Richard Widmark

Two genres are inextricably linked to Richard Widmark’s acting career: film noir and intrigue, and the western. Perhaps the most memorable scene in his extensive filmography came in his shocking debut in  Kiss of Death  (1947), when he was pushing a paralyzed old woman in a wheelchair; that work earned him an Oscar nomination. And it is that, in his first films, Widmark specialized in disturbing villain roles ( La calle sin nombre ,  Cielo amarillo), but it would soon be seen that it was just as useful for a broken man as for a torn one, that is, for a villain than for a man of integrity. A very physical actor, he had a hard face that communicated a lot of inner life, as if he was perpetually debating between good and evil. He had a childish point, but he could be malicious, and with both aspects he knew how to play by interpreting his roles as the case may be.

Richard Widmark was born on December 26, 1941 in Sunrise, in the state of Minnesota. Apparently he loved monster movies when he was a child,  Boris Karloff being  one of his heroes at that time. As he was good at speaking in public, he thought of studying to be a lawyer, and went to Lake Forest College for it. But precisely playing a lawyer in the play “The Lawyer” by  Elmer Rice , in an amateur performance, he discovered his acting vocation; in this field he would advance working on the radio in  Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater on the Air , and debuting on Broadway in 1943 with the play “Kiss and Tell”; although he also dedicated himself to teaching. But his real opportunity would come at the end of the war with the aforementioned The kiss of death , thanks to a personal effort by  Darryl F. Zanuck , after which followed a fruitful relationship with Fox, to which he was bound by contract for seven years.

Night on the Town  (1950) allowed him to embody a complex character, a born loser who promotes wrestling matches. That same year he sided with the law with  Elia Kazan  in  Panic in the streets ; he considered Kazan the best actor’s director; he also acted for  Joseph L. Mankiewicz  in  A Ray of Light . The truth is that Widmark honored a series of memorable titles with his presence, such as  Dangerous Hands  (1953), by  Samuel Fuller ., where he is perfect as a pickpocket; About the shooting of this film, the actor recounted how he managed to convince the director not to live with him his inveterate habit of giving the signal for action when shooting, shooting with a revolver. He was proud to have worked alongside  Marilyn Monroe  on the magnificent  Fog in Her Soul , and said of her: “Something was going on between her and the camera lens, and nobody knows what became of her”; although he did not stop pointing out how difficult it was to work with the actress because of her well-known emotional fragility, her lack of punctuality and her difficulty in learning the lines of the script.

With  John Ford ,  he made  Two Ride Together  (1960), which is perhaps not the best title for the director who described himself by saying that he made westerns, but it’s not bad at all; Widmark worked alongside  James Stewart , and claimed that he was looking forward to waking up each morning of filming to have a fun time working under Ford. He also has the actor in the genre classic titles like  The Devil’s Garden ,  Broken Spear ,  The Man with the Golden Guns ,  The West Was Won  and  The Alamo (1960) , directed by  John Wayne. Widmark recounted that Ford and Wayne were chatting on one occasion, the former encouraged the latter to personally film the feat of the fort in Texas, but that he thought Ford was inwardly wanting Wayne to say, “no, no, you direct it.”

The temptation when talking about Widmark is to quote and quote fantastic films, without more. But there is no other choice, although one should not forget his time on television in the  Madigan series , which starts from the  Don Siegel film of the same name . In any case, it is obligatory to mention his work in  Winners or Vanquished , an essential look at the Nuremberg trials. The 70s are years of minor titles, although he joined the star cast of  Murder on the Orient Express . He would continue working sporadically until closing his filmography in 1991 with his intervention in  The Color of Ambition , a thriller that insults corruption.

Richard Widmark died on March 24, 2008 at the age of 93 at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut after a long illness. He was married twice in his long life. He with Jean Hazlewood, with whom he had a daughter, and with whom he remained for 55 years, until her death. And with  Susan Blanchard , who survives him, and whom he married in 1999.