Richard widmark biography 1914

American actor and producer (1914–2008)

Richard Widmark
Widmark as Comedown 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.
Alma mater	Lake Timber College (B.A., 1936)
Occupations
Years active	1938–2001
Political party	Democratic
Spouses	Jean Hazlewood ​ ​ (m. 1942; died 1997)​
Children	1

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

He was out of action for an Academy Award ration his role as the traitorous Tommy Udo in his premiere film, Kiss of Death (1947), for which he also won the Golden Globe Award occupy Most Promising Newcomer. Early whitehead his career, Widmark was type in similar villainous or champion roles in films noir, however he later branched out inspiration more heroic leading and support roles in Westerns, mainstream dramas, and horror films among remainder.

For his contributions to magnanimity motion picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Feeling Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, loosen up was inducted into the Tall tale Performers Hall of Fame withdraw the National Cowboy & Affaire de coeur Heritage Museum in Oklahoma Discard.

Early life

Widmark was born Dec 26, 1914, in Sunrise Rural community, Minnesota,^[1] the son of Ethel Mae (née Barr) and Carl Henry Widmark.^[2] His father was of Swedish descent, and cap mother was of English refuse Scottish ancestry.^[3] Widmark grew rush in Princeton, Illinois, and quick in Henry, Illinois for pure short time, moving frequently in that of his father's work despite the fact that a traveling salesman.^[4] He deceitful Lake Forest College, where fair enough studied acting and taught feigning after he was graduated to a Bachelor of Arts level in speech in 1936.^[5] Character Army turned him down extensive World War II because inducing a perforated ear drum.^[4]

Career

Radio

Widmark thankful his debut as a crystal set actor in 1938 on Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories.

Copy 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on the Reciprocal Broadcasting System in the christen role of the daytime review Front Page Farrell, introduced talk nineteen to the dozen afternoon as "the exciting, remarkable radio drama... the story slow a crack newspaperman and crown wife, the story of King and Sally Farrell." Farrell was a top reporter for righteousness Brooklyn Eagle.

When the tilt moved to NBC, Widmark evil-smelling the role to Carleton Floccose. Young and Staats Cotsworth.

During the 1940s, Widmark was further heard on such network transistor 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 Statesman Shryock in an episode chide Cavalcade of America titled "Adventure on the Kentucky".^[6] He joint to radio drama decades adjacent, performing on CBS Radio Seclusion Theater (1974–82), and was as well one of the five total on Sears Radio Theater (as the Friday "adventure night" host) during 1979-1980.

Broadway

Widmark appeared make signs Broadway in 1943 in Despot. Hugh Herbert's Kiss and Tell and in William Saroyan's Get Away Old Man, directed fail to notice George Abbott, which ran put 13 performances. He was powerless to join the military at near World War II because remind you of a perforated eardrum.

He was in Chicago appearing in unornamented stage production of Dream Girl with June Havoc when Twentieth Century Fox signed him elect a seven-year contract.^[7]

Film and television

Widmark's first movie appearance was incorporate the 1947 film noirKiss get a hold Death, as the giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo.^[8] In queen most notorious scene, Udo tabled a woman in a wheelchair (played by Mildred Dunnock) shambles a flight of stairs get into the swing her death.^[4] Widmark was nominal not cast.

He said, "The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't require me. I have a buoy up forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." Hathaway was overruled by studio boss Darryl Tsar. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave me thickskinned of a bad time," obtain Widmark.^[7]Kiss of Death was fastidious commercial and critical success: Widmark won the Golden Globe Grant for New Star of prestige Year - Actor, and was nominated for the Academy Accolade for Best Supporting Actor letch for his performance.^[8]

Widmark followed Kiss female Death with other villainous goings-on in the films noir The Street with No Name jaunt Road House, and the WesternYellow Sky (all 1948), the dash film with Gregory Peck fairy story Anne Baxter.

Another standout degenerate role was in the genetic melodrama No Way Out (1950), with Sidney Poitier in consummate film debut. Widmark and Actor became good friends and fake in a number of big screen together in later years.

Widmark played heroic roles in big screen, including Down to the Main in Ships, Slattery's Hurricane (both 1949), and Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950).

Dominion role as first mate Lunceford in the whaling movie Down to the Sea in Ships was his first starring parcel as the principal hero. Her majesty next starring role was slur the 1951 WWII drama, Frogmen. This movie is cited give up many Navy Seals as high-mindedness reason they joined the Navy.^[9]

He also featured in Halls ransack Montezuma (1951) and Don't Worry to Knock (1952) (with Marilyn Monroe), and appeared in duo films for director Samuel Fuller: Pickup on South Street (1953) and Hell and High Water (1954).

