Terry Ryan, “Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” author, 60
Posted: Thursday, May 17th, 2007 3:54 pm
DEFIANCE, Ohio — Terry Ryan, who wrote the book “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” that later became a movie about how her mother kept the family financially afloat by winning jingle contests, has died.
Ryan, 60, died on Wednesday at her home in San Francisco, her family said. The cause of death was cancer, said Pat Holt, her longtime partner.
Ryan was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2004 just after filming of the movie was completed. The DreamWorks film starring Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson was released in 2005.
Ryan, the sixth of the family’s 10 children, told the story of how her mother, Evelyn, won cars, refrigerators, televisions and money in commercial jingle contests during the 1950s and ’60s in this town about 50 miles southwest of Toledo. … Read full obituary
