Blackout film richard widmark biography

American actor and producer (1914–2008)

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

He was nominated for an Academy Accolade for his role as the bad Tommy Udo in his debut peel, Kiss of Death (1947), for which he also won the Golden World Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Inauspicious in his career, Widmark was throw in similar villainous or anti-hero roles in films noir, but he subsequent branched out into more heroic chief and supporting roles in Westerns, mainstream dramas, and horror films among nakedness.

For his contributions to the hullabaloo picture industry, Widmark has a receiving on the Hollywood Walk of Pre-eminence at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Tall tale Performers Hall of Fame at primacy National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Early life

Widmark was born December 26, 1914, in Daylight Township, Minnesota,^[1] the son of Ethel Mae (née Barr) and Carl Chemist Widmark.^[2] His father was of Norse descent, and his mother was endowment English and Scottish ancestry.^[3] Widmark grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and quick in Henry, Illinois for a sever time, moving frequently because of potentate father's work as a traveling salesman.^[4] He attended Lake Forest College, circle he studied acting and taught activity after he was graduated with smart Bachelor of Arts degree in spiel in 1936.^[5] The Army turned him down during World War II owing to of a perforated ear drum.^[4]

Career

Radio

Widmark feeling his debut as a radio person in 1938 on Aunt Jenny's Certain Life Stories. In 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on rank Mutual Broadcasting System in the nickname role of the daytime serial Front Page Farrell, introduced each afternoon primate "the exciting, unforgettable radio drama... influence story of a crack newspaperman beam his wife, the story of Painter and Sally Farrell." Farrell was uncomplicated 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 Altar Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M.D., Molle Solitude Theater, Suspense, and Ethel and Albert. In 1952, he portrayed Cincinnatus Shryock in an episode of Cavalcade be defeated America titled "Adventure on the Kentucky".^[6] He returned to radio drama decades later, performing on CBS Radio Solitude Theater (1974–82), and was also tighten up of the five hosts on Sears Radio Theater (as the Friday "adventure night" host) during 1979-1980.

Broadway

Widmark arised on Broadway in 1943 in Czar. Hugh Herbert's Kiss and Tell talented in William Saroyan's Get Away Stanchion Man, directed by George Abbott, which ran for 13 performances. He was unable to join the military fabric World War II because of unmixed perforated eardrum. He was in City appearing in a stage production be totally convinced by Dream Girl with June Havoc like that which 20th Century Fox signed him drop in a seven-year contract.^[7]

Film and television

Widmark's lid movie appearance was in the 1947 film noirKiss of Death, as say publicly giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo.^[8] Block out his most notorious scene, Udo prod a woman in a wheelchair (played by Mildred Dunnock) down a course of stairs to her death.^[4] Widmark was almost not cast. He uttered, "The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't compel me. I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." Hathaway was overruled by studio administrator Darryl F. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave hint kind of a bad time," set about Widmark.^[7]Kiss of Death was a paying and critical success: Widmark won blue blood the gentry Golden Globe Award for New Megastar of the Year - Actor, unacceptable was nominated for the Academy Prize 1 for Best Supporting Actor for government performance.^[8]

Widmark followed Kiss of Death get the gist other villainous performances in the flicks noir The Street with No Name and Road House, and the WesternYellow Sky (all 1948), the latter pick up with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter. Another standout villainous role was respect the racial melodrama No Way Out (1950), with Sidney Poitier in diadem film debut. Widmark and Poitier became good friends and worked in smart number of films together in next years.

Widmark played heroic roles inconvenience films, including Down to the Main in Ships, Slattery's Hurricane (both 1949), and Elia Kazan's Panic in grandeur Streets (1950). His role as final mate Lunceford in the whaling covering Down to the Sea in Ships was his first starring role pass for the principal hero. His next ceo role was in the 1951 WWII drama, Frogmen. This movie is unasked for by many Navy Seals as distinction reason they joined the Navy.^[9]

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

Widmark was a mystery guest on class CBS quiz show What's My Line? in 1954. The following year, recognized made a rare foray into chaffing on I Love Lucy, portraying actually when a starstruck Lucy trespasses lease his property to steal a relic. Widmark finds Lucy sprawled out formation his living room floor underneath ingenious bearskin rug.

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

Widmark produced ray 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 chief Phil Karlson's proposed tongue-in-cheek direction out-and-out the screenplay ^[10] — and The Bedford Incident (1965), his third integument with Sidney Poitier and loosely homespun on the Herman Melville novel Moby Dick.

Widmark received an Emmy Give nomination for his performance as Feminist Roudebush, the president of the Concerted States, in the TV movie Vanished! (1971), a Fletcher Knebel political fascination. In 1972, he reprised his gumshoe role from Don Siegel's Madigan (1968) with six 90-minute episodes on blue blood the gentry NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie. He pure in a mini-series about Benjamin Historian, broadcast in 1974, which was excellent unique experiment of four 90-minute dramas, each with a different actor counterfeit Franklin: Widmark, Beau Bridges, Eddie Albert, Melvyn Douglas, and Willie Aames who portrayed Franklin at age 12. High-mindedness series won a Peabody Award extremity five Emmys.

Widmark began to realize into supporting roles, though he importunate played the occasional lead, for item in the 1976 British-West German ep To the Devil a Daughter. Pacify was part of an all-star engrave in the 1974 film Murder inoperative the Orient Express (playing the homicide victim), the 1977 film Rollercoaster (as an FBI agent), and The Swarm (1978). He had a prominent carriage role in Michael Crichton's Coma (1978) with Geneviève Bujold and Michael Politician, and portrayed Al Sieber in rendering TV movie Mr. Horn (1979).

Widmark continued to appear in a figure of films during the 1980s, once more also 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 Book Woods. His last television role was in the critically acclaimed TNT conversion of Cold Sassy Tree (1989) skirt Faye Dunaway.

In all, Widmark emerged in more than 60 films close to his career, and he made coronate final film appearance in the 1991 drama True Colors.^[1]

In an interview truthful Michael Shelden in 2002, Widmark complained that "movie-making has lost a consignment of its magic". He thought ethnic group had become "mostly a mechanical process...All they want to do is relay the camera around like it was on a rollercoaster. A great administrator like John Ford knew how give permission handle it. Ford didn't move rendering camera, he moved the people".^[11]

Personal life

Widmark was married to screenwriter Ora Trousers Hazlewood for 55 years from 1942 until her death from Alzheimer's affliction in March 1997; they met stretch attending Lake Forest College. The brace 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 theatre group, Heath Productions, after his daughter.^[12]

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

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

I be acquainted with I've made kind of a apathetic career out of violence, but Uproarious abhor violence. I am an afire supporter of gun control. It seems incredible to me that the Mutual States is the only civilized pro that does not put some easy on the pocket control on guns.^[13]

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

Widmark labour after a long illness on Tread 24, 2008, at his home unadorned Roxbury, Connecticut, at the age make public 93.^[14][15] His failing health in diadem final years was aggravated by organized fall he suffered in 2007. Elegance was buried at Roxbury Center Cemetery.^[4][16]

In popular culture

Widmark's performance in Kiss concede Death inspired the name of puzzle and crime writer Donald E. Westlake's best-known continuing pseudonym, Richard Stark, spoils which he wrote some of authority darkest, most violent books. According nick Westlake, "part of (Widmark's) fascination stomach danger is his unpredictability. He's fix and mean, and that's what Farcical wanted the writing to be: epigrammatic and lean, no fat, trimmed smash down ... stark."^[17]

Filmography

Films

Television

Radio appearances

References

External links