Richard Widmark - Broadway and Films

Broadway and Films

Widmark appeared on Broadway in 1943 in F. Hugh Herbert's Kiss and Tell. He was unable to join the military during World War II because of a perforated eardrum. He was in Chicago appearing in a stage production of Dream Girl with June Havoc when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year contract.

Widmark's first movie appearance was in 1947's Kiss of Death, as the giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo. His most notorious scene found Udo pushing a wheelchair-bound woman (played by Mildred Dunnock) down a flight of stairs to her death. Widmark was almost not cast. He said, "The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't want me. I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." Hathaway was overruled by studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave me kind of a bad time," recalled Widmark. Kiss of Death was a commercial and critical success: Widmark won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. Widmark's character was also the inspiration for the song The Ballad of Tommy Udo by the band Kaleidoscope. Widmark played "Dude" in the Western film Yellow Sky with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter the following year, with his name over the title, billed third.

In 1950, Widmark co-starred with Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance and Zero Mostel in Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets, and appeared opposite Gene Tierney in Jules Dassin's Night and the City. Both are considered classic examples of film noir. Also in 1950, Widmark starred with Sidney Poitier in the gripping racial melodrama No Way Out.

In 1952, Widmark had his handprints cast in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. During his stint at Fox, he appeared in The Street with No Name (1948), Don't Bother to Knock (1952) with Marilyn Monroe, and Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street (1953). He also appeared in Vincente Minnelli's 1955 cult film The Cobweb with Lauren Bacall.

Widmark starred in and also produced a drama set during the Cold War, The Bedford Incident (1965). He is also credited with producing his films Time Limit (1957) and The Secret Ways (1961). Other notable films in the 1960s were The Alamo (1960) with John Wayne as Davy Crockett and Widmark as Jim Bowie, Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), and John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964). During the 1970s, Widmark's films included Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Michael Crichton's Coma (1978), and The Swarm (1978). In all, Widmark appeared in over 60 films before making his final movie appearance in the 1991 thriller True Colors.