Jeff W. asks what's easily the most important question I've ever received here…
Okay, you're supposed to be this big expert about the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Maybe you can answer a question that's nagged at me for some time. In the scenes in the airport control tower, there are four men. I recognize Carl Reiner, Paul Ford and Jesse White but who is that fourth guy? He has a line or two but he doesn't seem to have had any billing.
Okay so this isn't the most important question I've ever received here but it is the easiest to answer: That's Eddie Ryder, who was one of those actors who was in everything for a decade or two. He was the kind of performer of whom directors and producers said, "Hey, we need a guy here to play this character. Get me Eddie Ryder!" He was on time, he was dependable, he knew his lines, he was never any trouble. Here's a picture of Eddie…
Eddie Ryder broke into TV acting in 1953 with roles on Space Patrol and The Adventures of Superman (the series starring George Reeves). He was in hundreds of TV shows and his many feature film roles included Operation Mad Ball, The Patsy, The Oscar, Silent Movie and High Anxiety. You can spot him in this still from Son of Flubber…
I have no firm info on this but I suspect he was a last minute "get" for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Because of all the tech problems and the sheer size of the endeavor, it was sometimes hard to predict when they'd get to a certain scene when they were filming. Sometimes, with regard to the smaller parts, it was a matter of "We have to shoot this scene first thing tomorrow morning! Who's available that we can get?" They wanted recognizable comedians in every role but occasionally had to settle. I don't know why he didn't get his name in the credits.
Eddie even had some history with his scene-mate Carl Reiner, having appeared twice on The Dick Van Dyke Show. One of them was the episode I got to see filmed and in it, he played Rob Petrie's tax accountant. It was the one in which Rob explained how he and Laura bought their home with the rock in the basement…
You can see the call sheet for that episode here and a still taken on the set here. Plus he was a director and a writer for other shows and you can see a most impressive list of credits over at the IMDB, though I doubt it's close to complete. He was even in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Just one of those guys who worked all the time.
