RIP: Actress Edna Ryan dies at 95

Edna Ryan, actress

Edna Ryan, who has died aged 95, was a showgirl who delighted visitors to New York’s Copacabana nightclub with – in the words of Hugh Hefner – the “finest pins on the planet”.

She joined the chorus at the Copacabana in the mid-1940s. The establishment, which opened at 10 East 60th Street in Manhattan in 1940 and was bankrolled by the mobster Frank Costello, became a celebrity hotspot where the Kennedys, the Whitneys and the Du Ponts dined alongside film stars, sporting heroes and foreign dignitaries. The club was particularly noted for its chorus girls.

As a “Copa Girl”, Edna Ryan drew the attention of both paparazzi lenses and gentlemen diners. She frequently popped up in gossip columns, being described as a “long-legged blonde stunner out of the front line” and a “one-girl traffic jam”.

On the surface there were strict rules at the club. She recalled that although the manager Jules Podell did not permit girls to sit with patrons after an act, “the club had an air of sex and scandal about it. Behind the scenes some of the girls had cat-fights over the men who came into the club. Some of the men were dodgy, others like Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra and playboys Pat DiCicco and Porfirio Rubirosa were just playful.”

Edna Ryan dated the American baseball player and manager Leo “The Lip” Durocher. A renowned ladies’ man, Durocher had a taste for actresses and had previously been romantically linked with Betty Hutton and Linda Darnell. He later ditched Edna Ryan to marry the devout Mormon Laraine Day (star of Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent).

In 1946 Edna Ryan left Manhattan for Hollywood, signing a one-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Little more than work as an extra and publicity photos materialised, however, and the following year she was dropped by the studio. Although she subsequently gained small parts, appearing opposite Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, she failed to forge a successful film career.

Edna Ryan was born in New York on January 17 1921 and soon joined her vaudevillian parents on stage in their act, appearing as “Baby Edna”. She left home when she was a teenager and got a job as a model, joining the John Robert Powers agency. She then found work on Broadway, appearing in 1943 in the shows Carmen Jones and Artists & Models.

After appearing in a theatre run of Follow the Boys in 1946 she moved to the Copacabana. During her Hollywood years, from the late 1940s to the later 1950s, she had a string of minor film roles, often in musicals. In 1948 he played George Raft’s buttoned-up secretary in Race Street and a party girl in the noir thriller Raw Deal (both 1948). The same year she appeared uncredited in Ladies of the Chorus with Marilyn Monroe and in When My Baby Smiles at Me alongside Betty Grable. In 1955 she danced in a short pink tutu with Ann Miller in the musical Hit the Deck. The following year she appeared in Meet Me in Las Vegas.

Edna Ryan modelled for advertising campaigns for Alka-Seltzer, Ray-Ban sunglasses and Delsey luggage and continued to dance on television shows such as The Dean Martin Show and The Eddie Fisher Show. In later life she made guest appearances in the television series The Incredible Hulk and Charlie’s Angels and was a member of the Copa Club, a group for former Copacabana dancers.

Edna Ryan married Jack Leonard, a singer with the Tommy Dorsey band, in 1948. The marriage was dissolved and in 1979 she married, secondly, Derek Murcott. He predeceased her and she survived by a daughter from her first marriage.

Edna Ryan, born January 17 1921, died February 2 2016

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12184049/Edna-Ryan-actress-obituary.html