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Meg Ryan
I won’t get into Meg’s stuff, but she of all people had a reason to be a pessimist about life . . . So I decided I was going to be an optimist . . . like Meg.
— Dennis Quaid
NOT since silent screen star Mary Pickford has the title of America’s Sweetheart been given such a workout as it has in application to Meg Ryan. Other words often invoked to describe the disarming blonde actress: bubbly, screwball, perky, ethereal, charming, sparkling, whimsical, petite, and that attribute to end all attributes, nice. While other contenders for the sweetheart crown — say the Julia Robertses and Sandra Bullocks of Hollywood — have had their golden-girl images tarnished by sensationalized accounts of their off-screen conduct or by just plain bad career moves, the cutesome Ryan has maintained her hallowed girl-next-door appeal by brandishing her fetching personality on-screen, and by living beyond reproach away from it. Well, for the most part.
Born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra in Fairfield, Connecticut, Meg, or Peggy, as she was then called, didn’t exactly have an effervescence-inducing upbringing. When she was 15, her homemaker mother Susan abandoned the family to become an actress, leaving father Harry, a high school math teacher and coach, to raise their four children. It was Meg, of course, who would become the actress — her and her mother’s shared love of emoting wouldn’t prove enough to ameliorate their shattered relationship. A popular, charismatic, and academically successful student at Bethel High School, Meg enrolled at the University of Connecticut to study journalism following graduation. Her mother helped her secure a Screen Actors Guild card under her maiden name — Ryan — and Meg was subsequently able to pay her tuition in large part with the money she earned from appearances in television commercials.
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-20-year-old dropped out of school and turned to the realm of television for acting jobs, first appearing in an ABC Afterschool 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 moviegoing public at large, but she gained good notice for her next assignment, a solid supporting turn in the jingoistic Tom Cruise actioner 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-’80s 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 daffy, 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 made him a much happier man. The couple’s son, Jack Henry, was born in 1992. One of the best examples of marriage, Hollywood-style, Ryan and Quaid’s summer 2000 announcement that they were separating took many by surprise. As did tabloid rumors that one of the primary reasons for the unraveling of their marriage was Ryan’s alleged romantic entanglement with her Proof of Life co-star, Russell Crowe.
Professionally, the former high school homecoming queen reigned again in Nora Ephron’s unabashedly gimmicky button-pusher Sleepless in Seattle (1993), in which her hopelessly romantic Baltimore journalist discovers fated love with continent-divided kindred Tom Hanks, he a Seattlite widower. Despite creditable supporting and leading dramatic roles — like her performance as a trampy drifter in the disturbing true-life tragedy Promised Land (1988); her portrayal of Jim Morrison’s druggy girlfriend in The Doors (1991); and her gut-wrenching turn as a charming alcoholic wife in When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) — audiences have come to prefer Ryan in romantic comedies, and her riskier, darker screen efforts tend to be eclipsed by the sunny attractions of her more popular lightweight screen persona. Not that all of her sentimental turns have made for blockbuster successes: 1990’s chimerical fable Joe Versus the Volcano, in which she played three different characters, missed the mark; 1992’s fantasy-romance A Prelude to a Kiss, despite its admittedly fine performances by Ryan and co-star Alec Baldwin, was a strained effort in the final analysis; and 1994’s I.Q., in which Ryan starred as a egghead professor estranged from the more romantic pursuits of life, fell decidedly flat.
Ryan made a strong stake in the business side of filmmaking in 1993, when she established her own Fox-based production company, Fandango Films (now Prufrock Pictures). She returned to her screwball comedy roots for her feature producing debut, 1995’s only modestly entertaining French Kiss, which partnered her with a roguish Kevin Kline. Following a captivating supporting turn in the hip period piece Restoration (also 1995), the slight, prepossessing actress convincingly portrayed a medevac helicopter pilot in Courage Under Fire (1996), a soldierly drama that teamed her with Denzel Washington and a then-unknown Matt Damon. Though she slightly tarnished her sweetness-and-light reputation with her darkly waggish performance as a jilted girlfriend with revenge on her mind in Griffin Dunne’s feature-directorial debut Addicted to Love, Ryan reaffirmed her standing as a cinematic sweetheart nonpareil by voicing 1997’s most comely animated damsel in distress, Anastasia. The next year, she starred as a heart surgeon who discovers unearthly romance with a beatific Nicolas Cage in City of Angels, a film loosely based on the Wim Wenders classic Wings of Desire; reunited in romance with Tom Hanks in the Warner Bros. comedy You’ve Got Mail, about a pair of co-workers who unwittingly fall for each other via an online correspondence; and joined the A-list cast of director Anthony Drazan’s film adaptation of the David Rabe play Hurlyburly. Next up for Ryan: a remake of the 1939 classic The Women that will partner her in on-screen back-biting and off-screen producing with Julia Roberts.
