Eileen Ryan, "Magnolia" Star and Sean Penn's Mother, Dies at 94

Legendary actress Eileen Ryan has died a week before her birthday at her home. She was 94, The Hill reported.

Her oldest son Michael posted on Twitter, "We lost mom yesterday."

There are no details yet about her death.

Eileen Ryan on Film and TV

She played the roles of Evie in "Sing Till Tomorrow" in 1953 and Lorraine in "Comes a Day" in 1958 on Broadway.

However, she made her acting debut in 1955 with a part on Goodyear Television Playhouse. She later made appearances in shows, including The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, Matlock, and others.

Throughout her decades-long career, Ryan was in more than 60 TV shows and movies, including the horror movies "Eight-Legged Freaks" from 2002 and "Feast" from 2005. She also acted in the critically acclaimed 1999 movie "Magnolia" and the 2000 movie "I Am Sam."

The TV shows she starred in include "The Twilight Zone," "E.R.," "Ally McBeal," and "NYPD Blue," CNN noted.

In 2016, Ryan played her last role in the movie "Rules Don't Apply," which also starred Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Matthew Broderick, Annette Bening, and Alden Ehrenreich, who played her character's grandson.

Eileen Ryan as a Wife and Mother

Ryan, whose real name was Eileen Annucci, was born in New York on October 16, 1927. Her mother was a nurse named Rose Isabel, and her father was a dentist named Amerigo Giuseppe Annucci.

She met her husband, the late director Leo Penn, in 1957 when they were both in New York City for rehearsals for "The Iceman Cometh."

The couple moved in together after only one week of dating. A few months later, they got engaged.

They have three sons: Michael Penn, a singer-songwriter and composer, and the actors Christopher Penn and Sean Penn.

"She was a lioness," Sean Penn stated in his 2006 New Yorker profile.

"Boy, she could dress down those authority figures. She was unintimidatable," Sean added.

According to USA Today, Eileen once said that all her passion for acting went into being a mother. She also said that she and Leo had a great marriage.

"We were never bored with each other," she added. "We grew together."

Ryan gave up acting when she decided to be a full-time mom. She turned down the lead role in a movie directed by John Frankenheimer at one point.

Later, though, she came back to play small parts in movies like "At Close Range" (1986), in which she played Sean and Christopher's characters' grandmother.

Ryan is survived by his sons, Michael and Sean and her grandchildren, Dylan Penn and Hopper Penn, who are Sean Penn and his ex-wife Robin Wright's children.

Leo Penn died in 1998 at the age of 77. They had been married for 41 years.

Her son, Christopher, died of heart disease in 2006. He was 40.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Bert Hoover

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