Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.

Biography

On March 11, 1939, he married Jessica Cadwalader. They had two sons—Cheyney, a research fellow at Oxford University and a Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of Oregon, his oldest son, Walker T, a bluesman—and one daughter, Lisa. They lived in the Manhattan co-op The Dakota at 72nd and Central Park West and eventually sublet the apartment to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, according to The Lives of Robert Ryan, a biography of the actor by J.R. Jones published in 2015.

In the fall of 1951, a progressive school by the name of Oakwood was opened in Jessica and Robert Ryan's backyard, founded by a small group of parents who decided to create a school based on their views of education and child-rearing. Three years later, those parents, including the Ryans, Sidney Harmon and Elizabeth Schappert, Wendy and Ross Cabeen, and Charles and Emilie Haas bought and built the elementary school campus on Moorpark Street in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles.

Robert and Jessica remained married until her death from cancer in 1972. He died from lung cancer in New York City the following year at age 63.

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