Роберт Райан: Американский актёр и активист

American actor (1909–1973)

Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor and activist. Known for his portrayals of hardened cops and ruthless villains, Ryan performed for over three decades. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film noir drama Crossfire (1947).

Ryan was born in Chicago, the first child of Mabel Arbutus (née Bushnell), a secretary, and Timothy Aloysius Ryan, who was from a wealthy family who owned a real estate firm. He was of Irish (his paternal grandparents were from Thurles) and English descent. Ryan was raised Catholic and educated at Loyola Academy. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932, where he held the school's heavyweight boxing title for all four years of his attendance, along with lettering in football and track. After graduation, Ryan found employment as a stoker on a ship that traveled to Africa, a WPA worker, a ranch hand in Montana, and other odd jobs. He returned home in 1936 when his father died, and after a brief stint modeling clothes for a department store, he decided to become an actor.

In 1937 Ryan joined a little theater group in Chicago. The following year he enrolled in the Max Reinhardt Workshop in Hollywood.

In November 1939, Paramount signed Ryan to a six month contract and announced he would play the lead in Golden Gloves (1940), citing his boxing experience at Dartmouth. However, after a screen test with Gloves director Edward Dmytryk, the lead went to Richard Denning and Ryan was cast in a minor, but important role as a boxing "ringer". He had his first credited role, while making a lasting association with the director in which they would make several films together. In the same year, Ryan had small parts in The Ghost Breakers (1940) and Queen of the Mob (1940) as well as small roles in North West Mounted Police (1941) and Texas Rangers Ride Again (1941). Then Paramount dropped him.

Ryan appeared in Bombardier (1943), starring Pat O'Brien, and was fourth billed in the Fred Astaire musical The Sky's the Limit (1943), playing a friend of Astaire. Both films were popular. He was fourth billed in Behind the Rising Sun (1943), directed by Dmytryk, which was a huge box office success then third billed in The Iron Major (1943), with O'Brien, and Gangway for Tomorrow (1943). RKO promoted him to star status in Tender Comrade (1943), where he was Ginger Rogers' leading man, directed for the third time by Dmytryk. It was a big hit. Also popular was Marine Raiders (1944), in which Ryan co starred again alongside O'Brien.

Ryan enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served as a drill instructor from January 1944 to November 1945 at Camp Pendleton, in Southern California. Ryan's breakthrough role was as an anti Semitic killer in the Dmytryk directed film noir Crossfire (1947), co starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, and Gloria Grahame. Based on Brooks' novel, the film was highly successful at the box office, and received several Academy Award nominations including a Best Supporting Actor for Ryan's performance. Ryan co starred with Merle Oberon in Berlin Express (1948) for director Jacques Tourneur; it was the first movie made in Germany after the end of the second world war. He was reunited with Scott in Return of the Bad Men (1948), and with O'Brien in The Boy with Green Hair (1948). The latter film was directed by Joseph Losey and produced by Dore Schary, who was head of production at RKO. MGM borrowed him to make Act of Violence (1948) for Fred Zinnemann. He stayed at that studio to make Caught (1949) for Max Ophuls with James Mason. Back at RKO, Ryan had one of his best roles in The Set Up (1949), directed by Robert Wise, as an over the hill boxer who is brutally punished for refusing to take a dive. The Set Up was a favorite of Ryan's. He was top billed in The Woman on Pier 13 (1949), an anti communist melodrama directed by Robert Stevenson, that was made at the prompting of RKO's new owner, Howard Hughes. Ryan next appeared in several film noirs: The Secret Fury (1950) with Claudette Colbert directed by Mel Ferrer, and Born to Be Bad (1950) directed by Nicholas Ray. In 1950, the studio bought The Miami Story as a vehicle for him. He then made the Western Best of the Badmen (1951), and costarred with John Wayne in Flying Leathernecks (1951), a World War II film directed by Ray. It was announced he was working on an original film story called The Alpine Slide about avalanches, but no film resulted. In 1951, Ryan was reunited with Crossfire costar Robert Mitchum in The Racket, directed by John Cromwell; that same year, Ray again directed him in a film noir, On Dangerous Ground, with Ida Lupino. Ryan then made the film adaptation of Clash by Night (1952) with Barbara Stanwyck and Marilyn Monroe under Fritz Lang's direction. According to film critic David Thomson, "at RKO Ryan created the character of a modern neurotic such as the American screen had not dreamed of before." His last film at RKO for a number of years was Beware, My Lovely (1952) with Lupino, made for her production company.

