Robert Ryan was unique among Hollywood stars for having been both an Ivy League graduate (Dartmouth, class of 1932) and an undefeated intercollegiate boxing champion, heavyweight class. Thus he brought to his acting career the unusual combination of a fine education and an authentic tough-guy reputation. In his early years out of college, he found work in a depression environment wherever he could, and toured the country in one odd job after another. When he ended up in California, he enrolled at the Max Reinhardt acting school, which led to a contract at Paramount Pictures, where he made his film debut, appropriately cast as a boxer in a B movie intitled Golden Gloves. He found steady work in small parts, with his first big break coming as co-star to Ginger Rogers in Tender Comrade (1943). This film was later cited as an example of how the Communist party had infiltrated the film industry. Both its director, Edward Dmytryk, and its screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, were among the original blacklisted Hollywood Ten. Ryan, however, was helped by his appearance in Tender Comrade, although his enlistment in the Marines in 1943 temporarily halted his promising career.

It was after the war that Ryan found real success as a movie star by being featured in a colorful dramatic role as a bigoted villain in Crossfire. His chilling performance not only earned him a nomination as Best Supporting Actor; it also tended to type him for the majority of the screen roles which would follow. His film persona relied on that of the smooth surface which covers a twisted interior. Ryan was a big man, six foot three inches tall, with dark hair and good looks. He might have become a traditional "handsome hero" leading man, but instead he began playing articulate villains, the kind who could talk their way out of places and build alibis for themselves in any kind of situation. In addition to the obvious acting skills such roles require, Ryan had the sort of Irishness viewers often associate with blarney. He added to it a suspicious smile and overly confident manner which seemed to suggest hidden strength and possible danger, an undercurrent of violence and cruelty. With these characteristics, he created a gallery of some of the most interesting villains ever seen on film, and built a career out of crime films, films noirs, melodramas, and westerns. For the majority of the movie-going public, he is most associated with the last genre. (Ryan himself referred to his "long, seamy face" as being perfect for westerns.) His appearance in such films read as a chronology of the development of the genre in the post-war period, from such classics as Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur through Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men, Budd Boetticher’s Horizon’s West, and Andre de Toth’s Day of the Outlaw to the iconoclastic film by Sam Peckinpah in The Wild Bunch.

Always an actor to seek challenge and a change, Ryan returned to the New York stage in 1954, starring in Coriolanus. From that time on, he moved back and forth from his film career to his stage career, creating successes in theatre both in Los Angeles and New York, and particularly finding praise for his outstanding performance in an excellent revival of The Front Page shortly before his death. Ryan was also a successful television performer, and in private life, he participated in various political causes, serving as a founder member of the Committee on Sane Nuclear Policy.

Ryan guided his entire career with intelligence and seriousness of purpose. Since his desire was to be more than a movie star, he willingly accepted roles which did not create a lovable persona. Because of this, he did not attract as large a following as some other stars. However, he always maintained a reputation for quality and reliability. Seen in retrospect, his quality places him at the center of film history, as he appeared in many films which, although not Oscar winners of their day, are now considered classics worthy of serious attention and study. Some of these films include House of Bamboo (Samuel Fuller); The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich); Caught (Max Ophüls); On Dangerous Ground and King of Kings (Nicholas Ray); Clash by Night (Fritz Lang), Men in War (Anthony Mann), Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges); Act of Violence (Fred Zinnemann); The Boy with Green Hair (Joseph Losey), and The Set-Up (Robert Wise). (The last film, a boxing movie which uses his fighting skills, was a particular favorite for Ryan.) In this way, history and time are making Robert Ryan into one of the most interesting stars of Hollywood films.

Jeanine Basinger