Hollywood actor Richard Widmark dies
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - March 26, 2008 Widmark's wife, Susan Blanchard, says the actor died at his home
in Connecticut on Monday.
After a career in radio drama and theater, Widmark moved to
films as Tommy Udo, who delighted in pushing an old lady in a
wheelchair to her death down a flight of stairs in the 1947
thriller "Kiss of Death." The performance won him an Academy
Award nomination as supporting actor; it was his only mention for
an Oscar.
"That damned laugh of mine!" he told a reporter in 1961. "For
two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile. I
played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny
and the part I played made me laugh. The guy was such a ridiculous
beast."
A quiet, inordinately shy man, Widmark often portrayed killers,
cops and Western gunslingers. But he said he hated guns.
"I know I've made kind of a half-assed career out of violence,
but I abhor violence," he remarked in a 1976 Associated Press
interview. "I am an ardent supporter of gun control. It seems
incredible to me that we are the only civilized nation that does
not put some effective control on guns."
Two years out of college, Widmark reached New York in 1938
during the heyday of radio. His mellow Midwest voice made him a
favorite in soap operas, and he found himself racing from studio to
studio.
Rejected by the Army because of a punctured eardrum, Widmark
began appearing in theater productions in 1943. His first was a
comedy hit on Broadway, "Kiss and Tell." He was appearing in the
Chicago company of "Dream Girl" with June Havoc when 20th Century
Fox signed him to a seven-year contract. He almost missed out on
the "Kiss of Death" role.
"The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't want me," the actor
recalled. "I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too
intellectual." The director was overruled by studio boss Darryl F.
Zanuck, and Hathaway "gave me kind of a bad time."
An immediate star, Widmark appeared in 20 Fox films from 1957 to
1964. Among them: "The Street With No Name," "Road House,"
"Yellow Sky," "Down to the Sea in Ships," "Slattery's
Hurricane," "Panic in the Streets," "No Way Out," "The Halls
of Montezuma," "The Frogmen," "Red Skies of Montana," "My Pal
Gus" and the Samuel Fuller film noir "Pickup on South Street."
In 1952, he starred in "Don't Bother to Knock" with Marilyn
Monroe. He told an interviewer in later years:
"She wanted to be this great star but acting just scared the
hell out of her. That's why she was always late - couldn't get her
on the set. She had trouble remembering lines. But none of it
mattered. With a very few special people, something happens between
the lens and the film that is pure magic. ... And she really had
it."
After leaving Fox, Widmark's career continued to flourish. He
starred (as Jim Bowie) with John Wayne in "The Alamo," with James
Stewart in John Ford's "Two Rode Together," as the U.S.
prosecutor in "Judgment at Nuremberg," and with Robert Mitchum
and Kirk Douglas in "The Way West." He also played the Dauphin in
"St. Joan," and had roles in "How the West Was Won," "Death of
a Gunfighter," "Murder on the Orient Express," "Midas Run" and
"Coma."
"Madigan," a 1968 film with Widmark as a loner detective, was
converted to television and lasted one season in 1972-73. It was
Widmark's only TV series.
He also was in some TV films, including "Cold Sassy Tree" and
"Once Upon a Texas Train."
Richard Widmark was born Dec. 26, 1914, in Sunrise, Minn., where
his father ran a general store, then became a traveling salesman.
The family moved around before settling in Princeton, Ill.
"Like most small-town boys, I had the urge to get to the big
city and make a name for myself," he recalled in a 1954 interview.
"I was a movie nut from the age of 3, but I don't recall having
any interest in acting," he said.
But at Lake Forest College, he became a protege of the drama
teacher and met his future wife, drama student Ora Jean Hazlewood.
In later years, Widmark appeared sparingly in films and TV. He
explained to Parade magazine in 1987: "I've discovered in my
dotage that I now find the whole moviemaking process irritating. I
don't have the patience anymore. I've got a few more years to live,
and I don't want to spend them sitting around a movie set for 12
hours to do two minutes of film."
When he wasn't working, he and his wife lived on a horse ranch
in Hidden Valley, Calif., or on a farm in Connecticut. Their
daughter Ann became the wife of baseball immortal Sandy Koufax.