- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRobert Bushnell Ryan
- Height6′ 3¾″ (1.92 m)
- Distinguished U.S. actor and longtime civil rights campaigner Robert Bushnell Ryan was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Mable Arbutus (Bushnell), a secretary, and Timothy Aloysius Ryan, whose wealthy family owned a real estate firm. His father was of Irish ancestry, and his mother was of English and Irish descent. Ryan served in the United States Marines as a drill sergeant (winning a boxing championship) and went on to become a key figure in post WWII American Film Noir and western productions.
Ryan grabbed critical attention for his dynamic performances as an anti-Semitic bully in the superb Crossfire (1947), as an over-the-hill boxer who refuses to take a fall in The Set-Up (1949) and as a hostile & jaded cop in On Dangerous Ground (1951). Ryan's athletic physique, intense gaze and sharply delivered, authoritarian tones made him an ideal actor for the oily world of the Film Noir genre, and he contributed solid performances to many Film Noir features, usually as a vile villain. Ryan played a worthy opponent for bounty hunter James Stewart in the Anthony Mann directed western The Naked Spur (1953), he locked horns with an intrepid investigator Spencer Tracy in the suspenseful Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and starred alongside Harry Belafonte in the grimy, gangster flick Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Plus, the inventive Ryan excelled as the ruthless "John Claggart" in Billy Budd (1962), and two different WWII US generals - first in the star-filled The Longest Day (1962) and then in Battle of the Bulge (1965).
For the next eight years prior to his untimely death in 1973, Ryan landed some tremendous roles in a mixture of productions each aided by his high-caliber acting skills leaving strong impressions on movie audiences. He was one of the hard men hired to pursue kidnapped Claudia Cardinale in the hard boiled action of The Professionals (1966), a by-the-book army colonel clashing with highly unorthodox army major Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen (1967), and an embittered bounty hunter (again) forced to hunt down old friend William Holden in the violent Sam Peckinpah western classic The Wild Bunch (1969). Ryan's final on-screen performance was in the terrific production of The Iceman Cometh (1973) based on the Eugene O'Neill play and also starring Lee Marvin and Fredric March.
Legend has it that Sam Peckinpah clashed very heatedly with Ryan during the making of The Wild Bunch (1969); however Peckinpah eventually backed down when a crew member reminded Sam of Robert Ryan's proficiency with his fists!
Primarily a man of pacifist beliefs, Ryan often found it a challenge playing sadistic and racist characters who very much were at odds with his own personal ideals. Additionally, Ryan actively campaigned for improved civil rights, restricting the growth of nuclear weapons, and he strongly opposed McCarthyism and its abuse of people who many believed were innocent. A gifted, intelligent and powerful actor, Robert Ryan passed away on July 11th, 1973 of lung cancer.- IMDb Mini Biography By: firehouse44@hotmail.com
- SpouseJessica Cadwalader(March 11, 1939 - 1972) (her death, 3 children)
- ChildrenRyan, CheyneyRyan, LisaTim Ryan
- ParentsTimothy RyanMabel Bushnell Ryan
- Often played stern authority figures, in sharp contrast to his real life persona.
- Often played serious, temperamental men of action.
- Chicago accent
- Towering height
- Intense acting style
- Served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1944 to 1947.
- Ryan managed to get along with John Wayne while filming Flying Leathernecks (1951), although he was appalled by Wayne's active support for blacklisting in Hollywood. However the two stars did not get along at all while filming The Longest Day (1962).
- Shortly before his death from lung cancer at the age of sixty-three, Ryan publicly denounced his heavy use of cigarettes as the cause of his illness.
- Shortly before his death, Ryan moved out of his apartment (number 72) at the Dakota in New York City. Ryan leased (and then his estate later sold) the apartment to John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
- Actors Jeff Bridges and Kris Kristofferson have both cited Ryan as their favorite actor.
- [on being listed as one of the screen's all-time best heavies] I guess they never saw me in most of my pictures. Still, I've never stopped working so I can't complain.
- [on young actors] Each one assumes that his mere presence is God's gift to humanity and he finds out over the years that this isn't the case, but that the acquisition of the skills is equally important. You find out that the essence of it is simplification.
- [on the 'amazing experience' of old Hollywood] The conformity of the material was a problem, true. But the old system had virtues. [They] would gamble once in a while on an offbeat picture... We all had to go to film school, and we worked in hordes of pictures - B pictures - which were shot very fast.
- [on why he never became a target of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the Red-baiting HUAC, despite being known for his left-of-center politics] I was involved in the things he was throwing rocks at but I was never a target. Looking back, I suspect my Irish name, my being a Catholic and an ex-Marine sort of softened the blow.
- The Iceman Cometh (1973) - $25 .000
- Trail Street (1947) - $22 .850
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