Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.
Ryan was born in Chicago, Illinois, the first child of Timothy Ryan and his wife Mabel Bushnell Ryan. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932, having held the school's heavyweight boxing title all four years of his attendance. After graduation, the 6'4" Ryan found employment as a stoker on a ship, a WPA worker, and a ranch hand in Montana.
Ryan 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 and in small film parts during the early 1940s.
In January 1944, after securing a contract guarantee from RKO Radio Pictures, Ryan enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served as a drill instructor at Camp Pendleton, in San Diego, California. At Camp Pendleton, he befriended writer and future director Richard Brooks, whose novel, The Brick Foxhole, he greatly admired. He also took up painting.
Ryan's breakthrough film role was as an anti-Semitic killer in Crossfire (1947), a film noir based on Brooks's novel. The role won Ryan his sole career Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. From then on, Ryan's specialty was tough/tender roles, finding particular expression in the films of directors such as Nicholas Ray, Robert Wise and Sam Fuller. In Ray's On Dangerous Ground (1951) he portrayed a burnt-out city cop finding redemption while solving a rural murder. In Wise's The Set-Up (1949), he played an over-the-hill boxer who is brutally punished for refusing to take a dive. 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), and The Dirty Dozen. He also played John the Baptist in MGM's Technicolor epic King of Kings (1961) and was the villainous Claggart in Peter Ustinov's adaptation of Billy Budd (1962).
In his later years, Ryan continued playing significant roles in major films. Most notable of these were The Dirty Dozen, The Professionals (1966) and Sam Peckinpah's highly influential brutal western The Wild Bunch (1969).
Ryan appeared several times on the Broadway stage. His credits there include Clash by Night, Mr. President and The Front Page, the comedy drama about newspapermen.
He appeared in many television series as a guest star, including the role of Franklin Hoppy-Hopp in the 1964 episode "Who Chopped Down the Cherry Tree?" on the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour. Similarly, he guest starred as Lloyd Osment in the 1964 episode "Better Than a Dead Lion" in the ABC psychiatric series, Breaking Point. In 1964, Ryan appeared with Warren Oates in the episode "No Comment" of CBS's short-lived drama about newspapers, The Reporter, starring Harry Guardino in the title role of journalist Danny Taylor. Ryan appeared five times (1956–1959) on CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater and twice (1959 and 1961) on the Zane Grey spin-off Frontier Justice. He appeared three times (1962–1964) on the western Wagon Train.
Acted in
A New Dimension in Noir: Filming Inferno in 3D
2017
as Self
Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade
2004
as Self (archive footage)
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
2002
as Sandy Dawson (archive footage) (uncredited)
Barbara Stanwyck: Straight Down The Line
1997
as Self (archive footage)
Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire
1991
as Self (archive footage)
Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend
1986
as Self (from Clash by Night [1952]) (archive footage)
The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn
1986
as Self (archive footage)
The Iceman Cometh
1973
as Larry Slade
Executive Action
1973
as Foster
The Outfit
1973
as Mailer
The Man Without a Country
1973
as Lt. Cmdr. Vaughan
Lolly-Madonna xxx
1973
as Pap Gutshall
And Hope to Die
1972
as Charley
The Love Machine
1971
as Gregory 'Greg' Austin
Lawman
1971
as Sabbath Marshal Cotton Ryan
The Reason Why