Occupation: Actress, Producer
Date of Birth: November 19, 1961
Place of Birth: Fairfield, Conn., USA
Sign: Sun in Scorpio, Moon in Aries
Relations: Husband (separated): Dennis Quaid; kid: Jack Henry; father: Harry Hyra (teacher); mother: Susan Jordan; siblings: Dana, Annie, Andrew
Education: University of Connecticut
Meg Ryan: Credits
MOVIES
Actor
Hanging Up — 2000
You’ve Got Mail — 1998
City of Angels — 1998
Hurlyburly — 1998
Addicted to Love — 1997
Courage Under Fire — 1996
Restoration — 1995
French Kiss — 1995
When a Man Loves a Woman — 1994
I.Q. — 1994
A Century of Cinema — 1994
Flesh and Bone — 1993
Sleepless in Seattle — 1993
Prelude to a Kiss — 1992
The Doors — 1991
Joe Versus the Volcano — 1990
When Harry Met Sally … — 1989
Promised Land — 1988
D.O.A. — 1988
The Presidio — 1988
Innerspace — 1987
Armed and Dangerous — 1986
Top Gun — 1986
Amityville 3-D/Amityville III: The Demon — 1983
Rich and Famous — 1981
Producer
French Kiss — 1995
Other Movie Credits
Anastasia — 1997 (Voice only)
TV
Celebrate Storytelling With Tracey Ullman — 1994 (Narrator)
The New Adventures of Captain Planet — 1990 (Series; voice only)
Red Riding Hood/Goldilocks — 1990 (Special; narrator)
Wildside — 1985 ( )
Charles in Charge — 1984 (Series)
One of the Boys — 1982 (Series)
As the World Turns — 1982 - 1984 (Series)
Amy and the Angel — 1982 (Special)
Ryan, Meg Web sites
Meg Ryan Co UK audio
A UK based tribute site to the actress Meg Ryan. Many features including a biography, filmography , plenty of desktop background pictures and many pages of information on this famous American actress.
http://www.megryan.co.uk/
Last reviewed by porsche060
Mr Showbiz Celebrities: Meg Ryan audio video chat games
Profile, biography, credits and news stories.
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/megryan/
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
You’ve Got Mail
Official site offers movie information with downloads of screensavers, desktop patterns, icons, webcards and movie poster.
http://www.youvegotmail.com/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Addicted to Love video
Addicted to Love stars Matthew Broderick & Meg Ryan. Includes trailer, plot summary, production & casting notes, photos and more.
http://www.addictedtolove.com/
Last reviewed by astrother
Hollywood Online: You’ve Got Meg audio
Meg Ryan stars as a children’s bookstore owner in “You’ve Got Mail.”
http://www.hollywood.com/pressroom/interviews/mrya…
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
Meg Ryan.com
Fan page is home of the Meg Ryan FAQ, and includes photos and links.
http://www.megryan.com/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Roland’s Meg Ryan page video
Provides plenty of Meg Ryan pictures, video clips, FAQ, links and puzzle game.
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9225370/megryan/
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
ABCNEWS.com: Meg Ryan, Husband Dennis Quaid Separate commerce
“Actors Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid have announced they separated six weeks ago after about 10 years of marriage.” 6/29/00
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/entertainment/Daily…
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
Another Meg Ryan Page audio video
Filmography, photo album, multimedia, and links.
http://usuarios.intercom.es/xavier/meg/mege.htm
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Meg Ryan Mini Homepage
News, biography, filmography, pictures, and links.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/2975/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Meg Ryan: The Goddess
Meg Ryan fan page in Portuguese and English. Features a biography, filmography, and large photo gallery.
http://www.originet.com.br/users/feital/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Mini Meg Ryan
Small but valuable site where you can find biographies and pictures of Ryan. Several snail mail addresses are given, should you wish to send letters to Meg Ryan.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/2975/main.html
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Queen of the Romantic Comedies
Biography, filmography, slide show, pictures, articles, and links. Stop by and sign the guestbook.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/2575/meg…
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
SirOracle’s Meg Ryan Page
Biography, photo gallery, and links.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/3174/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Tom’s Meg Ryan Page
Stylish tribute to Meg Ryan including scans of her magazine appearances, and an online store devoted to Ryan merchandise. Image gallery and sound clips also available.
http://www.stopklatka.com.pl/meg/megryan.htm
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Washington Post: I.Q. commerce
Review of the movie about a mechanic who falls in love with a passerby, and chases after her, only to run into her uncle, Albert Einstein.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longter…
Last reviewed by ccrowe21
Photo Gallery:
Topics: Actress, Celebrities
Tags: Actress, Addicted to Love, City of Angels, French Kiss, Hanging Up, Hurlyburly, Producer, Promised Land, Restoration
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