Widmark deserves tribute

Hollywood delights in honoring its own. The American Film Institute, for instance, hands out a lifetime achievement award annually, celebrating the career of one of Tinseltown’s living legends. The industry has bestowed “lifetime awards” on such “legends” as Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, both barely on the shady side of 40. And yes, they’ve had impressive careers ? in fact they’re nowhere near finished having them, as the latest movies “Mission Impossible: III” and “The Da Vinci Code” will attest.

One Hollywood icon who has had both an illustrious career and a lifetime ? he’s now 91 years of age ? is Richard Widmark, a major cinematic force throughout the 1940s through the ‘80s (and even one movie, “True Colors,” in the ‘90s). Yet the motion picture industry has been strangely reluctant to bestow any honors his way. His most recent accolade was his induction into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 2002.

Few performers remain from Hollywood’s “golden age,” when the likes of Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and others of their magnitude held forth on the silver screen. And all of the foregoing were copiously celebrated before their passing.

When Widmark made his screen debut in 1947, he hit the ground running. As deranged mobster Tommy Udo in “Kiss of Death,” he not only stole the picture from Victor Mature, he contributed an unforgettable scene in which he pushed wheelchair-bound Mildred Dunnock down a flight of stairs to her death, cackling with glee as he did so.

He was Oscar-nominated for that role, but also was typecast by Hollywood, being offered nothing but Tommy Udo-type roles. He took some, like the sadistic no-good who squares off against Cornel Wilde and Ida Lupino in “Road House” (1948) and the creepy bigot who goads intern Sidney Poitier in “No Way Out” (1950).

Widmark ultimately broke the sneering heavy mold and excelled in two movie genres : war stories and Westerns. With movies like “Down to the Sea in Ships,” “Halls of Montezuma,” “Take the High Ground,” “Hell and High Water,” “Time Limit” and “The Bedford Incident” to his credit, he probably won as many cinematic battles as John Wayne.

Then came the Westerns: “The Law and Jake Wade,” “Warlock,” “How the West Was Won,” “Cheyenne Autumn.” And those weren’t even his better ones ? see “Broken Lance” or “Two Rode Together” for Widmark’s prime time in that genre, or watch him steal “The Alamo” from Wayne as the drunk and disillusioned Jim Bowie.

In each of the aforementioned three flicks, Widmark played second fiddle to Tracy, Stewart and Wayne, respectively, but his performance is the indelible one. Even in “Judgment at Nuremberg,” when Maximilian Schell copped an Oscar as the German defense attorney, it’s Widmark’s Army colonel prosecutor you really remember.

It would be altogether fitting and proper if the American Film Institute or the Kennedy Center elected to bestow one of their tributes on an actor with a true record of “lifetime achievement.”

Hopefully, they will do so within Richard Widmark’s lifetime.