The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: Lord Undies on March 26, 2008, 11:46:20 AM
-
Richard Widmark, who created a villain in his first movie role who was so repellent and frightening that the actor became a star overnight, died Monday at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 93.
Enlarge This Image
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Richard Widmark in his Manhattan apartment in 2001.
Related
Filmography: Richard Widmark
His death was announced Wednesday morning by his wife, Susan Blanchard. She said that Mr. Widmark had fractured a vertebrae in recent months and that his conditioned had worsened.
....
A passionate liberal Democrat, Mr. Widmark played a bigot who baits a black doctor in Joseph Mankiewicz’s “No Way Out†(1950). He was so embarrassed by the character that after every scene he apologized to the young actor he was required to torment, Sidney Poitier. In 1990, when Mr. Widmark was given the D.W. Griffith Career Achievement Award by the National Board of Review, it was Mr. Poitier who presented it to him.
Within two years after his Fox contract ended, Mr. Widmark had formed a production company and produced “Time Limit†(1957), a serious dissection of possible treason by an American prisoner of war that The New York Times called “sobering, important and exciting.†Directed by the actor Karl Malden, “Time Limit†starred Mr. Widmark as an army colonel who is investigating a major (Richard Basehart) who is suspected of having broken under pressure during the Korean War and aided the enemy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/arts/26cnd-widmark.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=b2cd9b220740ba82&ex=1364270400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
It's hard to believe someone who was in his 40's when he guest starred on "I Love Lucy" was still alive. Remember the Richard Widmark grapefruit?
RIP, Mr. Widmark. I'll bet you are a conservative now.
-
Damn this sucks. He was in so many great movies playing both good and bad guys.
-
Moonbat or not, he made some great films (and a couple of stinkers of course). "Hell and High Water" is one of my faves, and you can't beat "The Bedford Incident" for Cold War tension and irony.