by J. R. Jones
42. Gregory G. Hewett, The Heavy: The Somewhat Noir Life of Thomas Gomez, Hollywood’s Quintessential Character Actor (forthcoming).
43. RKO production file for The Woman on Pier 13, UCLA Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
44. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
seven. Learning by Doing
1. Jessica Ryan, notes for “Campaign–’52” (ca. 1970), private collection.
2. Jessica Ryan to Dido and Jean Renoir, n.d., Jean Renoir Papers, UCLA Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
3. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps” (ca. 1970), private collection.
4. Erskine Johnson, “Lazy Newcomers Irk Ryan,” Los Angeles Mirror News, December 2, 1959.
5. Bob Thomas, “Male Cheesecake! Robert Ryan Comments on New Trend,” Hollywood Citizen-News, July 11, 1949.
6. Laraine Day, oral history, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California, 201.
7. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
8. Reba and Bonnie Churchill, “Ryan Goes Romantic” n.p., n.d., Robert Ryan clipping file, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Madison, Wisconsin.
9. Bernard Eisenschitz, Nicholas Ray: An American Journey (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 127.
10. Ibid., 129.
11. Patrick McGilligan, Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 176.
12. Eisenschitz, Nicholas Ray, 513.
13. Franklin Jarlett, Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994), 43.
14. “Inside Stuff—Pictures,” Variety, December 7, 1949, 18.
15. Eisenschitz, Nicholas Ray, 130.
16. Richard B. Jewell, The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House, 1982), 143.
17. Michel Ciment, Conversations with Losey (New York: Methuen, 1985), 79.
18. Gerald Butler, Mad with Much Heart (New York: Rinehart, 1946), 6.
19. Butler, Mad with Much Heart, 121.
20. Lee Server, Screenwriter: Words Become Pictures (Pittstown, NJ: Main Street Press, 1987), 40.
21. Eisenschitz, Nicholas Ray, 155.
22. Joseph I. Breen to Harold Melniker, March 23, 1950, RKO production file for On Dangerous Ground, UCLA Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
23. Joseph I. Breen to Harold Melniker, March 20, 1950, RKO production file for On Dangerous Ground, UCLA Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
24. Eisenschitz, Nicholas Ray, 156.
25. Lamont Johnson, interview with Franklin Jarlett, August 17, 1986, private collection; also Franklin Jarlett, Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990), 62.
26. Norma H. Goodhue, “Crowded Schools Do Good Job Despite Difficulties,” Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1950, 1, 3.
27. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Peer J. Oppenheimer, “A Film Hero Fights for Better Schools,” New Haven Sunday Register, August 7, 1960, 12.
31. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
32. Ibid.
33. Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–1960 (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980), 362–63.
34. Greg Mitchell, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas—Sexual Politics and the Red Scare (New York: Random House, 1998), 215.
35. Jessica Ryan, notes for “Campaign–’52.”
36. Eisenschitz, Nicholas Ray, 162.
37. Nicholas Ray, I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray on Making Movies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 106.
38. Franklin Jarlett, Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990), 39.
39. Ray, I Was Interrupted.
40. Robert Ryan, open letter to parents in North Hollywood, January 1951, Oakwood School Archives, North Hollywood, California.
41. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
42. John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed,” in The Essential Dewey, vol. 1: Pragmatism, Education, Democracy, ed. Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998), 230.
43. Elsie M. Walker and David T. Johnson, Conversations with Directors (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008), 209.
44. Franklin Jarlett, Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990), 39.
45. Robert Ryan, “How Do You Remember All Those Words?” (ca. 1957), Jane Ardmore Papers, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.
46. Flying Leathernecks publicity, Lincoln Quarberg Papers, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.
47. Extension of Remarks of Hon. Richard M. Nixon of California in the Senate of the United States (Monday, August 27, 1951), Lincoln Quarberg Papers, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.
48. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
49. Ibid.
50. Howard McClay, “He Didn’t Look Like an Actor—But,” Los Angeles Daily News, May 20, 1952.
eight The Whiz Kids
1. Louis Berg, “Gentle Irishman,” Los Angeles Times, February 4, 1951.
2. Peter Bogdanovich, Fritz Lang in America (New York: Praeger, 1969), 81.
3. Rui Nogueira and Nicoletta Zalaffi, “A Bastard’s Long Career: Meeting with Robert Ryan,” Cinema 70 (April 1970): 50–51.
4. Axel Madsen, Stanwyck (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 291.
5. Jane Ellen Wayne, Marilyn’s Men: The Private Life of Marilyn Monroe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 49.
6. Bogdanovich, Fritz Lang in America, 82.
7. Richard Buskin, Blonde Heat: The Sizzling Screen Career of Marilyn Monroe (New York: Billboard Books, 2001), 96.
8. Ibid., 95.
9. Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck (New York: Crown Publishers, 1984), 233.
10. Lisa Ryan, e-mail to author, April 14, 2014.
11. Louella O. Parsons, “Robert Ryan: Nice Man to Have Around the Movies,” Los Angeles Examiner, February 10, 1952.
12. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
13. Harriet Parsons, “Battle-Scarred Ryan Is Home,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, December 12, 1965, 1, 5.
14. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps” (ca. 1970), private collection.
15. Ibid., 68.
16. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
17. “Films’ Biggest Mystery—RKO,” Variety, February 20, 1952, 3, 12.
18. “Hughes’ Commie Blast Viewed as Cue to Exit RKO; Mayer Report Up Again,” Variety, April 9, 1952, 3, 29.
19. Janet Leigh, There Really Was a Hollywood (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 159.
20. Jane Morris, “He Makes Living His Business” n.p., December 1952, Robert Ryan alumni file, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire.
21. Michael Munn, Jimmy Stewart: The Truth Behind the Legend (Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2006), 215.
22. Leigh, There Really Was a Hollywood, 159.
23. Nogueira and Zalaffi, “A Bastard’s Long Career,” 57–58.
24. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
25. Jessica Ryan, “Campaign–’52.”
26. Porter McKeever, Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy (New York: William Morrow, 1989), 215–16.
27. Jessica Ryan, “Campaign–’52.”
28. Robert Ryan, as told to Dick Pine, “The
Trouble with Me Is,” Movieland, June 1951, 21, 79.
29. Jessica Ryan, “Campaign–’52.”
30. Jessica Ryan, notes for “Campaign–’52.”
31. Jessica Ryan, “Campaign–’52.”
32. Jessica Ryan, notes for “Campaign–’52.”
33. Ibid.
34. Robert Wallsten, interview with Franklin Jarlett, May 1986, private collection.
35. Jessica Ryan, notes for “Campaign–’52.”
36. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
37. Jessica Ryan, notes for “Campaign–’52.”
38. Roy Ward Baker, The Director’s Cut: A Memoir of 60 Years in Film and Television (London: Reynolds and Hearn, 2000), 82.
39. Ibid., 83.
40. Rhonda Fleming, e-mail to author, August 21, 2012.
41. “Acts of Birth: Robert Ryan,” Films and Filming, March 1971, 28.
42. M. Nichols, “Robert Ryan—Hero and Heel,” Coronet, January 1960, 16.
43. John Houseman, Front and Center (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 423.
44. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
45. Charles Haas, interview with author, Studio City, California, April 20, 2011.
46. Ibid.
47. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
48. Charles Haas, interview with author.
49. Jeanne Stein, “Robert Ryan: Unlike Most Handsome Actors He Was Willing to Be a Heavy,” Films in Review (January 1968): 21.
50. Albert Hackett, interview with Franklin Jarlett, August 1986, private collection; also Glenn Loney, “In the Words of Robert Ryan,” Cue, July 11, 1970, 11.
