John M. Corridan

Who was John M. Corridan?

Reverend Fr. John M. Corridan was a Jesuit priest who fought against corruption and organized crime on the New York City waterfront. He was the inspiration for the character of "Father Barry" in the classic film On the Waterfront.

Son of a County Kerry-born policeman in New York's Harlem, Corridan graduated from Manhattan's Regis High School in 1928. Father Corridan was assigned to the Xavier Institute of Industrial Relations on Manhattan's West Side in 1946. He became a passionate advocate of reform in the International Longshoremen's Association waterfront union.

Father Corridan collaborated with Malcolm Johnson in Johnson's articles on waterfront corruption. He was the subject of a 1955 biography, Waterfront Priest by Allen Raymond. The introduction of the book was by Budd Schulberg, screenwriter of On the Waterfront, who described how he met with Father Corridan frequently in researching the screenplay.

Schulberg described Father Corridan as a "tall, youthful, balding, energetic, ruddy-faced Irishman whose speech was a fascinating blend of Hell's Kitchen jargon, baseball slang, the facts and figures of a master in economics and the undeniable humanity of Christ."