the Czech film Journey to the Beginning of Time. Producer Norm Prescott employed Ladd to help reformat a 1965Belgiananimated featurePinocchio dans l'espace, which was released theatrically by Universal in late 1965 as Pinocchio in Outer Space. Prescott later brought Ladd in as co-writer and co-producer on his home-grown 1972Filmation feature Journey Back to Oz. But it was an earlier involvement with NBC-TV that helped open a new and enduring market to North America. In 1963, the network's distribution division, NBC Enterprises, had acquired the North American distribution rights to a Japanese animated series entitled Tetsuwan Atomu, and consulted with Ladd on how to market it. Ladd took the footage and created a pilot episode, eventually leading to the long-running series Astro Boy—the inaugural appearance of anime on Western shores. One incident happened where a samurai in the series was considered as violent. When Ladd flew to Mushi Productions in 1964 and explained the violent nature, they didn't understand, and they compared it to police brutality in the US. They wanted him to explain it, and Ladd just simply said it's because of cultural differences. Animation like a robber holding a rifle to a poor mans head begging for money and a bachelor seeing pictures of nude women were cut by Ladd by being over the top violence, and he explained to Tezuka about the nude women "Sorry, Mr. Tezuka, we couldn't save that, if I ended up with all those shots, we wound up with a 2 minute program." Ladd continued his involvement in early anime imports with Gigantor for Trans-Lux and Kimba the White Lion for NBC Enterprises. Later, Ladd was creative consultant for the 90's English dub of Sailor Moon for DiC Entertainment. Ladd was also responsible for having various black-and-white cartoons such as Looney Tunes, Betty Boop and Popeye and others to be redrawn colorized in South Korea during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Ladd currently resides in Los Angeles.