51. Houseman, Front and Center, 438.
nine Rum, Rebellion, and Ryan
1. John Houseman, Front and Center (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 436.
2. William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, in The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 1.1.170–72, 82–84. References are to act, scene, and line.
3. Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 3.1.138–39.
4. Denis Brian, Tallulah, Darling: A Biography of Tallulah Bankhead (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 84–85.
5. Howard McClay, “Shakespeare Summons Bob Ryan,” Los Angeles Daily News, March 24, 1954.
6. Houseman, Front and Center, 437.
7. Robert Ryan, as told to Naomi Engelsman, “Backstage with Us Ryans,” Parents (September 1954): 130.
8. George Shea, “Shakespeare on Treason,” review of Coriolanus, Wall Street Journal, January 21, 1954, 10.
9. Brooks Atkinson, “Again, the Phoenix,” review of Coriolanus, New York Times Book Review, January 24, 1954, X1.
10. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps” (ca. 1970), private collection.
11. Ibid., 130.
12. Howard Breslin, “Bad Time at Honda,” American (January 1947): 41, 136.
13. Ibid., 138.
14. Kenneth MacKenna, interoffice memo to Dore Schary, June 10, 1954, Dore Schary Papers, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Madison, Wisconsin.
15. Tom Weaver, They Fought in the Creature Features (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995), 163.
16. “Acts of Birth: Robert Ryan,” Films and Filming, March 1971, 27.
17. Glenn Lovell, Escape Artist: The Life and Films of John Sturges (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 103.
18. James Curtis, Spencer Tracy (London: Hutchinson, 2011), 673.
19. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
20. Lisa Ryan, telephone interview with author, October 3, 2009.
21. Erskine Johnson column, Los Angeles Daily News, July 7, 1951.
22. Ryan, “Backstage with Us Ryans,” 128.
23. Jessica Ryan, “If School Keeps.”
24. James Naughton, telephone interview with author, July 18, 2012.
25. Millard Lampell, interview with Franklin Jarlett, March 10, 1987, private collection.
26. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, September 22, 2012.
27. Roy Norr, “Cancer by the Carton,” Reader’s Digest, September 1952, 739.
28. John O’Hara, review of Bad Day at Black Rock, Collier’s, March 18, 1955.
29. Robert Hatch, review of Bad Day at Black Rock, Nation, February 19, 1955, 165.
30. Samuel Fuller, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking (New York: Knopf, 2002), 317.
31. Fuller, A Third Face, 315.
32. Rui Nogueira and Nicoletta Zalaffi, “A Bastard’s Long Career: Meeting with Robert Ryan,” Cinema 70 (April 1970): 56.
33. Lee Server, Sam Fuller: Film Is a Battleground (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994), 115.
34. Fuller, A Third Face, 316.
35. Jessica Ryan to Dido and Jean Renoir, April 8, 1955, Jean Renoir Papers, UCLA Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
36. William Otterburn-Hall, “A Good Bad Man Is Hard to Find,” Louisville Courier-Journal and Times, June 7, 1970, E4.
37. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, September 22, 2012.
38. Otterburn-Hall, “A Good Bad Man Is Hard to Find.”
ten The Gates of War
1. Robert Ryan, as told to Jane Kesner Ardmore, “What Makes an Actor Tick?” (ca. 1957), Jane Ardmore Papers, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.
2. Jane Morris, “He Makes Living His Business” n.p., December 1952. Robert Ryan alumni file, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire.
3. Philip Yordan, interview with Franklin Jarlett, October 27, 1986, private collection; also Franklin Jarlett, Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990), 48.
4. Patrick McGilligan, Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 361.
5. Ibid., 181.
6. Ibid., 182.
7. Ibid., 357.
8. Robert Ryan, as told to Jane Kesner Ardmore, “What Makes an Actor Tick?” (ca. 1957), Jane Ardmore Papers, Margaret Herrick Library Special Collections, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.
