SHY MAN WHO PLAYED KILLERS,COPS, GUNSLINGERS
Hartford,Conn.--
Richard Widmark, who made his film debut as the giggling killer in Kiss of Death and became a Hollywood leading man, has died after a long illness. He was 93.
Mr. Widmark's wife, Susan Blanchard, said he died at his home in Connecticut on Monday.
After a career in radio drama and theater, Mr. Widmark moved to films as the character Tommy Udo, who delighted in pushing an old lady in a wheelchair to her death down a flight of stairs in the 1947 thriller Kiss of Death. The performance won him an Academy Award nomination as supporting actor.
"That damned laugh of mine!" he told a reporter in 1961. "For two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile. I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny, and the part I played made me laugh. The guy was just such a ridiculous beast."
A quiet, inordinately shy man, Mr. Widmark often protrayed killers, cops and Western gunslingers.But he said he hated guns.
Mr. Widmark appeared in 20 Fox films from 1957 to 1964.
After leaving Fox, he starred as Jim Bowie with John Wayne in The Alamo(the original), and with James Stewart in John Ford's Two Rode Together.
Madigan, a 1968 film, was converted for television and was Mr. Widmark's only TV series.
He was born Dec.26, 1914, in Sunrise, Minn. At Lake Forest College, he became a protege of the drama teacher and met his future wife, drama student Ora Jean Hazlewood. She died in 1997. He is survived by their daughter Anne and his second wife.
Oh man....it has always remained a toss up with me as to who I loved more..Richard Widmark or Randolph Scott.
Still can't decide...but I do know that my first 'sexual arousal'...came from watching one of Richard Widmark's movies...can't remember which one, but he and some blond were in a hammock and they kissed..and their lips sorta stuck together...and I felt a warm feeling in my stomach area...didn't have a clue to what it meant..but after that...?...I was gaga for Richard...I must have been 7-8 years old..Then he played Jim Bowie in The Alamo with John Wayne..that cinched it...I was in love..must have been 17 or so...and now here I am at 64 years old..and still in love with him...He was never movie star magazine fodder...was a good man..good husband, good father...and a terrific actor...so long Richard...I'm going to miss you...
If you get a chance..check out any movie with him in it..he was so good...
fuckme ....I'll never smile again...
