The Lives of Robert Ryan (Wesleyan University Press, 2015) suggests that actor Ryan led at least two lives: personal and professional. The dilemma of any writer of a biography (of which I read many), especially one about an artist, actor, writer, etc. is how to weigh and reconcile the various lives. Jones does a better job than most biographers of reconciling Ryan's roles as devoted husband, father and peace activist with his film roles as, often, a snarling villain. Ryan himself apparently viewed his usual $125,000 per picture as a way of supporting his family and helping the Oakwood School, a private progressive school that Ryan and his wife, Quaker liberal Jessica Cadawalader, started in California.
Fortunately Ryan did get to work with several good directors who were able to portray Ryan as a complex and sensitive person underneath the gruff exterior. These included Jean Renoir (The Woman on the Beach, 1947), Andre de Toth (Day of the Outlaw, 1959), Fritz Lang (Clash by Night, 1952), Nicholas Ray (On Dangerous Ground, 1951), Samuel Fuller (House of Bamboo, 1955) and, especially, three films with Anthony Mann (The Naked Spur, 1953; Men in War, 1956; God's Little Acre, 1958). And, near the end of his career, Ryan had a role in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch 1969, playing an older bounty hunter who wishes he had chosen another life. I only wish that Jones had gone more deeply into Ryan's performances in these films and his later ventures into theatre and how they were affected by what was going on in his life at each point.
In the sixties I would listen to Ryan's daughter, Lisa, call in to Larry Josephson's morning show on WBAI and she would emphasize Robert Ryan's commitment to SANE and other peace organizations that he supported during the Cold War. She hoped, as I do, that Ryan would be remembered as much for his work for peace as for his film roles.
No comments:
Post a Comment