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Richard Widmark (born December 26, 1914 in Sunrise, Minnesota) is an American film actor. He grew up in Princeton, Illinois and attended Lake Forest College, where he studied acting. He taught acting at the college after graduation, before debuting on radio in 1938 in Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories. He appeared on Broadway in 1943 in Kiss and Tell. He was unable to join the military during World War II because of a perforated eardrum.
Widmark first appeared in movies in 1947's Kiss of Death (in which he giggles as he pushes a wheelchair-bound old woman down a flight of stairs), which started his seven year contract with 20th Century Fox. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the performance. Widmark's character in this film was the inspiration for the song, "The Ballad of Tommy Udo" by the band Kaleidoscope.
Widmark became so popular so fast that it was only two years later that he had his handprints cast in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater. In the intervening two years, he had appeared in Slattery's Hurricane, Down to the Sea in Ships, Yellow Sky, Road House and The Street with No Name.
Other starring roles were in Night and the City, Panic in the Streets, No Way Out, Halls of Montezuma, Destination Gobi, Pickup on South Street, Take the High Ground!, The Cobweb, Backlash, Run for the Sun, The Last Wagon, Warlock, The Alamo, The Secret Ways, Two Rode Together, Judgment at Nuremberg, How the West Was Won, The Long Ships, Cheyenne Autumn, The Bedford Incident, When the Legends Die, Murder on the Orient Express, Coma and Madigan (he also starred in the television series which was based on the latter movie).
In 2002, Widmark was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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