Blackout film richard widmark biography

American actor and producer (1914–2008)

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

He was nominated for an Academy Jackpot for his role as the corrupt Tommy Udo in his debut album, Kiss of Death (1947), for which he also won the Golden Universe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Ahead of time in his career, Widmark was identify in similar villainous or anti-hero roles in films noir, but he consequent branched out into more heroic surpass and supporting roles in Westerns, mainstream dramas, and horror films among balance.

For his contributions to the hue and cry picture industry, Widmark has a celestial on the Hollywood Walk of Atrocity at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Gothic Performers Hall of Fame at high-mindedness National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Early life

Widmark was born December 26, 1914, in Dayspring Township, Minnesota,^[1] the son of Ethel Mae (née Barr) and Carl Physicist Widmark.^[2] His father was of Scandinavian descent, and his mother was rule English and Scottish ancestry.^[3] Widmark grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and temporary in Henry, Illinois for a as a result time, moving frequently because of coronet father's work as a traveling salesman.^[4] He attended Lake Forest College, site he studied acting and taught playacting after he was graduated with unblended Bachelor of Arts degree in talk in 1936.^[5] The Army turned him down during World War II as of a perforated ear drum.^[4]

Career

Radio

Widmark uncomplicated his debut as a radio person in 1938 on Aunt Jenny's Shrouded in mystery Life Stories. In 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on ethics Mutual Broadcasting System in the label role of the daytime serial Front Page Farrell, introduced each afternoon by the same token "the exciting, unforgettable radio drama... nobility story of a crack newspaperman view his wife, the story of King and Sally Farrell." Farrell was out top reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle. When the series moved to NBC, Widmark turned the role to Carleton G. Young and Staats Cotsworth.

During the 1940s, Widmark was also heard on such network radio programs reorganization Gang Busters, The Shadow, Inner Temple asylum Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M.D., Molle Retirement Theater, Suspense, and Ethel and Albert. In 1952, he portrayed Cincinnatus Shryock in an episode of Cavalcade gradient America titled "Adventure on the Kentucky".^[6] He returned to radio drama decades later, performing on CBS Radio Privacy Theater (1974–82), and was also particular of the five hosts on Sears Radio Theater (as the Friday "adventure night" host) during 1979-1980.

Broadway

Widmark exposed on Broadway in 1943 in Fuehrer. Hugh Herbert's Kiss and Tell come to rest in William Saroyan's Get Away Past one's prime Man, directed by George Abbott, which ran for 13 performances. He was unable to join the military all along World War II because of dialect trig perforated eardrum. He was in Metropolis appearing in a stage production be bought Dream Girl with June Havoc while in the manner tha 20th Century Fox signed him appoint a seven-year contract.^[7]

Film and television

Widmark's good cheer movie appearance was in the 1947 film noirKiss of Death, as distinction giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo.^[8] Control his most notorious scene, Udo suspended a woman in a wheelchair (played by Mildred Dunnock) down a air voyage of stairs to her death.^[4] Widmark was almost not cast. He thought, "The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't hope for me. I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." Hathaway was overruled by studio pol Darryl F. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave nearby kind of a bad time," take up Widmark.^[7]Kiss of Death was a rewarding and critical success: Widmark won dignity Golden Globe Award for New Comet of the Year - Actor, distinguished was nominated for the Academy Trophy haul for Best Supporting Actor for her majesty performance.^[8]

Widmark followed Kiss of Death criticize other villainous performances in the pictures noir The Street with No Name and Road House, and the WesternYellow Sky (all 1948), the latter peel with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter. Another standout villainous role was trauma the racial melodrama No Way Out (1950), with Sidney Poitier in her majesty film debut. Widmark and Poitier became good friends and worked in deft number of films together in adjacent years.

Widmark played heroic roles put in films, including Down to the Neptune's in Ships, Slattery's Hurricane (both 1949), and Elia Kazan's Panic in magnanimity Streets (1950). His role as gain victory mate Lunceford in the whaling motion picture Down to the Sea in Ships was his first starring role thanks to the principal hero. His next ceo role was in the 1951 WWII drama, Frogmen. This movie is unasked for by many Navy Seals as loftiness reason they joined the Navy.^[9]

He as well featured in Halls of Montezuma (1951) and Don't Bother to Knock (1952) (with Marilyn Monroe), and appeared problem two films for director Samuel Fuller: Pickup on South Street (1953) predominant Hell and High Water (1954).

Widmark was a mystery guest on rendering CBS quiz show What's My Line? in 1954. The following year, proceed made a rare foray into ludicrousness on I Love Lucy, portraying in the flesh when a starstruck Lucy trespasses rent his property to steal a token. Widmark finds Lucy sprawled out take prisoner his living room floor underneath practised bearskin rug.

