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Hope Elaine Ryden (August 1, 1929 – June 18, 2017) was an American documentary producer and wildlife activist. She contributed to various publications including National Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian, Defenders and The New York Times. [1] She specialized in photographing animals such as beavers and coyotes across North America.
- Known For Film Work Before Winning Acclaim as Author
- Parents Wrote & Composed
- Early Success in Safety Film
- From Kate Smith Hour to Pan Am
- Served Stars
- From Pan Am to Newsreels
- Cinema Vérité
- Mission to Malaya
- Civil Rights Movement
- Operation Noah
HYANNIS, Massachusetts––Hope Elaine Ryden, 87, author and/or photographer for 26 books mostly on wildlife subjects, and a frequent photo contributor to National Geographic, died on June 18, 2017 in Hyannis, Massachusetts from complications of hip surgery.
Sharing their interest in music, the senior Rydens either wrote or translated from Swedish more than 40 hymns for publication in various Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian and Presbyterian hymnals. E.E. Ryden was also author of The Story of Our Hymns (1930) and The Story of Christian Hymnody(1959, and from 1945 to 1958 was secretary of the Commissio...
First mentioned in print in 1949 as maid-of-honor at a sister’s wedding, Hope Ryden initially pursued a career very different from the work for which she became best known. While earning a degree in English in 1951 from the College of Iowa, Hope Ryden starred opposite Milburn Stone (1904-1980) in A Closed Book, a well-received film mini-drama promo...
Also aspiring to success in television acting, then a rapidly expanding field, Hope Ryden relocated to the New York City area. She won a career break as assistant to singer Kate Smith on The Kate Smith Hour, where her work was praised by syndicated critic Earl Wilson for adding “sparkle” to the last year of the show in 1954, but appears to have wor...
Among the 111 passengers were mime Marcel Marceau, actresses Jeanne Moreau, Liliane Montevecchi, and Maureen O’Hara, singer Eartha Kitt, writer/politician Pierre Salinger, two-time world heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson, and National Football League Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas. Pan Am on the 25th anniversary of the flight, in ...
Jet travel also brought more frequent flights and much shorter layovers for air crews at flight destinations. Hope Ryden had become accustomed to using her multi-day layovers abroad to develop her photography skills. Feeling overworked, she made the return flight from Paris, resigned from Pan Am, became a freelance photographer, and in 1961, recall...
The “cinéma vérité” style of making newsreels is usually traced to the 1922 Robert J. Flaherty documentary Nanook of the North, which followed the lives of an Inuit family on the Ungava peninsula of northern Quebec, and could be described as a direct, if chronologically distant ancestor of “reality television.” “Hope Ryden joined Drew Associates in...
Hope Ryden enjoyed her biggest success as a documentarian with Mission to Malaya(1963). “Seeking to combat the growing tide of anti-American sentiment overseas, President John F. Kennedy in 1961 founded the Peace Corps in part to present an alternative vision of the Ugly American stereotype that had taken root in several corners of the world,” wrot...
Continued the Robert Drew & Associates web site, “It is telling that Ryden was the only female ‘Associate’ at that time at Drew Associates, meaning she was a partner in the company. Ryden spoke privately years later about the difficulties of being a woman in the ultra-competitive world of making films, though she said that Drew was a huge supporter...
The story began when Jan Michels, the then-secretary of the Surinam SPCA, described in a letter to then-Massachusetts SPCA president Eric H. Hansen how the completion of the Afobaka Dam had begun to inundate 870 miles of dense rainforest, leaving thousands of animals stranded on fast-disappearing small islands and in the tops of trees. Michels soug...
Losing Hope Ryden is calamitous for the wild animals she loved so deeply, and whose lives she so intimately understood from her years with them in the wild. As a compassionate observer of their individuality, Hope was able to communicate their personhood even to people who didn’t agree that animals had any.
Jun 18, 2017 · After she left Drew Associates, Ryden worked for ABC as a documentary producer, but then went on to become an award-winning photographer and author of books about animals in the wild. She was a frequent contributor to National Geographic, which published this biography on its website.
Hope Ryden photos, including production stills, premiere photos and other event photos, publicity photos, behind-the-scenes, and more.
Her photographs can be ordered through National Geographic's Image Collection. She also retains several thousand images at home, which can be ordered by contacting her Email address given elsewhere in this website. QUOTES. Said Robert Gilka, head of photographic staff of National Geographic to the Christian Science Moniter:
Naturalist Hope Ryden braved all seasons and weather over a four-year period to document the comings and goings of a pair of wild beavers (Lily and the Inspector General and their offspring).