Ryan went to MGM where he played a villain in Anthony Mann's western The Naked Spur (1953), starring James Stewart. The picture was very popular. He appeared in City Beneath the Sea (1953) for Budd Boetticher at Universal, Inferno (1953) at Fox, and Alaska Seas (1954) at Paramount. He was the leading man for Shirley Booth in About Mrs. Leslie (1954) and Greer Garson in Her Twelve Men (1954). The latter was made at MGM, now being run by Dore Schary, RKO's previous studio head, who cast Ryan as the head villain in Bad Day at Black Rock (1954). He appeared in an off Broadway production of Coriolanus (1954) directed by John Houseman. Ryan returned to RKO for Escape to Burma (1955) with Stanwyck. More widely seen was Sam Fuller's House of Bamboo (1955) and Raoul Walsh's The Tall Men (1955), both at Fox. By now his fee was reported as $150,000 per film. He starred in The Proud Ones (1956) at Fox, Back from Eternity (1956) at RKO, directed by John Farrow. He appeared in Men in War (1957) for Anthony Mann, made at Mann's company Security Pictures.

Ryan made his television debut in 1955 as Abraham Lincoln in the Screen Director's Playhouse adaptation of Christopher Morley's story "Lincoln's Doctor's Dog." As he explained to reporters, despite financial considerations, Ryan preferred to steer clear of any commitment to a TV series:
The only money in TV is in the series, and I want to stay out of those. Sure, I might make a million or so in a series, but I'd wind up being 'Sidewinder Sam' for the rest of my life. Ryan remained true to these convictions, appearing in many television series, but always as a guest star. He was in Screen Directors Playhouse, Mr. Adams and Eve, Goodyear Theatre, Alcoa Theatre, Playhouse 90 (playing The Great Gatsby), and Zane Grey Theater. He continued to star in features, however, including God's Little Acre (1958) for Mann and Security Pictures, Lonelyhearts (1959) written and produced by Schary, Day of the Outlaw (1959) for Security Pictures, and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) for Wise.

In the summer of 1960 Ryan starred opposite Katharine Hepburn at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut, playing Antony to Hepburn's Cleopatra. Ryan remained in high demand throughout the 1960s: he appeared in Ice Palace (1960) with Richard Burton; a TV version of The Snows of Kilimanjaro directed by John Frankenheimer; The Canadians (1961) for Burt Kennedy; played John the Baptist in MGM's Technicolor epic King of Kings (1961) for Nicholas Ray; was the villainous Claggart in Peter Ustinov's adaptation of Billy Budd (1962) for which he was nominated for a BAFTA. He also appeared in the all star war film The Longest Day (1962), playing James M. Gavin. Ryan returned to Broadway in the musical Mr. President (1962–63) by Lindsay and Crouse with music by Irving Berlin and directed by Joshua Logan; it ran for 263 performances. Ryan continued to appear in TV shows such as Kraft Suspense Theatre, Breaking Point, The Eleventh Hour, Wagon Train, The Reporter and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre. Ryan's only partial concession to featuring in an entire television series was his role as Narrator in CBS's 26 episode acclaimed documentary homage to World War One, released in prime time during the 1964–65 season. Ryan was considered for a role in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Norman Spinrad had written the script of the 1967 episode "The Doomsday Machine" with Ryan in mind to play Commodore Matt Decker, but Ryan had prior commitments. That role went to William Windom.

