Biography

As an American character actress, Fran Ryan was a familiar face on stage, screen and television from her theatrical stage debut in the 1950s and continuing for nearly three decades. Ryan's similarity to actress Marjorie Main was soon noticed in the late 1960s, and she frequently played tough, mean-lipped, earthy and gruff-but-lovable female characters.

One of Ryan's first major television roles was playing Aggie Thompson, the housekeeper on The Doris Day Show (1968) and quickly found her place as a last-minute replacement on several television shows. She replaced the late Barbara Pepper in playing Doris Ziffel on the final season of Green Acres (1965). She also successfully succeeded Amanda Blake to play Miss Hannah on the final season of Gunsmoke (1955). Ryan's best-known TV credits include General Hospital (1963) and No Soap, Radio (1982).

Ryan also had supporting roles in major motion pictures including Big Wednesday (1978), The Long Riders (1980), Stripes (1981), Savannah Smiles (1982), Private School (1983), Eyes of Fire (1983) and Pale Rider (1985). Although she was never far from television, she returned to play Hannah the Barbarian in the short lived animated series Little Dracula (1991).

Fran Ryan passed away at her home in Burbank, California on January 15, 2000 of natural causes.
- IMDb mini biography by: Blythe379@cs.com

Ryan's first husband, Walter Kenneth Wayne (whom she married in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1949), died in a plane crash, in a plane he was piloting in January 1951 while Fran was pregnant with their first and only child. She would give birth to their son, Chris, in April 1951.

She remarried in January 1953 to Howard Schafer, who, bizarrely, would also perish in a plane crash in Oregon in May 1953. He had been piloting the plane. The wreckage of Howard's plane would not be discovered until 15 years later in November 1968. The remains of Schafer and his passengers were never found. All that was found at the crash site was a woman's shoe, 4 combs, and 2 sets of eyeglasses.

Often compared to the gruff but lovable Marjorie Main.

Ryan was among the original cast members when The Doris Day show debuted on CBS in September 1968, playing yet another "gruff but good-hearted" housekeeper. But friction soon arose between Ryan and series star Day, and Ryan's role was rewritten and recast with another actress after only a handful of episodes.

First screen appearance is in Mickey One (1965) approximately 1:24:04 after the Columbia studio logo fades in. She's the leftmost of four homeless people sheltering in a dilapidated milk truck.

Canadian Kay Hawtrey looks just like she did.

For some reason, I always had a feeling that Howard would walk right out of those mountains - you always have hope. - Fran, upon being notified that her second husband's plane wreckage had been found 15 years later.