Richard Widmark

Richard Widmark

Widmark as Max Brock, 1973
Born Richard Weedt Widmark
(1914-12-26)December 26, 1914
Sunrise Township, Minnesota, U.S.
Died March 24, 2008(2008-03-24) (aged 93)
Roxbury, Connecticut, U.S.
Years active 1938–2001
Spouse(s) Jean Hazlewood
(m. 1942; d. 1997)
Susan Blanchard
(m. 1999)
Children 1

Richard Weedt Widmark (December 26, 1914 – March 24, 2008) was an American film, stage and television actor and producer.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death, for which he also won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Early in his career Widmark was typecast in similar villainous or anti-hero roles in film noirs, but he later branched out into more heroic leading and support roles in westerns, mainstream dramas and horror films, among others.

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] the son of Ethel Mae (née Barr) and Carl Henry Widmark.[2][3] His father was of Swedish descent and his mother of English and Scottish ancestry.[4] Widmark grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and also lived in Henry, Illinois for a short time, moving frequently because of his father's work as a traveling salesman.[5] 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, The Shadow, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M.D., Molle Mystery Theater, Suspense and Ethel and Albert. In 1952 he portrayed Cincinnatus Shryock in an episode of Cavalcade of America titled "Adventure on the Kentucky."[6] 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

Widmark appeared on Broadway in 1943 in F. Hugh Herbert's 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.[7]

Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947)

Widmark's first movie appearance was in Kiss of Death (1947), as the giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo.[8] In his most notorious scene Udo pushed a wheelchair-bound woman (played by Mildred Dunnock) down a flight of stairs to her death.[5] 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.[7] 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.[8] Widmark played "Dude" in the Western film Yellow Sky (1948), with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter. His name was billed third, above the title.

Widmark then co-starred with Gene Tierney and Googie Withers in Jules Dassin's Night and the City and with Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance and Zero Mostel in Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (both 1950). They are considered classic examples of film noir. Around the same time, Widmark starred with Sidney Poitier in the gripping racial melodrama No Way Out (also 1950).

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 Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street (1953). Widmark appeared in two Fox westerns: Garden of Evil opposite Gary Cooper, and Broken Lance (both 1954) with Spencer Tracy. He also appeared in Vincente Minnelli's film The Cobweb (1955) with Lauren Bacall.

Widmark starred in, and also produced, a naval drama set during the Cold War, The Bedford Incident (1965), modelled loosely on the Herman Melville novel Moby Dick. He is also credited with producing his films Time Limit (1957) and The Secret Ways (1961). Other films in this period were The Alamo (1960) with John Wayne as Davy Crockett and Widmark as Jim Bowie, Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), John Ford's Two Rode Together (1961) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964) and, in Madigan (1968), as a police detective in the title role, which he later reprised in a television series of the same name. During the 1970s, Widmark's films included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Michael Crichton's Coma (1978), and The Swarm (1978). In all, Widmark appeared in over 60 films before making his final movie appearance in True Colors (1991).[1]

Television

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 starstruck Lucy trespasses onto his property to steal a souvenir. Widmark finds Lucy sprawled out on his living room floor underneath a bearskin rug.

Returning to television in the early 1970s, Widmark received an Emmy nomination for his performance as Paul Roudebush, the President of the United States, in the TV movie Vanished! (1971), a Fletcher Knebel political thriller. In 1972–73, he reprised his detective role from Don Siegel's Madigan (1968) with six 90-minute episodes on the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie. The next year, he participated in a mini-series about Benjamin Franklin, transmitted in 1974, which was a unique experiment of four 90-minute dramas, each with a different actor impersonating Franklin: Widmark, Beau Bridges, Eddie Albert, Melvyn Douglas, and, portraying Franklin at age twelve, Willie Aames. The series won a Peabody Award and five Emmys. During the 1980s, Widmark returned to TV with a half-dozen TV movies.

Personal life

Jean Hazlewood and Richard Widmark in the 1950s

Widmark was married to playwright Jean Hazlewood from 1942 until her death in 1997. They had a daughter, Anne Heath Widmark, an artist and author who was married to baseball player Sandy Koufax from 1969 to 1982. In 1999, Widmark married Susan Blanchard, the daughter of Dorothy Hammerstein and stepdaughter of Oscar Hammerstein II; she had been Henry Fonda's third wife.

Green City, Missouri, is the site of Widmark Airport (FAA LID: MO83) in northeastern Missouri. Towns the size of Green City, whose population numbered only 688 inhabitants in 2000, usually do not have airports, but 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 its being named in his honor.

Despite having spent a substantial part of his career appearing in gun-toting roles such as cowboys, policemen, gangsters and military men, Widmark disliked fire-arms and was involved in several gun-control initiatives. In 1976 he stated:[9]

"I know I've made kind of a half-assed career out of violence, but I abhor violence. I am an ardent supporter of gun control. It seems incredible to me that the United States are the only civilized nation that does not put some effective control on guns."

Death

Retiring in 2001, Widmark died after a long illness on March 24, 2008, at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut at the age of 93. Widmark's ailing health in his final years being aggravated by a fall he had suffered in 2007. At the 2009 Academy Awards, he was honored in the Memorial Tribute. His body was buried at Roxbury's cemetery.

Filmography

Short films:

Television

Radio appearances

Year Program Episode/source
1952 Theatre Guild on the Air Lilim[10]
1953 Theatre Guild on the Air 1984[11]
1953 Suspense Othello (Parts 1 and 2)[12][13]

References

  1. 1 2 "Sunrise: Birthplace of Hollywood Actor Richard Widmark". Sunrise Township. Retrieved March 26, 2008.
  2. ↑ Richard Widmark Biography (1914–). Filmreference.com. Retrieved on October 20, 2015.
  3. ↑ Films in Review. Then and There Media, LCC. (1986)
  4. ↑ 'Juvenile' in Gangster Role Reaches Apex of Terror. Pqasb.pqarchiver.com. Retrieved on October 20, 2015.
  5. 1 2 Harmetz, Aljean (March 26, 2008). "Actor Richard Widmark Dies at 93". The New York Times. Retrieved March 26, 2008.
  6. ↑ Kirby, Walter (March 9, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 42. Retrieved May 23, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. 1 2 "Actor Richard Widmark Dies," Daily News, March 26, 2008.
  8. 1 2 "Tough-guy actor Richard Widmark dies at 93". Associated Press at CNN. March 26, 2008. Archived from the original on March 28, 2008. Retrieved March 26, 2008.
  9. ↑ Hinckley, David (March 26, 2008). "Actor Richard Widmark dies". New York Daily News. Retrieved April 12, 2011.
  10. ↑ Kirby, Walter (November 30, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 48. Retrieved June 14, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Those Were the Days". Nostalgia Digest. 41 (2): 32–41. Spring 2015.
  12. ↑ Kirby, Walter (May 3, 1953). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 52. Retrieved June 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ Kirby, Walter (May 10, 1953). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 50. Retrieved June 27, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
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