Richard widmark biography filmography

Throughout the late s and the early s Widmark was a fixture on radio, acting in hundreds of programs including Big SisterStella DallasFront Page Farrelland March of Time. He also regularly took parts on Broadway, but always made no secret of his desire to go to Hollywood. His chance came at an age 33 when most movie actors had long built up a list of credits.

Even so Widmark was able to make a memorable impression in a small part in his very first film. His portrayal as a giggling psychopath in Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death earned him his only nomination for an Academy Award. Widmark then signed a standard seven-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox, and went on to do his best film work during the s and s.

By the s Widmark had turned his considerable talents to television. For a two-part television movie, Vanishedhe was nominated for an Emmy, but lost. His lone prime-time series, Madiganbased on his film role, did better, lasting two seasons. He ended his career with frequent appearances in television movies and mini-series. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

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Actor and producer. Widmark's portrayal of a psychotic gangster in his screen debut, the thriller Kiss of Death, made him an instant star. Growing up in Illinois, Widmark attended Lake Forest College with every intention of becoming a lawyer. After winning the lead role in a college production, however, he changed course and stayed with the drama department.

After graduating inWidmark became the assistant director of speech and drama at Lake Forestquitting in to move to New York. Widmark made his Broadway debut as an army lieutenant in the production Kiss and Tell. Even though the role was small, Widmark stole the picture. The publicity department at 20th Century-Fox recommended that richards widmark biography filmography market the film by concentrating on thumping the tub for their new antihero.

The manual told local exhibitors to engage a job printer to have "wanted" posters featuring Widmark's face printed and pasted up. He won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod for the part, which led to an early bout with typecasting at the studio. Wellman western Yellow Skyplaying the villain, of course. When his pressuring the studio to let him play other parts paid off, his appearance as a sailor in Down to the Sea in Ships made headlines: Life magazine's March 28,issue featured a three-page spread of the movie headlined "Widmark the Movie Villain Goes Straight".

He was popular, having captured the public imagination, and before the decade was out, his hand- and footprints were immortalized in concrete in the court outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. The great director Elia Kazan cast Widmark in his thriller Panic in the Streetsnot as the heavy that role went to Jack Palance but as the physician who richards widmark biography filmography down Palance, who has the plague, in tandem with detective Paul Douglas.

Widmark was establishing himself as a real presence in the genre that later would be hailed as film noir. Having proved he could handle other roles, Widmark didn't shy away from playing heavies in quality pictures. The soon-to-be-blacklisted director Jules Dassin cast him in one of his greatest roles, as the penny-ante hustler Harry Fabian in Night and the City Set in London, Widmark's Fabian manages to survive in the jungle of the English demimonde, but is doomed.

Widmark was masterful in conveying the desperation of the criminal seeking to control his own fate but who is damned, and this performance also became an icon of film noir. In that same year, he appeared in Oscar-winning writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz 's No Way Out as a bigot who instigates a race riot. As the s progressed, Widmark played in westerns, military vehicles, and his old stand-by genre, the thriller.

His seven-year contract at Fox was expiring, and Zanuck, who would not renew the deal, cast him in the western Broken Lance in a decidedly supporting role, billed beneath not only Spencer Tracy but even Robert Wagner and Jean Peters. The film was well respected, and it won an Oscar nomination for best screenplay for the front of Hollywood 10 blacklistee Albert Maltz.

Widmark left Fox for the life of a freelance, forming his own company, Heath Productions. He appeared in more westerns, adventures and social dramas and pushed himself as an actor by taking the thankless role of the Dauphin in Otto Preminger 's adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Saint Joana notorious flop that didn't bring anyone any honors, neither Preminger, his leading lady Jean Sebergnor Widmark.

Inhe was appearing in another notorious production, John Wayne 's ode to suicidal patriotism, The Alamowith the personally liberal Widmark playing Jim Bowie in support of the very conservative Wayne's Davy Crockett. Along with character actor Chill WillsWidmark arguably was the best thing in the movie. InWidmark acquitted himself quite well as the prosecutor in producer-director Stanley Kramer 's Judgment at Nurembergappearing with the Oscar-nominated Spencer Tracy and the Oscar-winning Maximilian Schellas well as with superstar Burt Lancaster and acting genius Montgomery Clift and the legendary Judy Garland the latter two winning Oscar nods for their small roles.

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Richard widmark biography filmography

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Grand Central Publishing. The Decatur Daily Review. Retrieved June 14, — via Newspapers. Nostalgia Digest. Spring Retrieved June 26, — via Newspapers. Retrieved June 27, — via Newspapers. External links [ edit ]. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Richard Widmark. Authority control databases. Emmy Awards. Trove Deutsche Biographie.

Toggle the table of contents. Richard Widmark. Widmark as Max Brock, March 24, aged 93 Roxbury, ConnecticutU. Director: Roy Ward Baker. Producer: Julian Blaustein. Writer: Daniel TaradashCharlotte Armstrong. Hell and High Water During the Cold War, a scientific team refits a Japanese submarine and hires an ex-Navy officer to find a secret Chinese atomic island base and prevent Producer: Raymond A.

Writer: Jesse Lasky Jr. The Tunnel of Love A series of misunderstandings leaves a married man believing he has impregnated the owner of an adoption agency, and that she will be his and his wife's Director: Gene Kelly. Producer: Joseph FieldsMartin Melcher.