ROBERT RYAN - The Real Quiet Man

[MissGoddess]

"With his veiled stare, his weary face,and his bitter voice, Ryan trails behind him all the lassitude and solitude of the world."Thierry Génin, L'Avant Scène

Robert Ryan didn't like talking about himself, he let his work speak for itself, apparently. If left at that, many might get the impression this quiet actor was one of the meanest men in town, since the majority of his most vivid screen roles were tough, steely-eyed villains, bigots, psychotics and at least one "Jasper". Doing a little digging around I found the man himself to be quite different. Quietly, but firmly and decidedly, different.

Robert Ryan never rose to the ranks of fame as that of actors he deeply admired, men like Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and Gary Cooper. But don't get the idea that bothered him. Without that fame and the fuss that comes with it, he managed to fill out great parts and tower in the lesser ones and keep doing the work he loved, almost until he died.

He was also a study in contradictions:

**A Dartmouth graduate who majored in literature. And who was, in four years of intercollegiate boxing competion, undefeated (a record).


**An Ivy Leaguer who during the Depression would take on jobs such as ranch hand, male model, gold prospector, sand hog (he helped dig the Linoln Tunnel - many commuters don't thank you for it, Bob), stoaker aboard a steamer, and even as a loan collector. He had this to say about the last job:

"Here I was collecting money from families who hadn't
eaten in days. It was too much. I was bugged by it
and quit after two weeks."


**The tough boxing champ and future screen menace was, in fact, very shy as well as bookish:

"I am an only child, which can have a very
damaging effect. Moss Hart once said that
he thought all the people in the theatre,
or at least successful people, came from
an unhappy childhood. I don't know whether
that's true or not and I can't say that mine
was that unhappy, but it was quite often
a lonely one."


**The incarnation of bigotry in movies like Crossfire and Odds Against Tomorrow , he was always very liberal in his values:

"I have been in films pretty well everything
I am dedicated to fighting against."

"Ryan is a disturbing mixture of anger
and tenderness who had reached stardom
by playing mostly brutal, neurotic roles that
were at complete variance with his true
nature." John Houseman


**Seldom given the romantic lead, and anything but warm and fuzzy in his style, he in fact enjoyed one of the more relatively stable marriages (to one wife, actress/children's book writer Patricia Cadwalader) and homes in Hollywood. He and his wife also founded and helped direct the Oakwood School (right in their backyard) for children, a progressive school which still flourishes today.


**So natural a fit in the gritty, urban world of the noir, he slipped into a saddle in a number of memorable westerns with ease:

"There's a whole body of Americans, at least,
who think I've never made anything but westerns ...
But I am an urban character. I was born in the big
city. I also have a long seamy face which adapts
itself to Westerns - but I don't for one moment
consider myself a Western actor essentially."


**Remembered only as a screen tough guy, his first love was the stage, to which he would return at the drop of a hat. He helped organize a theater group at UCLA, was one one of the founders---along with Henry Fonda and Martha Scott---of the Plumstead Playhouse Repertory Company.

"You say Shakespeare
and I'll play it in the men's
room at Grand Central."


**After serving in WWII in the Marines as a drill seargent and seeing the effects of combat on returning soldiers, Ryan became a dedicated pacifist. His wife, coming from a Quaker background, shared his views.



I have enjoyed spending a little time getting to know the man behind the tough guy image---which was only partly true, for though he was tough, he was also humane and that does shine through his finest work.

If you are not familiar with his movies, don't miss:

On Dangerous Ground
Clash by Night
The Set-Up
Crossfire
Beware, My Lovely
The Naked Spur
About Mrs Leslie
God's Little Acre

Any others who admire this actor and would care to discuss him and his movies?

P.S. If you are a fan, don't fail to visit this marvelous site, which provided me with many of the Robert Ryan quotes I included here: http://www.hillebrander.de/ryan.html

[movieman1957]

I'd never classify myself as a fan but I always thought he was good. Frankly, the meaner he was the better I thought he was. I never set out to watch a movie because Robert Ryan was in it but he sure added a lot.

