Richard Widmark
Friday, July 17, 2009 at 9:14AM Has there ever been an acting debut as indelibly menacing as Richard Widmark’s Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death?
Surely 1947 movie audiences were staring at the screen in disbelief as this gangster, this cackling skeleton with the wide toothy grin, long forehead and big eyes wrapped a lamp chord around an old woman in a wheelchair and gleefully shoved her down a flight of stairs. The lyin’ old hag.
Sidney Greenstreet had arisen out of nowhere six years earlier to intimidate filmgoers in The Maltese Falcon, but this new lanky monster was something else entirely.
You can almost hear the audience’s whispers.
“Who the hell is that?!”
Born in 1914 on Boxing Day in Sunrise, Minnesota, Richard Widmark was raised in South Dakota, Missouri, and Illinois. This Midwestern upbringing formulated his strong, no nonsense approach to film acting.
He entered Lake Forrest College for law, but eventually acting won his interest and he remained at the institution for two years after graduation, teaching drama.
In 1938, he headed to New York City where he worked in radio drama for a few years, eventually making it onto Broadway in 1943 in the comedy Kiss and Tell. It was while appearing in a version of Dream Girl in Chicago that he was discovered by an agent from 20th Century Fox. A seven-year contract followed- a stint that would define his style, represent his finest work, and turn him into a household name.
He came late to film, he was thirty-two when cast for Udo in Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death, but this maturity was what made the debut so impressive. The Fox publicity department, realizing they had a gem, suggested to theater owners to put up wanted posters of Widmark in their lobbies. He was a hit. He received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor (sadly, his only one). Two years later, he was imprinting his hands and feet in the cement in front of Grauman’s.
Similar roles as noir heavies and psychopaths followed. In 1948’s The Street with No Name he was Alec Stiles, a crafty mob leader “building an organization along scientific lines”. Stiles is not quite the maniac Udo was, but he is prone to maliciousness and sudden outbursts of violence. Here Widmark was cagier, cooler, and more intellectual in his menace. It is a fine film of mob infiltration and crime fighting procedure.
Next came Road House where Widmark plays Jefty, a spoiled rich kid/bar owner whose jealousy over employees Ida Lupino and Cornell Wilde’s relationship turns to a nefarious plot of framing and manipulation. Widmark is less overtly evil here, yet equally creepy and villainous.
He played a dusty outlaw in the western Yellow Sky that same year, conflicting with gang leader Gregory Peck over gold and Peck’s softness for Anne Baxter.
He was allowed to be likable in the 1949 adventure tale Down to the Sea in Ships (also directed by Hathaway) as a seaman and mentor to a young Dean Stockwell. Slattery’s Hurricane followed with Widmark as an ethically flawed airplane pilot seeking redemption amidst the forces of nature.
The early ‘50s brought three of his finest performances: the luckless, doomed hustler Harry Fabian in Jules Dassin’s Night and the City, the take-charge doctor trying to prevent an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Elia Kazan’s allegorical “Red Scare” docudrama Panic in the Streets, and the irredeemably racist Ray Biddle, in Joseph L. Mankewiewicz’s No Way Out.
Fabian remains his crowning achievement. Equal parts weasel and anti-hero, his American con man in London is alienated, shifty and devoid of the Midas touch he insists he possesses. Widmark plays him alternately sympathetic, loathsome, plucky, idiotic, shameful, clever and always ill fated. He’s that friend you love to have drinks with but always end up shaking your head at when they do something inexplicably moronic. His performance is so good that even De Niro couldn’t best it some 42 years later.
His remaining four years at 20th Century Fox were dedicated to altering the image of noir crazy and widening his range with more heroic, adventure-oriented material; as a soldier in Halls of Montezuma, The Frogmen, Destination Gobi, Take the High Ground! (for MGM), and Hell and High Water; as a murderer in the short, The Clarion Call, for O. Henry’s Full House; a firefighter in Red Skies of Montana; a good natured family lark with My Pal Gus; and back to the thriller with Marilyn Monroe in Don’t Bother to Knock and the Cold War espionage of Sam Fuller’s Pickup on South Street, his best work from this latter period at the studio.
He finished his contract at the studio with two Cinemascope westerns in 1954. In Garden of Evil, a study of greed and lust in Mexico, he played a wisecracking gambler in contrast to Gary Cooper’s stoicism. He ended with the role of Ben Devereaux, the inured and greedy son of an abusive and demanding cattle rancher played by Spencer Tracy in Broken Lance. He was billed fourth, under Tracy and lesser stars Robert Wagner and Jean Peters, a parting slap in the face from studio head Daryl F. Zanuck who resented Widmark for not renewing his contract.
He worked twice more for 20th Century Fox in two more westerns, The Last Wagon in 1956 and 1959’s Warlock, but he was independent now and looking to expand his career.
The ‘60s were hit and miss for him. His most successful ventures continued to be in the western genre with The Alamo (1960), Two Rode Together (1961), How the West was Won (1962), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), Alvarez Kelly (1966) and Death of a Gunfighter in 1969.
Three excellent exceptions to his foray into westerns were as the prosecutor in 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg, the detective film Madigan in 1968, and the submarine thriller The Bedford Incident in 1965, which he also helped produce.
He worked less as the years went on and dropped the rough-hewn heroism for fussier, more patriarchal roles in 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express, 1984’s Against All Odds and 1991’s True Colors.
An intensely private man, his final years were dedicated mostly to his many philanthropic endeavors and staying far away from the pitfalls of celebrity and the time consuming process of filmmaking.
He remained bewildered by the effect actors had on the public.
“With the roles I played in those early movies”, he remembered, “I found that quite a few people wanted to have a go at me.”
He recalled an instance in a small town where a little old lady walked up to him and slapped him right in the face.
“Here, take that, you little squirt”, she fumed.
It was, perhaps, the best compliment an actor can receive, and most assuredly backhanded.
Reader Comments (2)
Great post. Widmark's a truly underrated guy, and by all accounts, fabulous to work with. In a way he reminds of Gene Hackman: always excellent, even in dubious material, and given the chance with excellent material, he elevates it. And Widmark never had to co-star with Will Smith or Barbra Streisand.
Thanks MacQ!
I agree. As I researched for the piece I came to realize just how much crap he had done. But you are quite right, he always made the bad at least palatable and ended up looking like a diamond amongst the coal. And no one should have to co-star with Will Smith. Not even Jada Pinkett.