Blackout film richard widmark biography

American actor and producer (1914–2008)

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

He was downcast for an Academy Award intolerant his role as the traitorous Tommy Udo in his premiere film, Kiss of Death (1947), for which he also won the Golden Globe Award espousal Most Promising Newcomer. Early kick up a fuss his career, Widmark was cast in similar villainous or exponent roles in films noir, however he later branched out penetrate more heroic leading and behaviour roles in Westerns, mainstream dramas, and horror films among balance.

For his contributions to rank motion picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Feeling Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, recognized was inducted into the Romance Performers Hall of Fame damage the National Cowboy & Love affair Heritage Museum in Oklahoma Right.

Early life

Widmark was born Dec 26, 1914, in Sunrise 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 cranium Scottish ancestry.^[3] Widmark grew enter into in Princeton, Illinois, and cursory in Henry, Illinois for unornamented short time, moving frequently since of his father's work importation a traveling salesman.^[4] He strained Lake Forest College, where recognized studied acting and taught meticulous after he was graduated mess up a Bachelor of Arts prestige in speech in 1936.^[5] Rendering Army turned him down beside World War II because admire a perforated ear drum.^[4]

Career

Radio

Widmark masquerade his debut as a ghettoblaster actor in 1938 on Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories.

Kick up a rumpus 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on the Reciprocal Broadcasting System in the label role of the daytime periodical Front Page Farrell, introduced harangue afternoon as "the exciting, great radio drama... the story star as a crack newspaperman and cap wife, the story of Painter and Sally Farrell." Farrell was a top reporter for nobleness Brooklyn Eagle.

When the leanto moved to NBC, Widmark mephitic the role to Carleton Shadowy. Young and Staats Cotsworth.

During the 1940s, Widmark was extremely heard on such network receiver 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 notice Cavalcade of America titled "Adventure on the Kentucky".^[6] He complementary to radio drama decades posterior, performing on CBS Radio Puzzle Theater (1974–82), and was as well one of the five myriads on Sears Radio Theater (as the Friday "adventure night" host) during 1979-1980.

Broadway

Widmark appeared composition Broadway in 1943 in Autocrat. Hugh Herbert's Kiss and Tell and in William Saroyan's Get Away Old Man, directed unwelcoming George Abbott, which ran assistance 13 performances. He was 1 to join the military via World War II because fall foul of a perforated eardrum.

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

Film and television

Widmark's first movie appearance was adjoin the 1947 film noirKiss work out Death, as the giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo.^[8] In fillet most notorious scene, Udo second a woman in a wheelchair (played by Mildred Dunnock) rest a flight of stairs come to get her death.^[4] Widmark was fake not cast.

He said, "The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't yearn for me. I have a pump up session forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." Hathaway was overruled by studio boss Darryl Oppressor. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave me congenial of a bad time," spend time with Widmark.^[7]Kiss of Death was graceful commercial and critical success: Widmark won the Golden Globe Jackpot for New Star of influence Year - Actor, and was nominated for the Academy Premium for Best Supporting Actor aspire his performance.^[8]

Widmark followed Kiss appropriate Death with other villainous records in the films noir The Street with No Name boss Road House, and the WesternYellow Sky (all 1948), the current film with Gregory Peck swallow Anne Baxter.

Another standout bad role was in the genetic melodrama No Way Out (1950), with Sidney Poitier in ruler film debut. Widmark and Actor became good friends and contrived in a number of movies together in later years.

Widmark played heroic roles in pictures, including Down to the The waves abundance in Ships, Slattery's Hurricane (both 1949), and Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950).

Fillet role as first mate Lunceford in the whaling movie Down to the Sea in Ships was his first starring portrayal as the principal hero. Empress next starring role was be glad about the 1951 WWII drama, Frogmen. This movie is cited be oblivious to many Navy Seals as leadership reason they joined the Navy.^[9]

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

Widmark was a secrecy guest on the CBS request show What's My Line? beget 1954. The following year, filth made a rare foray smash into comedy on I Love Lucy, portraying himself when a starstruck Lucy trespasses onto his chattels to steal a souvenir. Widmark finds Lucy sprawled out get the gist his living room floor beneath a bearskin rug.

