Thursday, March 27, 2008
Richard Widmark
Just a word (from Nige) to mark the death of Richard Widmark, one of those great, capable, characterful, instantly recognisable screen presences who are easily taken for granted - until you realise that they're not making them any more. Nor are they making film stars as publicity shy as Widmark - these days it's more a case of strategically backing into the limelight. Widmark vowed never to appear in a talk show, and he stuck to it. He also stuck to his first wife for nearly 55 years. He made few public comments, but here's one: 'I know I've made kind of a half-assed career out of violence, but I abhor violence.' Half-assed it wasn't. RIP.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Amen to that, a star especially in Cheyenne Autumn. Probably he didn't need talk shows if he was married for 55 years.
ReplyDeleteAh, my Auntie Kitty's fave...
ReplyDeleteGetting his autograph now she will.
Widmark the man, the antithisis of narcissism? On film something else again, at times the most narcissistic of them all. I recently watched 'Pickup on South Street' (1953) and, as was so often the case with Widmark, I was held only slightly short of spellbound by that look, especially that grin, that could convey every unspoken message from 'trust me' to 'be very frightened of me'. A middle-aged Widmark in 'The Sopranos', now that would have been something very special.
ReplyDeleteAn actor that could say the line "Okay men, follow me over the top" without tittering in the audience.
ReplyDeleteA real "star" and one could understand every word. Perhaps a selection of his films could be shown to the mumble and whisper tribe that infest Hollywood today.
ReplyDelete