For our cover story on Robert Ryan, see J.R. Jones’s The Actor’s Letter: A reminiscence from film noir icon Robert Ryan, newly unearthed by his daughter, sheds light on his Chicago childhood – and his family’s connection to a tragic chapter in the city’s history. For more on Ryan’s filmography and an appreciation of his work, see “The Essential Robert Ryan.”
I was born on November 11, 1909, in Chicago, Illinois. We lived at 4822 Kenmore Avenue on the first floor in a six-apartment building. Chicago, then, as now, was the second largest city in America and the natives always speak of its three “sides”—north, south and west. There was no “east” side. The business and shopping center of Chicago is called the “Loop” because the elevated railway makes a complete circle around it.
Harry Bushnell had evidently passed up the chance to be a favored nephew of [text redacted] and had struck out for himself. He became a tramp printer (the term was not derogatory) and finally—was the editor and publisher of the Gladstone Michigan newspaper at the time my mother was born. Although I recall him as a charming old man who was very fond of me and forever buying me candy and ice cream, it is evident that his own children had no love for him. Even by the stricter standards of the time, he was a somewhat cruel parent. He at sometime became a very heavy drinker and allowed his wife to support the family. Subsequently there was a trip to the Keeley Institute (the cure) and he returned home never to drink again. Through my childhood and in my memory he was a job printer in the town of Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Mother and her brother Sam were extremely capable people and full of energy. Sam later moved to Australia where he lived for twenty some years as engineering head of the Wrigley Chewing Gum Company. Blanche was the gentlest of the children. Helen and Kendall—born much later were quite different—unlike their older sisters they were quite without pride and were of a coarser fiber although great fun and always very nice to me. Kendall had some talent on the violin—I later inherited his instrument and spent several untalented years sawing at it.
I can never remember when we didn’t have a telephone—the numbers were taken by a lady operator-and one of the most popular phonograph records of the day was called “Cohen On The Telephone”—a comedy bit full of the perils of early telephone talk. Very, very early in my life I remember the lamplighter—a solitary youth who went around lighting the street lamps. We had no automobile in those years and nearby travel was by streetcar and downtown travel (to the Loop) was by the elevated railway. Everybody walked much more than they do now, particularly in Los Angeles were walking is now historic activity.
We were up on the second floor in a rather small flat (one bedroom) and I slept in the living room in a pull-down bed known as the Murphy bed—a rather famous invention of the time and the subject of much humor. Chaplin once made a comedy (One A.M.) that featured only him and a Murphy bed. The neighborhood consisted mostly of Swedish-American families and almost all of my playmates were named Larsen, Anderson, Johnson, Hallquist, etc., etc. I went for one year to the Lyman Trumbull School which was all Swedish and then transferred to the Goudy School which was mostly Jewish. The intellectual life was a good deal livelier. At Goudy, I began to be put into plays by the teacher but this meant nothing to me except more work. The actor’s instinct was either extremely latent or non-existent—it was not to manifest itself for another seventeen years.
During these years my father had been working hard at the construction business and was beginning to prosper.
