1909-11-11 ( 115 years old ) in Chicago, Illinois, USA
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.
Movies
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
2002-07-02
Barbara Stanwyck: Straight Down The Line
1997-05-12
Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire
1991-07-15
Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend
1986-04-19
The Iceman Cometh
1973-11-10
Executive Action
1973-11-07
The Outfit
1973-10-19
The Man Without a Country
1973-04-24
Lolly-Madonna xxx
1973-02-21
And Hope to Die
1972-09-15
The Love Machine
1971-08-14
Lawman
1971-03-11
The Reason Why
1970-01-02
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City
1969-12-01
Simon and Garfunkel: Songs of America
1969-11-30
The Wild Bunch
1969-06-19
Anzio
1968-07-24
A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die
1968-02-08
Custer of the West
1967-11-09
Hour of the Gun
1967-11-01
The Dirty Dozen
1967-06-15
The Busy Body
1967-03-12
The Professionals
1966-11-01
Battle of the Bulge
1965-12-16
The Dirty Game
1965-06-23
The Crooked Road
1965-02-03
The Inheritance
1964-11-08
A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer
1964-04-13
Billy Budd
1962-11-12
The Longest Day
1962-09-25
King of Kings
1961-10-11
The Canadians
1961-03-11
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
1960-03-25
Ice Palace
1960-01-02
Odds Against Tomorrow
1959-10-15
Day of the Outlaw
1959-07-01
Lonelyhearts
1959-03-04
God's Little Acre
1958-09-23
The Great Gatsby
1958-06-26
Men in War
1957-05-03
Back from Eternity
1956-09-07
The Proud Ones
1956-05-15
The House Without a Name
1956-01-01
Lincoln's Doctor's Dog
1955-12-14
The Tall Men
1955-09-22
House of Bamboo
1955-07-01
Escape to Burma
1955-04-09
Bad Day at Black Rock
1955-01-13
Her Twelve Men
1954-08-11
About Mrs. Leslie
1954-08-03
Alaska Seas
1954-01-27
Inferno
1953-08-12
City Beneath the Sea
1953-04-21
The Naked Spur
1953-01-30
Horizons West
1952-10-11
Beware, My Lovely
1952-08-29
Clash by Night
1952-05-30
On Dangerous Ground
1951-12-13
The Racket
1951-10-25
Flying Leathernecks
1951-08-28
Best of the Badmen
1951-08-09
Hard, Fast and Beautiful
1951-05-23
Born to Be Bad
1950-09-28
The Woman on Pier 13
1950-06-15
The Secret Fury
1950-02-21
The Set-Up
1949-03-29
Caught
1949-02-17
Act of Violence
1949-01-22
The Boy with Green Hair
1948-11-26
Return of the Bad Men
1948-07-17
Berlin Express
1948-05-01
Crossfire
1947-08-15
The Woman on the Beach
1947-06-07
Trail Street
1947-02-19
The Notorious Lone Wolf
1946-02-14
Marine Raiders
1944-07-11
Tender Comrade
1944-05-30
Gangway for Tomorrow
1943-11-03
The Iron Major
1943-10-31
Behind the Rising Sun
1943-08-01
The Sky's the Limit
1943-07-13
Bombardier
1943-05-14
The Texas Rangers Ride Again
1940-12-13
North West Mounted Police
1940-10-22
Golden Gloves
1940-08-02
Queen of the Mob
1940-06-28
The Ghost Breakers
1940-06-21
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