It is clear that murder is one of the kindest things he is capable of: that was the opinion of American critic James Agee, writing in the late 1940s of the early films of Richard Widmark, the movie actor who died last week aged 93. His longevity may be due to the fact that he eschewed the fleshpots of Hollywood, spending as much time as he could on his Connecticut farm.
Widmark made a profound impact on his debut in 1947, playing a psycopathic killer called Tommy Udo, in a picture called 'Kiss of Death'. His cold, pale eyes, goofy grin and falsetto laugh gave him a chilling presence, his nastiness sealed by kicking a wheelchair-bound victim down a flight of stairs. His performance earned an Oscar nomination, the only occasion on which his efforts came to the Academy's attention. Other villainous roles followed in films such as 'Road House', 'Street With No Name' and 'Yellow Sky' a western loosely based on 'The Tempest'. The actor fought against being type cast and managed to persuade his studio, Fox, to cast him in more sympathetic roles. There followed a series of routine war movies and thrillers in which his characters were solidly portrayed, but not as interesting, and his fans warmed to flashes of his old self in westerns such as 'Garden of Evil'.
Among his more memorable movies in the 1950s was 'Night and the City' a film noir shot mostly at night in London. Another was 'Panic in the Streets' in which Widmark played a health official trying to track plague-carrying fugitives (Jack Palance and Zero Mostel) in New Orleans.
Widmark was born in Minnesota, his father a Swedish immigrant. He had originally intended to be a lawyer and had enrolled in a college course in Speech and Drama. This led to him becoming a teacher of elocution. Later he worked on the stage and in radio before breaking into the movies. He was one of the most articulate of actors, his diction as clear and as sharp as cut glass. He never became a superstar, and often commented that he was second or third choice in parts that had been turned down by Tyrone Power, Kirk Douglas or William Halden. For all that, he was a dependable actor, always turning in a thoughtful and well-judged performance. He did look a little out of place in medieval garb as the Dauphin in the 1956 film version of Bernard Shaw's 'Saint Joan'.
In 1950 he had played a vicious racist in a film called 'No Way Out'. Hospitalised, he resented being treated by a black doctor, played by Sidney Poitier, happily still with us. Though not a man to wear his heart on his sleeve Widmark was a political liberal. He became a great buddy of Poitier and the two actors co-starred in 'The Long Ships', a Viking romp and 'The Bedford Incident'. In the latter picture Widmark played a hawkish captain of a nuclear-armed submarine, the coldest of Cold War warriors. In the final moment he pushes the nuclear button: the screen goes blank, the movie ends and the audience is left to conclude that Armageddon has come.
In 1961 he played the prosecutor in 'Judgement at Nuremberg' accusing Nazi judges of being party to war crimes. It was a flashy part, and he played it very well. Ironically, the Oscar for that year went to Maximillian Schell, playing Widmark's opposite number, the defending counsel, in the same picture.
Widmark played Jim Bowie in John Wayne's 1960 film, 'The Alamo,' against the insistence of producer-director Wayne that he play Travis.
He did two movies with John Ford, both westerns, one called 'Two Rode Together' with James Stewart, which considering the talents engaged, turned out to be something of a disappointment. The other, Ford's last western 'Cheyenne Autumn' (1964) told of the 1,500-mile trek by an American Indian tribe from their ancestral homelands to a reservation. It was an atonement by the director for the off-hand way in which Indians had been dealt with in his earlier films, and Widmark played a US cavalry officer in charge of the migration, and conscious of the plight of the victims of the forced migration.
Widmark did not favour comedy. By my count, there was only the one, 'Tunnel of Love' with Doris Day, a rather heavy-handed effort, directed by Gene Kelly in 1958.
Widmark married his first wife in 1942, his second in 1999. The actor effectively gave up the movies by the mid-1970s. He made occasional appearances in TV movies, perhaps getting a taste for the medium from his 1971 TV series 'Madigan' a spin-off from one of his movies.
His films still show up on television and DVD copies will still entertain generations in the future, as his movies did in the picture houses of Omagh, Fintona and Dromore in the years gone by. He was virtually the last of the great movie actors who came on to the Hollywood scene in the 1940s and making over 50 movies.
In evidence the court heard that a dispute had arisen between the beneficiaries of the will of a recently deceased local resident and a firm of local undertakers. The controversy centred upon the bill for the funeral expenses and particularly the cost of the casket, which the relatives considered to be exorbitant. The funeral directors said that they had been acting in accordance with the wishes of the deceased who had agreed with them previously on an ornate and intricately carved coffin with many expensive adornments on the lid and sides, together with chrome plated handles. It was these embellishments which had increased the costs. "The deceased," said the presiding judge, "had been thinking outside the box."
Police in Washington County, Ohio, have charged four drug dealers with selling crack cocaine, coloured green, on St Patrick's Day. Police sources have said they are not certain whether the dope dealers were going festive for the day, or whether they were trying to disguise the substance as candy.
The budget airline Flybe has been accused of hiring actors to fill seats on flights between England and Ireland in order to fill their quota for the year 2007/08. The company was 172 passengers short of the total it had agreed with Norwich International Airport and, in order to avoid a £280,000 fine, it had laid on extra flights and advertised for actors, supplemented by its own staff, to put the requisite number of bums on seats.
Non-EU footballers will have to pass tests in spoken and written English before they can sign for clubs in Britain. It is just as well that the tests are not to be imposed on English-born footballers.
From recent radio quiz:
Question Master - What is the name of the Roman god of war? It is the same as a chocolate bar.
Contestant - Twix?
The BBC are to send 437 reporters to the Beijing Olympics. Britain is sending 300 athletes. That's why your licence fee went up by four quid this week.
