In an October 2009 cover story, “The Actor’s Letter,” Reader film editor J.R. Jones chronicled the Chicago upbringing of Robert Ryan, whom Martin Scorsese has called “one of the greatest actors in the history of American film.” Drawn from a short memoir Ryan wrote for his children, the story details his own father’s ties to the Democratic machine as owner, with his four brothers, of a construction company that built city sewers. Ed Kelly—chief engineer of the Chicago Sanitary District and later mayor of Chicago—was a frequent guest in the Ryans’ home, where the boy was exposed to both the egalitarian ideals of the Democratic Party (including, in Kelly’s case, a relatively progressive attitude toward racial equality) and the low cunning needed to secure power. “The Actor’s Letter” concludes in 1938, when Robert, a 28-year-old Dartmouth College graduate with no aptitude for business and a long work history of manual labor, set off for Hollywood to pursue a career in the movies.
[Ryan’s second son] Cheyney came home for the show, and Lampell recruited [Ryan’s youngest child] Lisa as a stage manager. Outside the concert hall, Seventh Avenue was mobbed with people trying to score tickets; inside, the performers gathered for a single rehearsal of the program. Dylan had brought his backup band, the Hawks, and when they launched into Guthrie’s “The Grand Coulee Dam” that afternoon and evening, the house went wild. After the evening concert, the performers all were invited back to the Dakota for a party at the Ryans’ apartment, which also drew Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and Allen Ginsberg. Lisa listened incredulously as her father—who loved to tease her with his Dylan impersonation—told the wild-haired singer how much he admired his music. “Bob [Ryan] sat on the floor with his kids all around him,” Lampell said, “and he listened to the singing, which lasted until two or three in the morning, and then a few of us stayed on rehashing what had gone on, and I had never seen Bob grin so much in my life.”
Public support for the war crumbled. Later that month, more than 500 Americans were reported killed in a single week, and the Selective Service System issued a new call for 48,000 soldiers. Ryan’s next picture, a Warner Bros. western called The Wild Bunch, didn’t start shooting until just after the New Hampshire primary, so the month before the vote he made himself available to the McCarthy campaign for the sort of retail politics his father had always practiced. Cheyney had decided to back McCarthy as well and stayed with his father a few times.
Scripted by Peckinpah and Walon Green, The Wild Bunch recalled The Professionals with its story of aging outlaws chafing against the modern age. The year is 1913: Pike Bishop (William Holden), Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), and their gang ride into a Texas town, disguised as soldiers, to steal a silver shipment from a railroad office, not realizing that Bishop’s old partner, Deke Thornton (Ryan), waits on the roof of a building across the street with a gang of bounty hunters. Meanwhile, Peckinpah follows the progress of a local temperance meeting as a sermon gives way to a march through town with a brass band. These three narratives intersect when the outlaws emerge from the office with their booty, the parade crosses in front of them, and a rifle fight erupts between the outlaws and Thornton’s crew. The next four minutes are complete chaos, with bullets tearing not only into people but out of them, and blood everywhere. The Motion Picture Association of America, representing the major studios, was in the process of scrapping the old production code in favor of a new ratings system, and The Wild Bunch would put it to the test.
These horrible events could only have exacerbated the ongoing tension on the set. Peckinpah was a terrible hothead, and he liked to goad and bully his actors. Holden and Borgnine both had run-ins with him, and according to Holden biographer Bob Thomas, Ryan lost his temper with Peckinpah as well. After the company moved to Torreon, wrote Thomas, Ryan asked Peckinpah for a few days off so he could do some campaigning, but the director turned him down. “For ten days, Ryan reported to the set in makeup and costume. He never played a scene. Finally he grabbed Peckinpah by the shirtfront and growled, ‘I’ll do anything you ask me to do in front of the camera, because I’m a professional. But you open your mouth to me off the set, and I’ll knock your teeth in.’”
Tension filled the convention hall: TV screens showed Chicago police clashing with protesters on Michigan Avenue outside the Congress Hotel, where Humphrey was staying. “When you were in the convention they had TV coverage everywhere,” said Cheyney. “And most of the time they weren’t showing what was going on in the convention, they were showing all these battles going on. . . . I was kind of bouncing back and forth. There was one night when I was there when all the police stuff was going on. And I remember another night I was actually in the convention. So it was quite an experience.” Disgusted with the whole situation, his father decided to go home, leaving Cheyney with the hotel room for another few days. Ryan missed the climactic police riot on August 28, but it was all over TV, and as the protesters pointed out, the whole world was watching. Anyone with a grasp of electoral politics knew what all this meant: Richard Nixon was going to be president of the United States. v
(Wesleyan University Press) By J.R. Jones
Jones presents Robert Wise’s 1949 film The Set-Up, starring Ryan, Sun 5/31, noon Music Box 3733 N. Southport 773-871-6604musicboxtheatre.com $10, $38 with a copy of the book