Enjoyed him in "Bad Day At Black Rock", "The Professionals", "Naked Spur", "On Dangerous Ground", etc. Never quite got him in "King of Kings."

He sure was busy so he had to be good.

[moira finnie]

Frankly, Miss G., this tribute you've put together celebrating Robert Ryan is long overdue.

His characters weren't pretty, but they were definitely memorable. I also liked the way that Ryan was constitutionally incapable of softening his portrayals to court the audience's taste or to be likable if the part didn't call for it. After all the movies that he did, many of them beneath his talent or only requiring him to paint a portrait in dark colors, that one discernible quality still shows through his work: integrity of character. Perhaps that's one reason why he hasn't received the laurels others have.

Still, there are some Robert Ryan movies, that I honestly can't watch. The man looks as though he's in pain in several of the more negligible projects, and, yes, I know that The Wild Bunch is actually among his best, but not for me. Of course, the fact that he used his obvious pain, aging hulk and sometimes self-disgust in his work--no matter what--might also mark him as an honest man and a conscientious actor.

My own private imaginary boxed dvd set of his work would include The Set Up, Act of Violence, Crossfire, On Dangerous Ground, About Mrs. Leslie, Lonelyhearts, Men in War, Odds Against Tomorrow and Billy Budd. He was also really devastating in his despair and cynicism in his last film, The Iceman Cometh(1973), (I wouldn't recommend watching that Eugene O'Neill "happyfest" movie if you're feeling down, btw.)

Despite these reservations, my appreciation of his work has deepened considerably over time. I think that may be because looking at his work, I'm increasingly reminded of the Latin phrase describing any depiction of a Christ figure or mankind in distress: ecce homo. I apologize if that sounds pretentious, but there is that quality in his body of work. Thanks for posting this, Miss G.


Robert Ryan in "The Set-Up" (1949).

[klondike]

I've always enjoyed Ryan in practically everything I've ever seen him in, and noticed early on a peculiarly twisted American nobility to his roles, almost regardless of the individual characters' backgrounds.
I often find myself subconciously classing him into the narrow but distinctive ranks of those might've-almost-been-good-guys, in company with fellow shadowy square-pegs like Dana Andrews, Sterling Hayden, Louis Heyward, Dan Duryea, Jim Davis, Albert Dekker, and occasionally, during an off-season, a sometimes-marquee player like Thomas Mitchell or Bruce Cabot or Herbert Lom . . men who shuffle bitterly through tight deals in dim places, struggling to maintain some few scraps of decency as the years of bargain-price dishonor pile ever higher on their shoulders. How a naturally weaselish looking/sounding little man like Richard Widmark parlayed himself out of that typecasting trap after springboarding to prominence in the original Kiss of Death, I find truly amazing!
On a personal note, my strange little "6 degrees" connection to Ryan is that my sister's father-in-law often liked to boast that coming out of an impoverished Polish immigrant family in central Massachusetts, attending Dartmouth College, and then returning to the Bay State to sweat away 40 years in a shoe factory, his one claim to "fame" was having graduated in the same class as Robert Ryan!!
Come to think of it, in my late 20's, I recall working with a bartender who hailed from somewhere in Texas, and mentioned in passing that he was a nephew of Dana Andrews . .
Hmmmm, you know, from that perspective . . seems almost like I came of age teetering in proximity to the edge of Noir!
Slim though it may be, it's sure still more fun & exciting than being a neighbor of Ken Burns!

(Brrrrrr!)

P.S: My favorite Ryan role? The heat-caked little 50's revenge drama, Inferno! I'm surprised Tarantino hasn't started crowing about this little gem!

[mrsl]

If you're ever curious enough to want to see Robert in a role entirely different from his normal type, check him out as Ginger Rogers fiance' in Tender Comrade (he's pretty good at those love scenes), or as the harried teacher in Her 12 Men with Greer Garson. Even in my favorite RR film, Ice Palace (about Alaska's fight for statehood) he was tough and tender as both a lover and a father. So he could be sweet and kind also on film.

