American character actor born in Cincinnati and raised in Louisville, Mitchell Ryan is a well known supporting actor in films and television. During his term in the Navy in 1951, he was assigned to the Special Services Entertainment and became hooked on acting. After his term in the Navy, he appeared in dozens of plays until he received notice as playing a regular in TV's Dark Shadows (1966) for three years.
Beginning in the 70s, he received work in motion pictures including Monte Walsh (1970), Magnum Force (1973) and in Clint Eastwood's L'homme des hautes plaines (1973). He had a small part in Universal's La bataille de Midway (1976) and returned to act in numerous soaps and television series, among them included a recurring guest role in Having Babies (1978), Executive Suite (1976), The Chisholms (1979) and La force du destin (1970) and a growing list of television films and TV guest appearances. Ryan is probably best known for portraying the villain that Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are after in L'arme fatale (1987), but his career included several supporting roles in the past ten years including Judge Dredd (1995), Michael Myers' nemesis in Halloween 6: La malédiction de Michael Myers (1995), Menteur menteur (1997) with Jim Carrey and as Harrison Ford's chief out to get Brad Pitt in Ennemis rapprochés (1997).
