AUSTINLAD'S MOVIE HEROES: Richard Widmark

Once upon a time, the big screen gave us big heroes to look up to. In those kinder, gentler days before Twitter or Reality TV, we didn't know all that much about the actors off-screen – whether they were straight or gay, their height, how many times married, what their addictions were, whose spouse they were stupping, or how many millions they made per picture – what mattered most was what the big Hollywood studios fed us: their screen images.

Then as now, we moviegoers heard dirt and gossip about our favorite stars –and we were titillated by it. But for the most part, persona rather than reality reigned, and that was what brought us to the box office. And back.

In this series of hero worshipings, I recall and honor some of the screen faces I've loved over the years. many of them from the earliest days of my youth when a twitter was only the sound birds made.

Enjoy.
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Richard Widmark

As a kid, I didn’t know anything about his celebrated work in film noir (starting in 1947 in KISS OF DEATH, in which he played a giggling psychopathic killer) or even what film noir was. What I did know is that when I saw Richard Widmark (1914-08) play a tough but good soldier or tough but good cowboy or tough but good cop or other authority figure, I wanted to be just like him.

Widmark as Tommy Udo

AUSTINLAD'S MOVIE HEROES

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Richard Widmark

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