Eileen Ryan

Eileen Ryan (born Eileen Annucci; October 16, 1927 – October 9, 2022) was an American actress originally from the Bronx, New York. Her father, William, was an Italian American who worked as both a lawyer and a dentist, while her mother, Rose Isabel, née Ryan, was an Irish American nurse. Ryan later adopted her mother's maiden name as part of her professional stage name. She earned a bachelor's degree from New York University.

Ryan made her Broadway debut in 1953 in the play Sing Till Tomorrow, and returned to the stage five years later in Comes a Day. Both productions had short runs. She was the wife of actor and director Leo Penn, whom she met in 1956 while performing in The Iceman Cometh at the Circle in the Square Theatre. The two married in 1957 and remained together for more than four decades until his death in 1998. Together they had three children: actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn, and singer Michael Penn. Chris Penn predeceased his mother in 2006. As her family grew, Ryan reduced her acting work and eventually relocated with them to the West Coast. Through the 1960s and 1970s she took on periodic small roles in television, appearing in programs such as The Twilight Zone and Bonanza, including episodes directed by her husband.

Ryan returned to acting more consistently beginning in 1986, when she appeared alongside her sons Sean and Chris in At Close Range, playing the brothers' grandmother. She went on to appear in Judgment in Berlin in 1988, directed by Leo Penn, in which she played the mother of Sean Penn's character. The following year she starred in Parenthood opposite Jason Robards — the same actor whose departure from The Iceman Cometh decades earlier had created the circumstances through which she first met her future husband. In 1995 she appeared in The Crossing Guard, directed by her son Sean. Two years later she returned to the stage in Remembrance at the Odyssey Theater, a production directed by Sean Penn in which she acted alongside her husband. Her final screen role came in the 2016 film Rules Don't Apply. Ryan died on October 9, 2022, at her home in Malibu, California, one week before her 95th birthday.