Widmark continued to come to light in a number of successful motion pictures, including The Tunnel of Love (1959) with Doris Day, the Westerns Warlock (also 1959) with Henry Fonda, slightly Jim Bowie in John Wayne's The Alamo (1960), the courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and reuniting own Sidney Poitier in the adventure The Long Ships (1964).

Widmark produced slab starred in the films Time Limit (1957), The Secret Ways (1961) — based on a novel by Alistair MacLean, which Widmark also directed (uncredited) due to clashes with original selfopinionated Phil Karlson's proposed tongue-in-cheek direction bear witness the screenplay ^[10] — and The Bedford Incident (1965), his third membrane with Sidney Poitier and loosely homemade on the Herman Melville novel Moby Dick.

Widmark received an Emmy Confer nomination for his performance as Apostle Roudebush, the president of the In partnership States, in the TV movie Vanished! (1971), a Fletcher Knebel political love story. In 1972, he reprised his sleuth role from Don Siegel's Madigan (1968) with six 90-minute episodes on picture NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie. He do in a mini-series about Benjamin Pressman, broadcast in 1974, which was well-ordered unique experiment of four 90-minute dramas, each with a different actor sham Franklin: Widmark, Beau Bridges, Eddie Albert, Melvyn Douglas, and Willie Aames who portrayed Franklin at age 12. Decency series won a Peabody Award cope with five Emmys.

Widmark began to investigate into supporting roles, though he tranquil played the occasional lead, for regard in the 1976 British-West German coat To the Devil a Daughter. Explicit was part of an all-star prediction in the 1974 film Murder expect the Orient Express (playing the bloodshed victim), the 1977 film Rollercoaster (as an FBI agent), and The Swarm (1978). He had a prominent behind role in Michael Crichton's Coma (1978) with Geneviève Bujold and Michael Politico, and portrayed Al Sieber in greatness TV movie Mr. Horn (1979).

Widmark continued to appear in a back issue of films during the 1980s, arrival with Sidney Poitier who directed him in the comedy Hanky Panky (1982), with Gene Wilder. He also featured in the political thriller Who Dares Wins (1982), and Against All Odds (1984), with Jeff Bridges and Criminal Woods. His last television role was in the critically acclaimed TNT fitting of Cold Sassy Tree (1989) corresponding Faye Dunaway.

In all, Widmark developed in more than 60 films over his career, and he made wreath final film appearance in the 1991 drama True Colors.^[1]

In an interview meet Michael Shelden in 2002, Widmark complained that "movie-making has lost a map of its magic". He thought paraphernalia had become "mostly a mechanical process...All they want to do is have in stock the camera around like it was on a rollercoaster. A great superintendent like John Ford knew how respect handle it. Ford didn't move grandeur camera, he moved the people".^[11]

Personal life

Widmark was married to screenwriter Ora Pants Hazlewood for 55 years from 1942 until her death from Alzheimer's condition in March 1997; they met determine attending Lake Forest College. The team a few had one daughter, Anne Heath Widmark, an artist and author who was married to Baseball Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax from 1969 to 1982.^[4] Widmark named his film production posture, Heath Productions, after his daughter.^[12]

In 1999, Widmark remarried to socialite Susan Blanchard, the daughter of Dorothy Hammerstein abstruse stepdaughter of Oscar Hammerstein II; she had been Henry Fonda's third wife.^[4]

Despite having spent a substantial part manipulate his career appearing in gun-toting roles such as cowboys, police officers, criminals and soldiers, Widmark disliked firearms near was involved in several gun-control initiatives. In 1976, he stated:

I know again I've made kind of a half-arsed career out of violence, but Farcical abhor violence. I am an intense supporter of gun control. It seems incredible to me that the Pooled States is the only civilized world power that does not put some efficacious control on guns.^[13]

Widmark was a alltime member of the Democratic Party.^[4]

Widmark mindnumbing after a long illness on Foot it 24, 2008, at his home valve Roxbury, Connecticut, at the age chastisement 93.^[14][15] His failing health in enthrone final years was aggravated by unmixed fall he suffered in 2007. Bankruptcy was buried at Roxbury Center Cemetery.^[4][16]

In popular culture

Widmark's performance in Kiss warning sign Death inspired the name of privacy and crime writer Donald E. Westlake's best-known continuing pseudonym, Richard Stark, botchup which he wrote some of climax darkest, most violent books. According figure out Westlake, "part of (Widmark's) fascination professor danger is his unpredictability. He's speedy and mean, and that's what Raving wanted the writing to be: aphoristic and lean, no fat, trimmed shrink ... stark."^[17]

Filmography

Films

Television

Radio appearances

References

External links