Biography
This page uses content from the Robert Ryan biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 - July 11, 1973) was an American actor born in Chicago, Illinois. He is known to play hardened cops and ruthless villains throughout his career. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932, where he was also the school boxing champion. After graduation, not finding work to his liking, Ryan worked as a stoker on a ship, a laborer, and a ranch hand in Montana.
He attempted to make a career in show business as a playwright, but had to turn to acting to support himself. He studied acting in Hollywood and appeared on stage in small film parts during the 1940s. Robert Ryan enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corp in January 1944. He was trained as a drill instructor, assigned to Camp Pendleton. The extremely creative Marine took up abstract painting during his time at the Southern California barracks, producing a hellish self-portrait. It may have been a way for him to grapple with the inner battle stirred up by having to play the real-life role of a tough, no-nonsense marine trainer, all the while knowing that many of those fresh-faced boys would never survive the war.
Ryan was equally affected by many of the war veterans who did return. He watched as the wounded and crippled tried to cope with uncertain futures. He saw the horror behind the haunted gaze of those who had lived through unimaginable conditions, leaving comrades forever behind.
While he had made films starting in 1940, his productive career commenced after his discharge from the military. He also became involved in many liberal causes.
He married Jessica Cadwalader on March 11, 1939, and they remained married until her death from cancer in 1972; they had 3 children. He died from lung cancer in New York City the following year at the age of 63.
The role that first put him on the map was as the anti-semitic killer in Edward Dmytryk's 1947 film-noir Crossfire. From then on Ryan's speciality was tough/tender roles, finding particular expression in the films of celebrated directors such as Nicholas Ray, Robert Wise and Sam Fuller. In Ray's On Dangerous Ground (1951) he portrayed a burnt-out violent city-cop finding redemption whilst solving a rural murder. He played the over-the-hill boxer in The Set-Up (1949). Other important films were Anthony Mann's western The Naked Spur, Sam Fuller's uproarious Japanese set gangland thriller House of Bamboo, Bad Day at Black Rock, and the socially conscious heist-movie Odds Against Tomorrow. He also appeared in several all-star war films, including The Longest Day (1962) and Battle of the Bulge (1965).
In his latter years, Ryan continued playing key roles in major films. Most notable of these were The Dirty Dozen, The Professionals and Sam Peckinpah's highly influential brutal western The Wild Bunch.
Selected Films of Robert Ryan
- Golden Gloves (1940)
- Bombardier (1943)
- Woman on the Beach (1947)
- Crossfire (1947)
- Berlin Express (1948)
- The Boy with the Green Hair (1948)
- Act of Violence (1948)
- Caught (1949)
- I Married a Communist (1949)
- The Set-Up (1949)
- The Secret Fury
- The Racket (1951)
- Flying Leathernecks (1951)
- On Dangerous Ground (1951)
- Clash by Night (1952)
- Beware, My Lovely (1952)
- The Naked Spur (1953)
- Inferno (1953 film) (1953)
- Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
- House of Bamboo (1955)
- Escape to Burma (1955)
- The Proud Ones (1956)
- Men in War (1957)
- God's Little Acre (1958)
- Lonelyhearts (1958)
- Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
- King of Kings (1961)
- The Longest Day (1962)
- Billy Budd (1962)
- Battle of the Bulge (1965)
- The Professionals (1966)
- The Dirty Dozen (1967)
- Hour of the Gun (1967)
- Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)
- The Wild Bunch (1969)
- Lawman (1971)
- The Iceman Cometh (1973)
- Executive Action (1973)
- The Lolly Madonna War (1973)
See also
- film noir
- western
External links
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