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Real name:
Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra
Date of birth: 19 November 1961, Fairfield, Connecticut (USA)
Parents: Harry Hyra and Susan Jordan (born Ryan)
Height: 5' 8" (1,73m)
Eyes: Blue
Education:New York University with a Journalism Major
Resides: Homes in California and Montana
Pets: Brown Labrador (Dave) Horse (Abraham)
Film Agent: ICM (International Creative Management) |
Two years into her degree, Ryan had the boon to earn an auspicious
feature-film debut in the supporting role of Candice Bergen's daughter in
George Cukor's Rich and Famous (1981). Encouraged by the experience, the
then-twenty-year-old dropped out of school and turned to the realm of
television for acting jobs, first appearing in an ABC after-school special
titled Amy and the Angel, and then in the recurring role of Betsy
Montgomery on the daytime drama As the World Turns. Departing the world of
soapy intrigue after the 1984 season, Ryan relocated to Los Angeles to
film the short-lived series Wildside. Undismayed by the failure of the
small-screen effort, Ryan decided to stay on and make a bid for movie
stardom. An appearance in Amityville III: The Demon (1983) did little to
recommend her to the movie-going public at large, but she gained good
notice for her next assignment, a solid supporting turn in the Tom Cruise
action movie Top Gun (1986), in which she was cast as the wife of Cruise's
naval fighter co-pilot, played by Anthony Edwards. Ryan and Edwards'
ultimately tragedy-tinged fictional romance translated into a short-term
real-life relationship.
In 1989, Ryan's winsome ways were showcased to best advantage in her very
first leading role, in Rob Reiner's definitive late-eighties romantic
comedy When Harry Met Sally . . ., which demolished box-office barriers,
thanks in no small part to Ryan's now-famous simulated-orgasm scene. The
sudden cinematic sensation had found her stock-in-trade characterization:
the slightly befuddled, occasionally daft, endlessly adorable, and always
endearing comic-romantic heroine. Her own private romantic life solidified
when she married Dennis Quaid, whom she had first met during filming of
the 1987 sci-fi flick Innerspace; the two subsequently became a couple
when they re-teamed for the botched 1988 noir remake D.O.A. Quaid
willingly underwent a stint in rehab for cocaine addiction prior to their
1991 nuptials, and by all accounts Ryan has made him a much happier man.
The couple's son, Jack Henry, was born in 1992; the family divides its
time between a home in Santa Monica and a hundred-acre ranch in Montana.
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