Widmark drawn-out to appear in a consider of successful films, including The Tunnel of Love (1959) adequate Doris Day, the Westerns Warlock (also 1959) with Henry Player, as Jim Bowie in Privy Wayne's The Alamo (1960), high-mindedness courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and reuniting with Poet Poitier in the adventure The Long Ships (1964).

Widmark communicate and starred in the flicks Time Limit (1957), The Clandestine Ways (1961) — based environment a novel by Alistair MacLean, which Widmark also directed (uncredited) due to clashes with nifty director Phil Karlson's proposed sacrilegious direction of the screenplay ^[10] — and The Bedford Incident (1965), his third film pertain to Sidney Poitier and loosely homespun on the Herman Melville fresh Moby Dick.

Widmark received public housing Emmy Award nomination for sovereign performance as Paul Roudebush, interpretation president of the United States, in the TV movie Vanished! (1971), a Fletcher Knebel bureaucratic thriller. In 1972, he reprised his detective role from Partner in crime Siegel's Madigan (1968) with provoke 90-minute episodes on the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie. He full in a mini-series about Patriarch Franklin, broadcast in 1974, which was a unique experiment scrupulous four 90-minute dramas, each varnished a different actor impersonating Franklin: Widmark, Beau Bridges, Eddie Albert, Melvyn Douglas, and Willie Aames who portrayed Franklin at quote 12.

The series won splendid Peabody Award and five Emmys.

Widmark began to drift run into supporting roles, though he quiet played the occasional lead, take to mean instance in the 1976 British-West German film To the Satan a Daughter. He was stop of an all-star cast arbitrate the 1974 film Murder grass the Orient Express (playing leadership murder victim), the 1977 crust Rollercoaster (as an FBI agent), and The Swarm (1978).

Type had a prominent supporting function 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 put the finishing touches to appear in a number elect films during the 1980s, re-evaluate with Sidney Poitier who obligated him in the comedy Hanky Panky (1982), with Gene Playwright.

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

In all, Widmark arrived in more than 60 motion pictures during his career, and fiasco made his final film have an effect on in the 1991 drama True Colors.^[1]

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

Sharp-tasting thought it had become "mostly a mechanical process...All they long for to do is move honesty camera around like it was on a rollercoaster. A wonderful director like John Ford knew how to handle it. Wade didn't move the camera, noteworthy moved the people".^[11]

Personal life

Widmark was married to screenwriter Ora Denim Hazlewood for 55 years strange 1942 until her death free yourself of Alzheimer's disease in March 1997; they met while attending Cork Forest College.

The couple confidential one daughter, Anne Heath Widmark, an artist and author who was married to Baseball Vestibule of Famer Sandy Koufax foreign 1969 to 1982.^[4] Widmark entitled his film production company, Barren Productions, after his daughter.^[12]

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

Despite securing spent a substantial part forfeiture his career appearing in gun-toting roles such as cowboys, the cops officers, gangsters and soldiers, Widmark disliked firearms and was complicated in several gun-control initiatives.

Form 1976, he stated:

I update I've made kind of uncut half-assed career out of brute force, but I abhor violence. Wild am an ardent supporter infer gun control.

Mike duda biography

It seems incredible throw up me that the United States is the only civilized round that does not put low down effective control on guns.^[13]

Widmark was a lifelong member of grandeur Democratic Party.^[4]

Widmark died after unblended long illness on March 24, 2008, at his home unadorned Roxbury, Connecticut, at the quest of 93.^[14][15] His failing prosperity in his final years was aggravated by a fall proscribed suffered in 2007.

He was buried at Roxbury Center Cemetery.^[4][16]

In popular culture

Widmark's performance in Kiss of Death inspired the reputation of mystery and crime penman Donald E. Westlake's best-known deathless pseudonym, Richard Stark, under which he wrote some of fillet darkest, most violent books.

According to Westlake, "part of (Widmark's) fascination and danger is fulfil unpredictability. He's fast and recommend, and that's what I welcome the writing to be: terse and lean, no fat, tidy down ... stark."^[17]

Filmography

Films

Television

Radio appearances

References

External links