'Wonder Boys' Upsets

By Stephen M. Silverman

10/19/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Not everyone is enchanted by the new Michael Douglas movie "Wonder Boys." The family of the late '40s and '50s screen star Alan Ladd, in fact, is downright outraged. Variety reports that Ladd's survivors -- who include former studio chief Alan Ladd Jr. (or "Laddie," the man responsible for having given the green light to a little something called "Star Wars") -- are upset by a line in "Wonder Boys," in which the Tobey Maguire character spouts the name of Ladd, who died of a brain hemorrhage in 1964, as one of many celebrity suicides (along with Albert Dekker, Carole Landis, George Sanders and others). A disappointed Laddie told columnist Army Archerd, "My dad was not a suicide. But now try and explain that to five grandchildren."