9. Toya Harrison, interview with author, Studio City, California, April 20, 2011.
10. Chalmers M. Roberts, “Adlai Calls for All-Out Final Drive,” Washington Post and Times Herald, October 21, 1956, A1.
11. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
12. Dartmouth Alumnus, December 1956, Dartmouth Alumni File, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
13. Jean Giraudoux, Tiger at the Gates, trans. Christopher Fry (London: Samuel French, 1955), 25.
14. Ibid., 11.
15. Ibid., 48.
16. Harold J. Kennedy, No Pickle, No Performance: An Irreverent Theatrical Excursion from Tallulah to Travolta (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978), 128.
17. Ibid., 129.
18. “Actor Robert Ryan’s Mother Injured by Auto,” Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1957.
19. Kennedy, No Pickle, No Performance, 128.
20. Richard L. Coe, “Here’s One Not to Miss,” review of Men in War, Washington Post, March 9, 1957, D9.
21. Philip Scheuer, “Suspense Pulses in ‘Men in War,’” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1957, F1.
22. “Expansion Program on at Oakwood,” San Fernando Valley Mirror-News, May 30, 1957.
23. Lamont Johnson, interview with Franklin Jarlett, August 17, 1986, private collection; also Franklin Jarlett, Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland: 1990), 66.
24. Marie Spottswood, “Such a Resource in One Individual,” in A Memorial Tribute for the Robert and Jessica Ryan Memorial, November 3, 1974, Oakwood School archives, North Hollywood, California.
25. Robert Wallsten, interview with Franklin Jarlett, May 1986, private collection.
26. Erskine Cal
dwell, God’s Little Acre (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 88.
27. “Harmon-Mann Solicit No Seal for ‘God’s Little Acre,’ Tell Why,” Variety, April 3, 1957, 10.
28. Philip Yordan, interview with Franklin Jarlett, October 27, 1986, private collection.
29. Lisa Ryan, interview with author, San Francisco, California, April 17, 2011.
30. Robert Ryan to Corey Ford, October 28, 1957, Dartmouth Boxing Club File, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
31. Albert Schweitzer, “Declaration of Conscience,” Saturday Review, May 18, 1957, 20.
32. Norman Cousins, interview with Franklin Jarlett, June 1, 1987, private collection; also Jarlett, Robert Ryan, 108.
33. Joseph Wershba, “Outspoken Actor,” New York Post, March 7, 1963.
34. Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts and Day of the Locust (New York: New Directions, 1962), 1.
35. Jeanne Stein, “Robert Ryan: Unlike Most Handsome Actors He Was Willing to Be a Heavy,” Films in Review 9, no. 1 (January 1968): 22.
36. Lisa Ryan, interview with author, San Francisco, California, April 17, 2011.
37. Patricia Bosworth, Montgomery Clift: A Biography (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), 300.
38. Cheyney Ryan, interview with author, Eugene, Oregon, April 15, 2011.
39. James Kotsilibas-Davis and Myrna Loy, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming (New York: Knopf, 1987), 287.
40. Stanley Kaufmann, “Far East and Far Off,” review of Lonelyhearts, New Republic, February 2, 1959, 21.
41. Dwight Macdonald, “No Art and No Box Office,” Esquire (March 1959): 66.
42. Pat O’Brien, The Wind at My Back (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 309.
43. “Public, Not Producers, Guilty of Typing Actors: Bob Ryan,” Variety, May 23, 1958.
44. “Sees Participation Deal as ‘Income Roulette,’” Motion Picture Herald, October 24, 1959.
45. Anthony Slide, ed., De Toth on De Toth: Putting the Drama in Front of the Camera (London: Faber and Faber, 1996), 142.
46. Philip Yordan, interview with Franklin Jarlett, October 27, 1986, private collection.
47. Franklin Jarlett, Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990), 103.
eleven Beautiful Creatures
1. Andy Harmon, telephone interview with author, May 17, 2012.