Jack Lord was born John Joseph Patrick Ryan in New York City, Borough of Brooklyn, on December 30, 1920. His parents were Ellen Josephine O'Brien Ryan, born in 1894, and William Lawrence Ryan, born in 1888.
Ellen Ryan was a housewife, who bore five children: Bill, who grew up to become a successful artist; Jack; Josephine, who grew up to be a professor; and Thomas and Robert, who grew up to be lawyers. Mrs. Ryan's family owned a fruit orchard in the Hudson River Valley of New York state, where Jack learned to ride horses. She would return to run the farm after her husband's death, circa 1977, and would still be running it when she was in her 80s. Jack described his mother as "an Irish matriarch, just as strong as [her husband] was... My mother ran a beautiful home and my dad liked to come back from his travels to it."
Bill Ryan was in shipping. At one time, he owned a fleet of five ships, which sailed from Singapore to Hong Kong and up the China coast. Jack said his father made and lost two fortunes during his lifetime and that the Great Depression cost him his first fortune. Even then, he remained in shipping, working as a ship surveyor (inspector), ensuring that the company's ships and their cargo were safe. Jack spoke warmly about his father, describing him as a "combination of tremendous strength and gentleness - a real family man." Mr. Ryan would take his children to book shops and allow them to spend hours poring over the volumes, then would buy them the ones they loved. He would read Charles Dickens to Jack and Bill before they went to sleep at night. Although he was a strong man, he never laid a hand on his children. Jack said, "Sometimes when I did things, my old man would say, 'It hurts me to see you do that, son. It's not the way I brought you up.' That cut me deeper than any lash."
The Ryans were Irish Catholics. Jack said, "All four of my grandparents were born in Ireland, the O'Briens on my mother['s] side from [Tipperary], the Ryans on my father['s] side from County Cork," although his father was born in England.
Although born in Brooklyn, Jack grew up in Queens. Home for the Ryans was at 95-28 125th Street in Morris Park - now, Richmond Hill - a middle-class neighborhood. His parents taught him the finer ways of life, taking him and his siblings to art exhibits at New York's finer museums and galleries and to Broadway productions. Mr. Ryan encouraged his children to read and memorize poetry and paid them a penny for each line they learned. Jack said this gave him the skills he needed to learn lines of script in his acting. Poetry was something Jack continued to enjoy throughout his life.
Jack attended grammar school at St. Benedict Joseph Labre School, a Catholic school, and secondary school at John Adams High School. Former teachers and students at John Adams High School described Jack as a quiet, serious young man, who wore suits. He won awards for his courtesy and was chosen to host visitors to the school. He dated, but not steadily.
Jack said, "When I was a kid, we didn't get an allowance. We had to earn our money. I made a wagon out of a baby carriage, and I delivered the Long Island Daily Press." From the time Jack was fourteen years old, his father sent him out to sea each summer to work on freighters. It was time for the boy to learn the ways of being a man. The sea was a rough-and-tumble world, and Jack grew up quickly. Those long ocean voyages took him all around the world, most notably around Africa, the Mediterranean, and China. In his free time, Jack sketched and painted scenes of places he saw along the way. You can read more about Jack's talent for art in the segment of this biography entitled "Life as an Artist."
Jack's senior yearbook, The Clipper, reported that, during his high school years, he was very active in school activities. He was an athlete: a senior life saver, played on the varsity football team, and participated in intramural sports. He won a number of awards, including the bronze and silver 'A's and the honor, meritorious, and distinguished service certificates. He was also secretary of the Newman Club, which was a group for Catholic youth. He studied art, and his paintings often hung in the main hallway of the school. He wrote an art column for the school newspaper, worked on the school yearbook, and spent much of his time in the art room. Most notably, he won the St. Gauden's Medal for Fine Art.
In the summer of 1937, Jack attended the Fort Trumbull US Merchant Marine Academy in New London, Connecticut. Taking 13 weeks of coursework and receiving credit for the summers and Christmas holidays he had spent at sea, he emerged with a third mate's license and a rank of ensign.
Upon graduating from high school in June 1938, Jack spent another summer at sea. Then, he began studying fine arts at New York University on the Chancellor Chase football scholarship. Even as he studied, he went in with his older brother, Bill, to open the Village Academy of Art in Greenwich Village. His plan was to join Bill, who was making a name for himself as an artist. It was during this time that the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired two of his works, Vermont and Fishing Shacks.
With the outbreak of World War II, at the end of 1941, Jack's plans were put on hold. During the war, Jack served aboard Liberty ships. It was not an easy assignment, for the German U-boats were always on patrol. The ship on which Jack was serving was torpedoed, and he barely escaped with his life. The ship sank in seven minutes, and he drifted in a life raft for sixteen hours before being rescued. By war's end, Jack was a Mate Navigator and held a presidential citation from President Harry Truman.
At the end of World War II, Jack was sent to Persia for fourteen months (1945-1946) to work with the Corps of Engineers, then a part of the War Department. He was a steel worker and helped to build roads and bridges. Upon returning Stateside, he was sent to Washington, DC, for two years (1946-1948). There, he served as an artist for a service magazine and made training films for the US Maritime Service. It was there that he discovered a love for acting.
In 1944, Jack married Ann Cicely Willard. Jack described it as a youthful romance and said they married following a whirlwind courtship. The marriage was not a good one, for the couple were young, and Jack was working away from home for the War Department. They had a child, a son. Jack said he saw his son only once and that, shortly after, his wife divorced him. The divorce became final in 1947. The child died at the age of 13; sources vary about the cause of death, although evidence exists that it was an illness, not an accident. Jack said he learned about his son's death when his former-wife sent him a copy of the death certificate "weeks after he was buried."
When Jack returned to New York in 1948, having fully completed his obligations to the Merchant Marines and the military, Jack was nearly 28 years old. He had yet to establish a career for himself. Like many young men, Jack did not know what he was meant to do in life. He had followed his father to sea only to learn that the lifestyle could cost him his marriage and even his life! He had attempted to follow his older brother into art only to learn that one could starve working piecemeal. Thus, it had been a blessing when he was sent to Washington to make training films. He had enjoyed those two years, acting, and knew he wanted to experience more of it. Now, he had a new goal.
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