Anne

[nightwalker]

I'd like to put in a word for some off-the-beaten-trail Ryan roles as well.

First, he plays a pretty regular-joe type hero in the 1953 CITY BENEATH THE SEA, co-starring Anthony Quinn as his partner. They play a couple of deap-sea divers searching for the treasure off Jamaica in this Budd Boetticher-directed opus. In this one, Ryan is the level-headed one and Quinn plays the hot-tempered member of the duo!

Second is the previously mentioned INFERNO, also from 1953. Ryan plays Donald Carson, a millionaire with a problem: he's been left to die with a broken leg in the southwestern American desert by his faithless wife (Rhonda Fleming) and her lover (Bill Lundigan). Ryan's journey, not only through the desert in an attempt to survive and seek retribution on his wife, but to becoming a man "unspoiled" by his wealth, is of more than passing interest. Also worth noting is Henry Hull's portrayal of a "desert rat" in the film's concluding segments.

Lastly, I'd also put in a word for his portrayal of embittered police detective Jim Wilson in ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1952), a man seared by his daily contacts with lowlife scum in the city. When forced to administer "discipline" on a couple of thugs, his anguished question "Why do you make me do it?" betrays a man "on dangerous ground" even before his captain assigns him to join in a manhunt in the country just to get him away from it for a few days.

[MissGoddess]

Moira---"Ecco" away, I find in it no pretense, just like Ryan's work.

Klondike---excellent observations, especially about Widmark---I've always wondered how he managed it. Maybe because he frequently pretended to be easy going in his characters---the audience knew he wasn't but they went along with it. Ryan never pretended anything, as Moira pointed out, if it was untrue to his conception of the character.

Anne---I haven't seen any of the three films you mention, yet, but I'm sure they capitalize on the inner vulnerability I saw in About Mrs Leslie, and even in On Dangerous Ground.

[MissGoddess]

Here are some more interesting quotes by and about the actor:

"Ryan's kindly, rather worried face and tired eyes are sometimes seen in completely sympathetic parts, but the emotion he conveys most effectively on the screen is hate." Ian & Elisabeth Cameron, The Heavies

"When McCarthy started, I expected to be a target simply because I was involved in things he was throwing rocks at. I never was a target. Now, looking back, I suspect my Irish name, my being a Catholic and an ex-Marine sort of softened the blow." RR

In the early Fifties Ryan and
his wife founded the private Oakwood School "which was a foolhardy thing to do, but we did it. We were dissatisfied with the education system where we lived in North Hollywood. The public schools were too crowded, the private schools were too full of rich kids. In the beginning we didn't have a clear-cut educational philosophy, it was watered-down progressive. For a while we had trouble with the more conservative elements in the community. When we ran up the UN flag, they threw eggs in the windows and at night they painted crosses on the building."

"Ryan's role as the anti-Semitic G.I. in 'Crossfire' is an extra-ordinary performance; full in terms of the character he was playing, of concealment, with a thin coating of restless charm covering a cancerous malignancy that threatened to break out and shatter everything."
John Cutts, Films and Filming

"As in many noir films, Robert Ryan delivers Clash by Night's most anguished performance. As the model of the alienated man, pain constantly flickers beneath the sardonic mask of his face, although he holds his mouth tightly in check, and his powerful body in a useless rigidity. Ryan etches a complex portrayal of an unhappy personality whose miseries are expressed in acts of cruelty, but who is accepted with some degree of audience understanding."
Julie Kirgo, Film Noir

"Generally, I'm fated to work in faraway, desolate places. As I said to Cary Grant one time - I told him how much I envied him because as the suave, charming, gifted man he is, he makes all his pictures in places like Monte Carlo, London, Paris, the French Riviera, and I make mine in deserts with a dirty shirt and a two day growth of beard and bad food. But that's an act of birth. As I said, I get all the worst locations because of the way I look." RR

One last word:

CARY GRANT to ROBERT RYAN:

"I want you to know that I just saw 'The Set-Up', and I thought your performance was one of the best I've ever seen."