Login
Login

Cyril Ring

{{short description|American actor (1892–1967)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Cyril Ring

| image = Cyril Ring in Hollywood and Vine.jpg

| caption = Ring in Hollywood and Vine (1945)

| birth_date = {{birth date|1892|12|5|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1967|07|17|1892|12|5}}

| death_place = Hollywood, California, U.S.

| occupation = Actor

| years_active = 1915–1951

| spouse = Charlotte Greenwood
(1915–1922; divorced)

| relatives = Blanche Ring (sister)
A. Edward Sutherland (nephew)

}}

Cyril Ring (December 5, 1892{{spaced ndash}}July 17, 1967) was an American actor. By the time of his final performance in 1951, he had appeared in more than 350 films, nearly all of them in small and/or uncredited bit parts.

Ring is probably best known today for his featured role as Harvey Yates, a swindler and accomplice to fellow swindler Penelope, played by Kay Francis in the Marx Brothers' first film The Cocoanuts (1929). He also appeared in uncredited small parts in two other Marx films, Monkey Business (1931) and A Day at the Races (1937).

Early life

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Ring began his stage career as a young man, following his older sister Blanche Ring into show business. In 1915 he married comedienne and dancer Charlotte Greenwood.{{cite news |title=MISS GREENWOOD WEDS.; Comedienne Quickly Marries Cyril Ring, a Moving Picture Actor |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1915/07/25/archives/miss-greenwood-weds-comedienne-quickly-marries-cyril-ring-a-moving.html |publisher=NY Times |date=1915-07-25 |accessdate=2007-12-29 }}{{cite web |title=Cyril Ring biography |url=https://www.allmovie.com/artist/cyril-ring-p60314 |accessdate=2007-12-29 |website=AllMovie}} During their marriage Ring acted as her personal manager;Variety, Nov. 19, 1915, p. 40. they divorced in 1922. Although a studio biography states that Ring entered motion pictures in 1917,Press Sheets for Paramount and Metro Extended Season Releases, 1923. his wedding announcement of 1915 identifies him as already working in this field. He also appeared in many hit plays including The Yankee Girl, So Long Letty, Linger Longer, and Madam Sherry. Ring's nephew was prominent film director Eddie Sutherland.Jerome Weatherby, "The Nephew of Seven Stars", Picture Play, August 1920, p. 58.

Career

By 1929 Ring had been with Paramount Pictures for several years as a member of its stock company, and with the new talking pictures requiring stage-trained actors who could deliver dialogue persuasively, Ring was a qualified candidate for the villainous role in The Cocoanuts. It turned out to be Ring's best-remembered screen role. In the New York Times review on May 25, 1929, Mordaunt Hall singled Ring out for criticism: "Cyril Ring, in an amateurish fashion, does the honors as the conspiring Mr. Yates, whose great hope in this adventure is to cash in on Mrs. Potter's gems. Mr. Ring, who has impersonated regiments of villains on the silent screen, here plays his part as though everybody but his determined female partner were both sightless and deaf."{{cite news |last1=Hall |first1=Mordaunt |title=The Screen |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/05/25/archives/the-screen.html |accessdate=16 June 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=May 25, 1929}}

Marx Brothers historian Matthew Coniam observes, "It seems to me he makes a perfectly good job of villainous Harvey Yates in The Cocoanuts. But for some reason he got the most terrible reviews, and his career didn't so much decline as nosedive almost immediately afterwards."{{cite book |last1=Coniam |first1=Matthew |title=The Annotated Marx Brothers: A Filmgoer's Guide to In-Jokes, Obscure References and Sly Details |date=2015 |publisher=McFarland & Company |isbn=978-0786497058}}

Successful bit player

The Cocoanuts didn't lead to further major roles, but Ring's well-tailored and businesslike appearance guaranteed him steady work in motion pictures. He began freelancing at most of the Hollywood studios, playing any number of incidental characters. His nephew Eddie Sutherland cast him in Sutherland's pictures (like International House with W. C. Fields).

Ring is usually seen as a desk clerk or reporter, but can also be spotted in restaurant or theater scenes (either as a staff member or a patron), or just as a recognizable face in the crowd (as in Laurel and Hardy's Block-Heads, where a crowded elevator opens to reveal Ring standing quietly and pleasantly in the front row). Many directors often sent out casting calls for big crowd scenes, and Ring could be depended upon to report for duty. In the 1937 film Nothing Sacred, for example, director William A. Wellman needed 18 bit players and 193 extras for a banquet scene;Nothing Sacred pressbook, "Huge Banquet Scene in Nothing Sacred, United Artists, 1937, p. 11. and Ring answered the call. One of his few leads was in a Gertrude Niesen musical short filmed for coin-operated jukeboxes in 1940, co-produced by singer Rudy Vallee and businessman William Kemble;{{cite book | last1=MacGillivray | first1=Scott | last2=Okuda | first2=Ted | title=The Soundies Book | publisher=iUniverse | publication-place=New York | date=2007 | isbn=978-0-595-42060-5 | author-link1 = Scott MacGillivray | author-link2 = Ted Okuda }} Niesen sings the current hit "Jim" longingly while Ring (as Jim) gleefully enjoys the company of every girl but Niesen.

Ring was extraordinarily prolific, with 33 documented appearances in 1937 alone, and 36 more in 1939. He worked steadily through 1945. After World War II most studios decided to make fewer lower-budget pictures, leaving Ring with fewer assignments, but he continued to work in pictures until 1951.

Death

Ring died on July 17, 1967, in Hollywood, California, at age 74.

Selected filmography

{{Div col|colwidth=20em}}

{{div col end}}

References

{{reflist}}

External links

{{Commons category}}

  • {{IMDb name|0727529}}
  • {{IBDB name}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ring, Cyril}}

Category:1892 births

Category:1967 deaths

Category:American male silent film actors

Category:Male actors from Massachusetts

Category:Place of birth missing

Category:20th-century American male actors