![]() The latter film was directed by Joseph Losey and produced by Dore Schary, who was head of production at RKO. He was reunited with Scott in Return of the Bad Men (1948), and with O'Brien in The Boy with Green Hair (1948). ![]() Ryan co-starred with Merle Oberon in Berlin Express (1948) for director Jacques Tourneur it was the first movie made in Germany after the end of the second world war. Based on Brooks' novel, the film was highly successful at the box office, and received several Academy Award nominations including a Best Supporting Actor for Ryan's performance. Ryan's breakthrough role was as an anti-Semitic killer in the Dmytryk directed film noir Crossfire (1947), co-starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, and Gloria Grahame. However, his next film made with Joan Bennett, The Woman on the Beach (1947) directed by Jean Renoir, lost money. They immediately cast Ryan in the Randolph Scott western, Trail Street (1947), which was very popular. When Ryan was discharged from the Marine Corps, he returned to RKO. At Camp Pendleton, he befriended writer and future director Richard Brooks, whose novel The Brick Foxhole he greatly admired. ![]() Ryan enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served as a drill instructor from January 1944 to November 1945 at Camp Pendleton, in Southern California. Also popular was Marine Raiders (1944), in which Ryan co-starred again alongside O'Brien. RKO promoted him to star status in Tender Comrade (1943), where he was Ginger Rogers' leading man, directed for the third time by Dmytryk. He was fourth-billed in Behind the Rising Sun (1943), directed by Dmytryk, which was a huge box-office success then third-billed in The Iron Major (1943), with O'Brien, and Gangway for Tomorrow (1943). Ryan appeared in Bombardier (1943), starring Pat O'Brien, and was fourth-billed in the Fred Astaire musical The Sky's the Limit (1943), playing a friend of Astaire. It had a run of 49 performances, but was high-profile and led to him being signed to a long-term contract by RKO. He went to Broadway, where he was cast in a production of Clifford Odets' Clash by Night (1941–42), directed by Lee Strasberg and produced by Billy Rose starring Tallulah Bankhead and Lee J. In the same year, Ryan had small parts in The Ghost Breakers (1940) and Queen of the Mob (1940) as well as small roles in North West Mounted Police (1941) and Texas Rangers Ride Again (1941). He had his first credited role, while making a lasting association with the director in which they would make several films together. However, after a screen test with Gloves director Edward Dmytryk, the lead went to Richard Denning and Ryan was cast in a minor, but important role as a boxing "ringer". In November 1939, Paramount signed Ryan to a six month contract and announced he would play the lead in Golden Gloves (1940), citing his boxing experience at Dartmouth. Although he had done a screen test for them in 1938 and been turned down as "not the right type", the studio offered him a $75 a week contract. His role in the 1939 play Too Many Husbands brought an offer from Paramount. The following year he enrolled in the Max Reinhardt Workshop in Hollywood. In 1937 Ryan joined a little theater group in Chicago. He returned home in 1936 when his father died, and after a brief stint modeling clothes for a department store, he decided to become an actor. After graduation, Ryan found employment as a stoker on a ship that traveled to Africa, a WPA worker, a ranch hand in Montana, and other odd jobs. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932, where he held the school's heavyweight boxing title for all four years of his attendance, along with lettering in football and track. Ryan was raised Catholic and educated at Loyola Academy. He was of Irish (his paternal grandparents were from Thurles) and English descent. Ryan was born in Chicago, Illinois, the first child of Mabel Arbutus (née Bushnell), a secretary, and Timothy Aloysius Ryan, who was from a wealthy family who owned a real estate firm.
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