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Richard Widmark
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Richard Widmark was one of the movies' all-time great tough guys. A handsome man, he could contort his face into something gruesome, a sneer conveying a ruthless hatred and sadistic intent -- the savagery to do great damage, the lack of conscience to enjoy it, and the clear intelligence to get away with almost anything.
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The son of a traveling salesman, actor Richard Widmark had lived in six different Midwestern towns by the time he was a teenager. He entered Illinois' Lake Forest College with plans to earn a law degree, but gravitated instead to the college's theater department. He stayed on after graduation as a drama instructor, then headed to New York to find professional work. From 1938 through 1947, Widmark was one of the busiest and most successful actors in radio, appearing in a wide variety of roles from benign to menacing, and starring in the daytime soap opera "Front Page Farrell." He did so well in radio that he'd later quip, "I am the only actor who left a mansion and swimming pool to head to Hollywood." Widmark's first stage appearance was in Long Island summer stock; in 1943, he starred in the Broadway production of Kiss and Tell, and was subsequently top billed in four other New York shows.
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From All Movie Guide: The son of a traveling salesman, actor Richard Widmark had lived in six different Midwestern towns by the time he was a teenager. He entered Illinois' Lake Forest College with plans to earn a law degree, but gravitated instead to the college's theater department. He stayed on after graduation as a drama instructor, then headed to New York to find professional work. From 1938 through 1947, Widmark was one of the busiest and most successful actors in radio, appearing in a wide variety of roles from benign to menacing, and starring in the daytime soap opera "Front Page Farrell." He did so well in radio that he'd later quip, "I am the only actor who left a mansion and swimming pool to head to Hollywood."
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When a professional pickpocket (Richard Widmark) lifts Jean Peters's purse on the New York subway, he gets more than he bargained for. He has no idea that the bag contains top secret microfilm that Peters is unwittingly transporting for her lover (Richard Kiley), a Communist spy and rotten to the core. Kiley orders Peters to get the film back or suffer the consequences. Enter Thelma Ritter as a street peddler who keeps tabs on local "talent" like Widmark, now wanted by the Feds because of stolen film. Widmark and Peters, at first adversarial, enter into a romantic relationship, and the chase is on. Like many of Fuller's protagonists, Widmark's " Skip McCoy" is a hoodlum but on his own terms. A rough-tough melodrama with superb performances and moody cinematography.
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Richard Widmark never became a major star, but through the middle part of the twentieth century regularly turned in convincing, workmanlike performances. A genuine product of the American midwest, Widmark strove for a career in show business. He worked at the local Princeton, Illinois, movie house as a high school student so he could see all the films free. At Lake Forest College, outside Chicago, he majored in drama, and after graduation made his way to New York to join a radio drama company. Throughout the late 1930s and the early 1940s Widmark was a fixture on radio, acting in hundreds of programs including Big Sister, Stella Dallas, Front Page Farrell, and March of Time. He ... regularly took parts on Broadway, but always made no secret of his desire to go to Hollywood.
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On December 26, 1916, Richard Widmark was born on 1st Street in Sunrise, Minnesota. Today, a historical marker is at the actual birth site. Richard would star in 74 films from 1947 to 1991. He shared the screen with many Hollywood icons such as: Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Judy Garland and countless others.
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Richard Widmark