1970
as Roger
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City
1969
as Captain Nemo
Simon and Garfunkel: Songs of America
1969
as Self - Host
The Wild Bunch
1969
as Deke Thornton
Anzio
1968
as Gen. Carson
A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die
1968
as New Mexico Gov. Lem Carter
Custer of the West
1967
as Mulligan
Hour of the Gun
1967
as Ike Clanton
The Dirty Dozen
1967
as Col. Everett Dasher Breed
The Busy Body
1967
as Charley Barker
The Professionals
1966
as Ehrengard
Battle of the Bulge
1965
as General Grey
The Dirty Game
1965
as General Bruce
The Crooked Road
1965
as Richard Ashley
The Inheritance
1964
as Narrator (voice)
World War One
1964
as Narrator
World War I: The Complete Story
1964
as Narrator
A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer
1964
as Narrator (voice)
Kraft Suspense Theatre
1963
as Thomas Bollington
Billy Budd
1962
as John Claggart, Master of Arms
The Longest Day
1962
as Brig. Gen. James M. Gavin
King of Kings
1961
as John the Baptist
The Canadians
1961
as Inspector William Gannon
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
1960
as Harry Walters
Ice Palace
1960
as Thor Storm
Odds Against Tomorrow
1959
as Earle Slater
Day of the Outlaw
1959
as Blaise Starrett
Lonelyhearts
1959
as William Shrike
God's Little Acre
1958
as Ty Ty Walden
The Great Gatsby
1958
as Jay Gatsby
Alcoa Theatre
1957
as Trilbridge
Alcoa Theatre
1957
as Mike Ripetti
Goodyear Theatre
1957
as Frank Berry
Men in War
1957
as Lt. Benson
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956
as Matt Jessop
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956
as Cob Oakley
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956
as Sheriff Amos Parney
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
1956
as Captain William Kraig
Back from Eternity
1956
as Bill Lonagan
The Steve Allen Show
1956
as Self
The Proud Ones
1956
as Marshal Cass Silver
The House Without a Name
1956
Lincoln's Doctor's Dog
1955
as Abraham Lincoln
The Tall Men
1955
as Nathan Stark
House of Bamboo
1955
as Sandy Dawson
Escape to Burma
1955
as Jim Brecan
Bad Day at Black Rock
1955
as Reno Smith
Her Twelve Men
1954
as Joe Hargrave
About Mrs. Leslie
1954
as George Leslie
Alaska Seas
1954
as Matt Kelly
Inferno
1953
as Donald Whitley Carson III
City Beneath the Sea
1953
as Brad Carlton
The Oscars
1953
as Self
The Naked Spur
1953
as Ben Vandergroat
Horizons West
1952
as Dan Hammond
Beware, My Lovely
1952
as Howard Wilton
Clash by Night
1952
as Earl Pfeiffer
On Dangerous Ground
1951
as Jim Wilson
The Racket
1951
as Nick Scanlon
Flying Leathernecks
1951
as Capt. Carl 'Griff' Griffin
Best of the Badmen
1951
as Jeff Clanton
Hard, Fast and Beautiful
1951
as Seabright Tennis Match Spectator (uncredited)
Born to Be Bad
1950
as Nick Bradley
The Woman on Pier 13
1950
as Bradley Collins / Frank Johnson
The Secret Fury
1950
as David McLean
What's My Line?
1950
as Self - Mystery Guest
What's My Line?
1950
as Self - Panelist
The Set-Up
1949
as Stoker
Caught
1949
as Smith Ohlrig
Act of Violence
1949
as Joe Parkson
The Boy with Green Hair
1948
as Dr. Evans
Return of the Bad Men
1948
as Sundance Kid
Berlin Express
1948
as Robert Lindley
Crossfire
1947
as Montgomery
The Woman on the Beach
1947
as Scott Burnett
Trail Street
1947
as Allen Harper
The Notorious Lone Wolf
1946
as Plainclothesman (uncredited)
Marine Raiders
1944
as Capt. Dan Craig
Tender Comrade
1944
as Chris Jones
Gangway for Tomorrow
1943
as Joe Dunham
The Iron Major
1943
as Father Timothy 'Tim' Donovan
Behind the Rising Sun
1943
as Lefty O'Doyle
The Sky's the Limit
1943
as Reginald Fenton
Bombardier
1943
as Joe Connors
The Texas Rangers Ride Again
1940
as Eddie (uncredited)
North West Mounted Police
1940
as Constable Dumont
Golden Gloves
1940
as Pete Wells
Queen of the Mob
1940
as Jim
The Ghost Breakers
1940
as Intern (uncredited)