MALIBU, Calif.—Eileen Ryan, an actress who appeared on TV, in films and on Broadway and the matriarch of the steeped-in-the-arts Penn family, has died. She was 94.
Ryan, who was the mother of actors Sean Penn and Christopher Penn and musician Michael Penn, died at her home in Malibu, California, on Sunday, according to family spokesperson Mara Buxbaum. Ryan would have turned 95 next Sunday.
“We lost mom yesterday,” Michael Penn wrote on Twitter with a broken heart emoji.
She had two roles on Broadway in the 1950s—both short-lived—in “Sing Till Tomorrow” in 1953 and “Comes a Day” in 1958.
In 1957, Ryan was at rehearsals for “Iceman Cometh” when she met Leo Penn, who had taken over for Jason Robards at the Circle in the Square production. They married a few months later. Leo Penn died in 1998….