Biography

Ryan Cutrona is an American actor. He shares two Screen Actors Guild Awards with the Ensemble of "Mad Men" for his role as 'Grandpa Gene', Betty Draper's father. He is perhaps best known for playing compelling authority figures and commanding military men in films and on television, in both dramatic and comedic roles.

From 1987 to 2016 he collaborated with Joe Frank on his Peabody Award winning National Public Radio series': "Work In Progress", "Somewhere Out There", "In The Dark", and "The Other Side"; produced at legendary KCRW.

He has performed at noted theater festivals, including The Theater Of Nations, and on stages in New York City (New York Theater Workshop, Vineyard Theater) and Los Angeles (Mark Taper Forum, Geffen Playhouse)

His correspondence with Samuel Beckett through the 1980’s yielded a consultive and supportive rapport which prompted the adaptation of prose texts suggested and authorized by Beckett himself, realized as:

The Cutrona Beckett Trilogy/ Solo Adaptations of Prose (1982-1991)/ "All Strange Away, Fizzles, Nohow on."

His World Premiere Solo performances of Samuel Beckett’s ALL STRANGE AWAY 1984, (La MaMa E.T.C.), and FIZZLES 1984, (Performance Space New York [PS 122]), were hailed by Mel Gussow in The New York Times as "...a direct emanation of Beckett's vision", noting Mr Cutrona as "Within...that handful of actors, (Billie Whitelaw, David Warrilow, and Jack MacGowran), who share an empathy with the world of Beckett." Celebrated as a "beguiling chrestomathy", his solo premiere of late prose texts, NOHOW ON 1991 (Los Angeles), was hailed with unanimous praise in a "five-fecta" of reviews, and Ryan Cutrona as an actor "gifted with an insight that shines a bright light into the dark corners of Beckett’s catalogue...One wishes he would go on, anyhow on, exploring the astonishing Beckett.", T H McCullugh, Los Angeles Times. "You can almost hear James Joyce, giggling offstage." Stephen Leigh Morris, L A Weekly.

Admitted by the triumvirate, Martin Landau, Mark Rydell and Sydney Pollack, he has been a member of the Actors Studio for over 30 years. He lives in Los Angeles, where he has enjoyed a long association with, among others, some Padua Playwrights.
- IMDb mini biography by: Eugene Driscoll