Quotes
 Movie audiences fasten on to one aspect of the actor, and then they decide what they want you to be. They think you`re playing yourself. The truth is that the only person who can ever really play himself is a baby. It`s weird the effect actors have on an audience. With the [bad guy] roles I played in those early movies, I found that quite a few people wanted to have a go at me.
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I`m a lifelong liberal. I`ve never been a real activist - I just shoot my mouth off. When I knew Ronald Reagan, he was an affable, boring fellow. Now he`s an icon. It`s incredible. Like half of America, I`m doubly mystified by Reagan`s spiritual heir, our current president. (2001)
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I won`t have a gun in my house.
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[on his giggling psychopathic killer in his debut film "Kiss of Death"] I`d never seen myself on the screen, and when I did, I wanted to shoot myself. That damn laugh of mine! For two years after that picture, you couldn`t get me to smile. I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny and the part I played made me laugh, the guy was such a ridiculous beast.
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I suppose I wanted to act in order to have a place in the sun. I`d always lived in small towns, and acting meant having some kind of identity.
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I could choose the director and my fellow actors. I could carry out projects which I liked but the studios didn`t want. The businessmen who run Hollywood today have no self-respect. What interests them is not movies but the bottom line. Look at Dumb & Dumber (1994), which turns idiocy into something positive, or Forrest Gump (1994), a hymn to stupidity. `Intellectual` has become a dirty word.
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I know I`ve made kind of a half-assed career out of violence, but I abhor violence. I am an ardent supporter of gun control. It seems incredible to me that we are the only civilized nation that does not put some effective control on guns. (1976)
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[on Spencer Tracy] What an actor should be is exemplified, for me, by him. I like the reality of his acting. It`s so honest and seems so effortless, even though what Tracy does is the result of damn hard work and extreme concentration. Actually, the ultimate in any art is never to show the wheels grinding. The essence of bad acting, for example, is shouting. Tracy never shouts. He`s the greatest movie actor there ever was.
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[speaking in 1976] The heavies in my day were kid`s stuff compared to today. Our villains had no redeeming qualities. But there`s a new morality today. A villain is a guy with a frailty. Heroes are villains.
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When I see people destroying their privacy - what they think, what they feel - by beaming it out to millions of viewers, I think it cheapens them as individuals.
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Many of my friends were blacklisted. America should be ashamed forever.
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The more takes I do, the worse I get.
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It`s a bit rough priding oneself that one isn`t too bad an actor and then finding one`s only remembered for a giggle.
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Marilyn Monroe wanted to be this great star but acting just scared the hell out of her. That`s why she was always late - couldn`t get her on the set. She had trouble remembering lines. But none of it mattered. With a very few special people, something happens between the lens and the film that is pure magic. And she really had it.
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Trivia
When Kiss of Death (1947) was released to theaters in 1947, 20th Century Fox's publicity department encouraged theater owners to "Sell Richard Widmark!" Fox's publicity manual advised theaters to have a local printer make up "Wanted" with Widmark's face on them to advertise the film, in which he made his debut. The part was small, but Widmark made it one of the most indelible performances in the history of cinema.
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Earned several awards in oratory contests while a pre-law student at Lake Forest College. He was also active in the drama department and played the lead in the play "Counselor-at-Law" as a sophomore.
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John Wayne/Richard Widmark is the sign/countersign used by soldiers holding the Alamo in Viva Max.
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Born in Sunrise, Minnesota, his father, Carl, was a general store manager before becoming a traveling salesman. The family eventually settled in Princeton, Illinois, where his father owned a downstairs bakery.
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When his contract at Fox expired in 1954 after seven years, he deliberately went independent in order to have more artistic control over his films. He formed his own company, Heath Productions.
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In the fall of 2007 he sustained a fractured vertebrae after a fall. He died about six months later of complications.
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He was the step-father of Amy Fonda, daughter of Henry Fonda and Susan Blanchard.
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Resided on his mansion in Roxbury, Connecticut from the 1950s until his death.
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Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 2002.
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His daughter with wife Jean Hazlewood, Anne Heath Widmark, an artist and author, married baseball legend Sandy Koufax on 1 January 1969.
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His acting idol was Spencer Tracy.
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Despite playing heartless killers and bigots on film, he personally denounced all kinds of violence and the usage of guns. He admitted that once he went fishing and regretted the fact he caught a trout and took its life. He also apologized profusely to Sidney Poitier during the shoot of the movie No Way Out (1950) after filming scenes together which called for Widmark to spew out racist remarks.
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Was not able to see active duty during WWII due to a perforated eardrum, but did serve as an air raid warden and entertained servicemen as a member of the American Theatre Wing.
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Widmark was a voice-over regular on the popular 1930s radio series "Gangbusters" that featured weekly episodes based on actual crime incidents. Each program ended with various descriptions of wanted criminals, many of whom were later arrested due to avid listener participation.
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President of his high school class.
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Activist for strengthening gun control laws in the United States.
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His sole Academy Awards nomination was for best actor in a supporting role for Kiss of Death (1947) in 1948. Though he had won the Golden Globe for the role, he lost the Oscar to Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street (1947).
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In high school he wrote for the school newspaper.
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He was the Friday night host for CBS Radio's "Sears Mystery Theater" (1979).
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His father was Swedish by descent; his mother was Scottish, English and Irish.
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Born to Carl Widmark, a salesman, and his wife Ethal Mae.
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Was honored with a retrospective of his films by the Museum of Modern Art (New York, New York) in May 2001.
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Was on the first cover of German teen magazine "Bravo" together with Marilyn Monroe (1956).
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At 5' 10" he was one of the shorter leading men of his era.
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Unforgettable in his screen debut in Kiss of Death (1947) as Tommy Udo, a psychopathic mob hit-man, who giggles gleefully even as he shoves a wheelchair-bound old woman, portrayed by Mildred Dunnock, tumbling down a long stairway to her demise.
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He has significantly contributed to the preservation of land and nature in his adopted hometown of Roxbury, Connecticut. As one of the founding members of the Roxbury Land Trust, he has tenaciously worked to preserve the pristine character of the Litchfield County town which has been the long-time home of celebrities the likes of Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, and artist Alexander Calder. Actor and Widmark's friend, Walter Matthau also owned property in bucolic Roxbury and at Widmark's urging, Matthau made a generous contribution of property to the trust shortly before his death.
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Spent his later years divided between a ranch in Hidden Valley, California, and a farm in Connecticut.
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