by Hal Erickson
biography
Actor Dick Ryan made his first movie appearance in Monogram's Smark Alecks (1942), and his last in Paramount's Summer and Smoke (1961), an artistic stretch if ever there was one. Ryan usually plays doctors, judges, and prison wardens, with a few beat cops and bartenders thrown in. Accordingly, most of his screen characters were identified by their professions rather than by proper names. One of Dick Ryan's larger assignments was in the 1957 Rowan and Martin vehicle Once Upon a Horse, which nostalgically featured several Hollywood old-timers in choice roles.
