Richard Widmark

Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark speaking in France in 1991
Born	December 26, 1914(1914-12-26) Sunrise Township, Minnesota
Died	March 24, 2008 (aged 93) Roxbury, Connecticut
Years active	1947-1996
Spouse(s)	Jean Hazlewood (1942-1997) Susan Blanchard (1999-2008)
Awards won Golden Globe Awards Most Promising Newcomer - Male 1947 Kiss of Death Other awards Golden Laurel for Top Action Performance (3rd) 1959 Warlock Bronze Wrangler for Theatrical Motion Picture 1960 The Alamo LAFCA Career Achievement Award 2005 Lifetime Achievement NBR Career Achievement Award 1989 Lifetime Achievement Walk of Fame - Motion Picture 6800 Hollywood Blvd

Richard Widmark (December 26, 1914 – March 24, 2008) was an American actor of films, stage, radio and television. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Early life

Widmark was born in Sunrise Township, Minnesota,^[1] grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and also lived in Henry, Illinois for a short time. He attended Lake Forest College, where he studied acting and also taught acting after he graduated.

Radio

Widmark made his debut as a radio actor in 1938 on Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories. In 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the title role of the daytime serial Front Page Farrell, introduced each afternoon as "the exciting, unforgettable radio drama... the story of a crack newspaperman and his wife, the story of David and Sally Farrell." Farrell was a top reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle. When the series moved to NBC, Widmark turned the role over to Carleton G. Young and Staats Cotsworth.

During the 1940s, Widmark was also heard on such network radio programs as Gang Busters, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M.D., Molle Mystery Theater, Suspense and Ethel and Albert. He returned to radio drama decades later, performing on CBS Radio Mystery Theater (1974-82), and was also one of the five hosts on Sears Radio Theater (as the Friday "adventure night" host) from 1979-81.

Broadway and films

Richard Widmark with Victor Mature in the trailer for Kiss of Death (1947).

Widmark appeared on Broadway in 1943 in Kiss and Tell. He was unable to join the military during World War II because of a perforated eardrum. He was in Chicago appearing in a stage production of Dream Girl with June Havoc when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year contract.^[2]

Widmark's first movie appearance was in 1947's Kiss of Death, as the giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo.^[3] His most notorious scene in the film found Udo pushing a wheelchair-bound woman (played by Mildred Dunnock) down a flight of stairs to her death.^[4] Widmark was almost not cast. He said, "The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't want me. I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." Hathaway was overruled by studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave me kind of a bad time," recalled Widmark.^[2] Kiss of Death was a commercial and critical success: Widmark won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.^[3] Widmark's character was also the inspiration for the song "The Ballad of Tommy Udo" by the band Kaleidoscope.

Richard Widmark in the trailer for Panic in the Streets (1950).

In 1950, Widmark co-starred with Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance and Zero Mostel in Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets, and appeared opposite Gene Tierney in Jules Dassin's Night and the City. Both are considered classic examples of film noir.

In 1952, Widmark had his handprints cast in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. During his stint at Fox, he appeared in The Street with No Name (1948), Don't Bother to Knock (1952) with Marilyn Monroe, and Pickup on South Street (1953). He also appeared in Vincente Minnelli's 1955 cult film The Cobweb with Lauren Bacall.

In a drama set during the Cold War, The Bedford Incident (1965), he starred and also produced. He is also credited with producing his films Time Limit (1957) and The Secret Ways (1961). Other notable films in the 1960s were Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), How the West was Won (1962) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). During the 1970s, Widmark's films included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Coma (1978), and The Swarm (1978). In all, Widmark appeared in over 60 films before making his final movie appearance in the 1991 thriller True Colors.^[1]

Television

Richard Widmark in Broken Lance (1954).

Widmark was a guest on What's My Line? in 1954. The following year, he made a rare foray into comedy on I Love Lucy, portraying himself when a star-struck Lucy trespasses onto his property to steal a souvenir. Widmark finds Lucy sprawled out on his living room floor underneath a bear skin rug.

Returning to television in the early 1970s, Widmark received an Emmy nomination for his performance as the U.S. President in the TV movie Vanished (1971), a Fletcher Knebel political thriller. In 1972-73, he reprised his detective role from Madigan (1968) with six 90-minute episodes on the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie. The mini-series Benjamin Franklin (1974) was a unique experiment of four 90-minute dramas, each with a different actor performing the title role: Widmark, Beau Bridges, Lloyd Bridges, Eddie Albert, Melvyn Douglas and Willie Aames (Franklin at age 12). The series won a Peabody Award and five Emmys. During the 1980s, Widmark returned to TV with a half-dozen TV movies.

Personal life

From 1942 until her death in 1997, Widmark was married to playwright Jean Hazlewood. The marriage produced a daughter, Anne Heath Widmark, an artist and author who was married to baseball legend Sandy Koufax from 1969 to 1982. In 1999, Widmark married socialite Susan Blanchard, who had been Henry Fonda's third wife.

Green City is the site of Widmark Airport in extreme northeastern Missouri. Towns the size of Green City (pop. 688 in 2000) usually do not have airports, but Richard Widmark owned a cattle ranch in the area during the 1950s and 1960s. Widmark contributed funds to the construction of an airport which led to it being named in his honor.

Widmark died after a long illness on March 24 2008 at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut.

Filmography

Short films:

• Screen Snapshots: Hopalong in Hoppy Land (1951)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Night Life (1952)
• 1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955)
• Shooting the Moonshine War (1970)

References

External links

• Richard Widmark at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Widmark at Allmovie
• Richard Widmark at the TCM Movie Database
• Richard Widmark at the Internet Broadway Database

• Obituaries:
  • The Daily Telegraph, 27 March 2008
  • The Times, 27 March 2008
  • The Independent, 27 March 2008
  • The Guardian, 27 March 2008