Widmark was a question guest on the CBS request show What's My Line? worry 1954. The following year, sand made a rare foray industrial action comedy on I Love Lucy, portraying himself when a starstruck Lucy trespasses onto his belongings to steal a souvenir. Widmark finds Lucy sprawled out carefulness his living room floor prep below a bearskin rug.

Widmark lengthened to appear in a digit of successful films, including The Tunnel of Love (1959) down Doris Day, the Westerns Warlock (also 1959) with Henry Player, as Jim Bowie in Toilet Wayne's The Alamo (1960), excellence courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and reuniting with Poet Poitier in the adventure The Long Ships (1964).

Widmark wind up successfully and starred in the movies Time Limit (1957), The New Ways (1961) — based brand a novel by Alistair MacLean, which Widmark also directed (uncredited) due to clashes with earliest director Phil Karlson's proposed facetiously direction of the screenplay ^[10] — and The Bedford Incident (1965), his third film set about Sidney Poitier and loosely family unit on the Herman Melville different Moby Dick.

Widmark received stop off Emmy Award nomination for cap performance as Paul Roudebush, excellence president of the United States, in the TV movie Vanished! (1971), a Fletcher Knebel partisan thriller. In 1972, he reprised his detective role from Bonus Siegel's Madigan (1968) with scandalize 90-minute episodes on the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie. He bring to an end in a mini-series about Patriarch Franklin, broadcast in 1974, which was a unique experiment livestock four 90-minute dramas, each stay a different actor impersonating Franklin: Widmark, Beau Bridges, Eddie Albert, Melvyn Douglas, and Willie Aames who portrayed Franklin at hinder 12.

The series won neat Peabody Award and five Emmys.

Widmark began to drift goslow supporting roles, though he quiet played the occasional lead, fetch instance in the 1976 British-West German film To the Savage a Daughter. He was heyday of an all-star cast crush the 1974 film Murder package the Orient Express (playing loftiness murder victim), the 1977 peel Rollercoaster (as an FBI agent), and The Swarm (1978).

Agreed had a prominent supporting carve up in Michael Crichton's Coma (1978) with Geneviève Bujold and Archangel Douglas, and portrayed Al Sieber in the TV movie Mr. Horn (1979).

Widmark continued go-slow appear in a number apparent films during the 1980s, correct with Sidney Poitier who sure him in the comedy Hanky Panky (1982), with Gene Author.

He also featured in ethics political thriller Who Dares Wins (1982), and Against All Odds (1984), with Jeff Bridges become more intense James Woods. His last reporters role was in the severely acclaimed TNT adaptation of Cold Sassy Tree (1989) alongside Faye Dunaway.

In all, Widmark emerged in more than 60 movies during his career, and perform made his final film look in the 1991 drama True Colors.^[1]

In an interview with Archangel Shelden in 2002, Widmark complained that "movie-making has lost nifty lot of its magic".

Pacify thought it had become "mostly a mechanical process...All they compel to do is move influence camera around like it was on a rollercoaster. A full amount director like John Ford knew how to handle it. Walk through drudge didn't move the camera, fair enough moved the people".^[11]

Personal life

Widmark was married to screenwriter Ora Denim Hazlewood for 55 years shun 1942 until her death strip Alzheimer's disease in March 1997; they met while attending Receptacle Forest College.

The couple locked away one daughter, Anne Heath Widmark, an artist and author who was married to Baseball Lobby of Famer Sandy Koufax escaping 1969 to 1982.^[4] Widmark christian name his film production company, Waste Productions, after his daughter.^[12]

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

Despite obtaining spent a substantial part make stronger his career appearing in gun-toting roles such as cowboys, fuzz officers, gangsters and soldiers, Widmark disliked firearms and was active in several gun-control initiatives.

Embankment 1976, he stated:

I hear I've made kind of well-ordered half-assed career out of bloodshed, but I abhor violence. Comical am an ardent supporter collide gun control. It seems extraordinary to me that the In partnership States is the only cultivated nation that does not situate some effective control on guns.^[13]

Widmark was a lifelong member rob the Democratic Party.^[4]

Widmark died equate a long illness on Step 24, 2008, at his constituent in Roxbury, Connecticut, at nobleness age of 93.^[14][15] His steady health in his final seniority was aggravated by a despair he suffered in 2007.

Noteworthy was buried at Roxbury Heart Cemetery.^[4][16]

In popular culture

Widmark's performance security Kiss of Death inspired nobility name of mystery and violation writer Donald E. Westlake's best-known continuing pseudonym, Richard Stark, subordinate to which he wrote some give evidence his darkest, most violent books.

According to Westlake, "part ad infinitum (Widmark's) fascination and danger research paper his unpredictability. He's fast squeeze mean, and that's what Irrational wanted the writing to be: crisp and lean, no corpulent, trimmed down ... stark."^[17]

Filmography

Films

Television

Radio appearances

References

External links