Ryan could be seen in The Crooked Road (1965) and The Secret Agents (1965), then the all star Battle of the Bulge (1965) for Phil Yordan and The Professionals (1966) for Brooks. Ryan supported Sid Caesar in The Busy Body (1967) and had a key supporting part in The Dirty Dozen (1967) for Robert Aldrich and Hour of the Gun (1967), playing Ike Clanton for John Sturges. Ryan played Othello (1967) in Nottingham, England. Ryan went to Europe for A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die (1968) and Anzio (1969) for Dmytryk. Ryan had the lead in Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969). Along with William Holden and Ernest Borgnine, Ryan was goaded by Sam Peckinpah during the making of The Wild Bunch (1969). After production in Mexico moved from Parras to Torreón, his request to take a few days off to campaign for Eugene McCarthy during the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries was denied by Peckinpah. In his biography Golden Boy: The Untold Story of William Holden, Bob Thomas wrote, "For ten days, Ryan reported to the set in makeup and costume. He never played a scene. Finally he grabbed Peckinpah by the shirtfront and growled, 'I'll do anything you ask me to do in front of the camera, because I'm a professional. But you open your mouth to me off the set, and I'll knock your teeth in. Ryan returned to the stage in a revival of The Front Page. It was one of the earlier productions developed by the Plumstead Playhouse (later the Plumstead Theatre Company), a Long Island based repertory company founded by Ryan, Martha Scott and Henry Fonda; the following winter, a film of the production (produced jointly by MPC and Plumstead) was broadcast nationally over the upstart Hughes TV Network. In 1970 Ryan, a heavy smoker, discovered he had inoperable cancer of the lymph glands. He decided to keep working, and said, "I've had a good shot at life."

Ryan supported Burt Lancaster in Lawman (1971) and John Phillip Law in The Love Machine (1971). He appeared in And Hope to Die (1971) with Jean Louis Trintignant for René Clément. In April 1971, Ryan returned to the stage to play James Tyrone in Arvin Brown's critically acclaimed Off Broadway production of Long Day's Journey into Night. He originally refused the lead in Lolly Madonna XXX (1973) with Rod Steiger because he wanted to take his wife to Europe, but she died of cancer in May 1972, and he ended up playing the part. "Something very big is missing and I don't know what to put in its place," he said. the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor (in a tie with Al Pacino, for Serpico), and a special award from the National Society of Film Critics. The Iceman Cometh and Executive Action both were released in November 1973, after Ryan's death. Ryan had signed to appear in a stage musical version of Shenandoah when he died. By the mid 1960s, Ryan's political activities included efforts to fight racial discrimination. He served in the cultural division of the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King Jr., and helped organize the short lived Artists Help All Blacks, with Bill Cosby, Robert Culp, Sidney Poitier, and several other actors. Ryan often spoke about the dichotomy of his personal beliefs and his acting roles. At a screening of Odds Against Tomorrow, he appeared before the press to discuss "the problems of an actor like me playing the kind of character that in real life he finds totally despicable." Ryan's roles as cynical, prejudiced, violent characters, often ran counter to the causes he embraced. He was a pacifist who starred in war movies, westerns, and violent thrillers. He was an opponent of McCarthyism, but appeared in the anti communist propaganda film I Married a Communist, playing a nefarious communist agent. In socially progressive films such as Crossfire, Bad Day at Black Rock, Odds Against Tomorrow and Executive Action, he played bigoted villains or conspirators.

On March 11, 1939, he married Jessica Cadwalader. They had three children: Timothy (b. 1946); Cheyney (b. 1948), a research fellow at Oxford University and a professor of philosophy and law at the University of Oregon; and Lisa (b. 1951). They lived in the Dakota at 72nd and Central Park West in Manhattan and eventually sub let and later sold the apartment to John Lennon and Yoko Ono.</blockquote>