Robert Ryan

Robert Bushnell Ryan, born in Chicago on November 11, 1909, was an American actor and activist who built a career spanning stage, screen, and television before his death on July 11, 1973. The son of Mabel Arbutus Ryan, a secretary, and Timothy Aloysius Ryan, whose family operated a real estate firm, Ryan was of Irish and English descent, with his paternal grandparents having emigrated from Thurles, Ireland. He was raised Catholic and attended Loyola Academy before enrolling at Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1932. During his four years at Dartmouth, Ryan held the school's heavyweight boxing title and also lettered in football and track.

Following graduation, Ryan took on a series of varied occupations, including working as a stoker aboard a ship bound for Africa, a WPA worker, and a ranch hand in Montana. He returned to Chicago in 1936 after his father's death and, following a brief period modeling clothes for a department store, committed to pursuing acting. In 1937 he joined a Chicago theater group, and the following year enrolled in the Max Reinhardt Workshop in Hollywood. His work in the 1939 stage production Too Many Husbands attracted the attention of Paramount Pictures, which signed him to a contract in November of that year at $75 per week, citing his boxing background when announcing he would lead the film Golden Gloves (1940). The lead role ultimately went to Richard Denning, and Ryan was cast in a supporting capacity, though the production marked his first credited screen role and initiated a lasting working relationship with director Edward Dmytryk.

Ryan appeared in small parts in several Paramount productions, including The Ghost Breakers (1940), Queen of the Mob (1940), North West Mounted Police (1941), and Texas Rangers Ride Again (1941), before the studio dropped him. He then turned to Broadway, where he was cast in Clifford Odets' Clash by Night during the 1941–42 season. Directed by Lee Strasberg and produced by Billy Rose, the production starred Tallulah Bankhead and Lee J. Cobb and ran for 49 performances. The high-profile engagement led to Ryan being signed to a long-term contract with RKO.

Ryan's Broadway career also included an earlier credit: he appeared on Broadway in 1928 in the play The Great Power. Later, in 1954, he appeared in an off-Broadway production of Coriolanus directed by John Houseman. His stage work continued into the early 1970s, when he won a Drama Desk Award for his performance in a 1971 revival of Long Day's Journey into Night.

At RKO, Ryan steadily rose from supporting player to leading man. He appeared in Bombardier (1943) and The Sky's the Limit (1943) before being elevated to star status opposite Ginger Rogers in Tender Comrade (1943), again directed by Dmytryk. He also co-starred with Pat O'Brien in The Iron Major (1943) and Marine Raiders (1944). In January 1944, Ryan enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served as a drill instructor at Camp Pendleton in Southern California until November 1945, during which time he befriended writer and future director Richard Brooks and took up painting.

Upon his discharge, Ryan returned to RKO and secured his breakthrough with the Dmytryk-directed film noir Crossfire (1947), in which he played an anti-Semitic killer opposite Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, and Gloria Grahame. The film was adapted from Brooks's novel The Brick Foxhole and earned Ryan an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He continued working prolifically through the late 1940s and early 1950s in films including The Set-Up (1949), directed by Robert Wise, in which he played an aging boxer who refuses to throw a fight — a role Ryan counted among his personal favorites — and the Anthony Mann western The Naked Spur (1953) at MGM. He co-starred with John Wayne in Flying Leathernecks (1951) and appeared alongside Barbara Stanwyck and Marilyn Monroe in the film adaptation of Clash by Night (1952), directed by Fritz Lang.

Ryan's later film work included a BAFTA Award nomination for his performance in Billy Budd (1962). Throughout his career he was recognized for his portrayals of anti-heroes and villains across film noir and Western genres, and he made his television debut in 1955 playing Abraham Lincoln in a Screen Director's Playhouse production.