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Veteran Actor Richard Widmark Dead at 93
27 March 2008 (StudioBriefing)
Richard Widmark, whose character in Kiss of Death, Tommy Udo, famously pushed an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs while giggling all the while, has died after a lengthy illness at age 93. In its obituary, the Associated Press quoted Widmark as saying about the scene in a 1961 interview, "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." The role won him his only Oscar nomination -- for best supporting actor. Years later he told the AP that although he had made a career out playing killers, cops and gunslingers, he was nevertheless "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."

Actor Richard Widmark Dies
27 March 2008 (WENN)
Hollywood actor Richard Widmark has died at the age of 93. He passed away at his home in Connecticut on Monday after a long illness, according his wife Susan Blanchard. The Minnesota-born star enjoyed a career spanning more than four decades, during which he made over 70 films. He made his silver screen debut in 1947, aged 33, as a psychopathic killer in Kiss Of Death - a role which earned him an Oscar nomination and scooped him a Golden Globe prize as well. Widmark went on to star in 1950s classics like Night And The City, Broken Lance and appeared alongside Marilyn Monroe in 1952's Don't Bother To Knock. He will also be remembered for his roles in Judgement At Nuremberg (1961) and 1964's Cheyenne Autumn. Widmark made his final big-screen outing in 1991 thriller True Colors. He is survived by his second wife Blanchard and a daughter from his first marriage to writer Jean Hazlewood.

Actor Richard Widmark Dies at 93
26 March 2008 (IMDb News Flash)
Richard Widmark, the actor whose menacing portrayals in numerous film noir thrillers made him synonymous with the genre, died Monday at age 93. According to news reports, the actor passed away at his home in Roxbury, CT after a long illness. Widmark appeared on both radio and the stage before making one of the most auspicious -- and audacious -- debuts in film history as the giggling killer Tommy Udo, a man who pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs, in the 1947 thriller Kiss of Death; the film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe for New Star Of The Year, and a contract with 20th Century Fox. His portrayals of hard-boiled men, sometimes criminals, sometimes just plain amoral, made him an instant star, and he played villains in The Street with No Name, Road House, and Yellow Sky. He notoriously menaced Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock, played a racist criminal in No Way Out, and was a pickpocket caught up in a Communist spy ring in Pickup on South Street. Widmark proved he could also play against type as a doctor tracking down a killer infected with the bubonic plague in Panic in the Streets, and a doomed con man in Jules Dassin's Night and the City. The actor worked consistently throughout his career, adding Westerns to his repertoire with roles in Broken Lance, The Alamo, Cheyenne Autumn (directed by John Ford), and How the West Was Won, and appeared in the Oscar-winning Judgment at Nuremberg as well. He segued into television in the 1970s as Madigan (based on his 1968 film of the same name, directed by Don Siegel), and received an Emmy nomination for 1972's Vanished, where he played the President of the United States with a secret to hide. Other notable films during the 1970s and 1980s included Murder on the Orient Express, The Domino Principle, Coma, and the film noir update Against All Odds; his last role was in the 1991 political drama True Colors, after which he retired from filmmaking. Widmark is survived by his second wife, Susan Blanchard, and his daughter, Anne, from his first marriage to screenwriter Jean Hazlewood, who died in 1997. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff

L.A. Film Critics Pick Brokeback Mountain
11 December 2005 (IMDb News Flash)
Heralding the opening of this year's awards season, the Los Angeles Film Critics bestowed their honors this weekend, naming Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture. The western, about two cowboys who fall in love, also won the Best Director award for Ang Lee, and star Heath Ledger was the runner-up for Best Actor. Besting Ledger was Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose portrayal of Truman Capote in Capote was voted Best Actor, and Hoffman's co-star, Catherine Keener, was named Best Supporting Actress for that film and three others in which she appeared this year: The Ballad of Jack and Rose, The 40 Year Old Virgin, and The Interpreter. For Best Actress, the critics group went far against the grain, choosing Vera Farmiga for the indie film Down to the Bone. Best Supporting Actor went to William Hurt for A History of Violence, and Screenplay honors were shared by Capote and The Squid and the Whale. The official awards ceremony is scheduled for January 17. Here's the entire list of winners:

Picture: Brokeback Mountain

Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

Actress: Vera Farmiga, Down to the Bone

Supporting Actor: William Hurt, A History of Violence

Supporting Actress: Catherine Keener, Capote, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, The 40 Year Old Virgin, and The Interpreter

Director: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain

Screenplay: Capote & The Squid and the Whale (tie)

Foreign Language Film: Cache

Documentary/Nonfiction Film: Grizzly Man

Animation: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Music/Score: Howl's Moving Castle

Cinematography: Good Night, And Good Luck

Production Design: 2046

New Generation: Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow

Career Achievement: Richard Widmark

Independent/experimental: La Commune (Paris, 1871)

Widmark Boosted for Lifetime Award
9 January 2003 (StudioBriefing)
A campaign promoting 88-year-old actor Richard Widmark for a Lifetime Achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received added eminence Wednesday when director Peter Bogdanovich joined the growing crowd of Widmark boosters. As reported by syndicated columnist Liz Smith, Bogdanovich said in his letter to the academy, "American cinema would never have been the same without this unassuming Midwesterner, who gave us almost a half-century of quietly brilliant work." Widmark's most famous scene appeared in the movie Kiss of Death, in which he shoved an old lady in a wheelchair down a staircase.

Monroe Was 'Self-Destructive Wounded Bird'
9 July 2002 (WENN)
Tragic actress Marilyn Monroe was a "self-destructive wounded bird" according to one of her leading men, veteran actor Richard Widmark. Widmark, now 87, starred opposite the blonde bombshell in 1952's Don't Bother To Knock and, although, he admits he liked Monroe personally, her psychological flaws made her a professional nightmare. He says, "I liked Marilyn, but she was God-awful to work with. Impossible, really. She would hide in her dressing room and refuse to come out. Then, when she finally would show up, she was a nervous wreck. It was all a result of fear. She was insecure about so many things and was obviously self-destructive. She was a wounded bird from the beginning." Monroe died in 1962 of a drug overdose.