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Screen Tough Widmark Dead

Gentle actor gained fame as a gangster

By Jonas Oransky, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 26, 2008 4:18 PM CDT

(Newser) – Richard Widmark, the American actor renowned for his sinister portrayals of gangsters, has died at age 93. His first film role—as a giggling, sadistic killer in the 1947 Kiss of Death—made him an instant movie star and gained him a Fox contract for 20 parts in seven years—most of them heavies. One film historian has called him “the most frightening person on the screen,” the New York Times reports.

The real-life actor shrugged off the typecasting—“audiences fasten on to one aspect of the actor, and then they decide what they want you to be”—though the mild-mannered, liberal intellectual dealt his whole life with aggressive fans who expected a tough guy. Other career highlights included roles in Judgment in Nuremberg, The Alamo, No Way Out, and as the title character in NBC's Madigan.

[Images (4)]

[Videos (2)]

Actor Richard Widmark poses for a photograph in London in this 1982, file photo. (AP Photo/John Glanville, file)

US actor Richard Widmark poses on the balcony of the Deauville casino during the American Film Festival in 1991. (Getty Images)

In this 1962 image originally released by United Artists, Richard Widmark portrays Col. Tad Lawson, right, in a scene with Maximilian Schell in "Judgment at Nuremberg." (AP Photo/United Artists)

In this 1972 image originally released by NBC, actor Richard Widmark stars as Sgt. Dan Madigan a scene from the NBC series "Madigan." (AP Photo/NBC)

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Screen Tough Widmark Dead