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Richard Widmark was born in Minnesota in 1914, but he grew up in Illinois. He went to college there, and began acting at that time in college productions, and switched from pre-law to being an acting teacher, and he did that at his college after he graduated. He got some roles on radio and on Broadway, and in 1947 he was cast in the tiny role of Tommy Udo in Kiss Of Death (nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film), a film noir starring Victor Mature. The movie was supposed to be centered on Mature and newcomer Colleen Gray, but Widmark played Udo as a giggling slight psychopathic killer (one scene in particular is extremely memorable!) who terrorizes the physically imposing Mature, and he was what audiences remembered from the movie, and he became a star in his first role. Naturally Hollywood wanted to stereotype him in psychotic killer roles, and for a few pictures he had no choice but to comply. But he begged his studio (20th Century Fox) to give him at least some other roles, and once they saw that the public liked him in whatever parts he played (from roles as no-nonsense detectives to the lead in light romantic comedies) he was cast in a wide range of movies. One of his very best roles was as "Harry Fabian", the small time wrestling promoter with big dreams in Night and the City, for director Jules Dassin. Widmark had not been young when he got his big break (he was 32) and when his studio contract expired in 1954 after 7 years he was pushing 40 and they did not re-sign him, and he became an independent. He soon settled into important supporting roles, usually opposite a major star. He stood out in John Wayne's The Alamo in 1960, playing Jim Bowie, and in 1961 he played the prosecutor in Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg, and he held his own against the greatest stars of that time. He continued in mostly supporting roles throughout the 1960s,and one of his very best movies ever was in the starring role in 1968's Madigan, where he played a homicide detective who doesn't play by the rules and who would be an exact carbon copy for Harry Callaghan in Dirty Harry three years later. Widmark made another 30 or so movie and TV appearances until 1992 when he retired, and he lived until 2008. He left behind a solid legacy of excellent movie appearances over many decades, having seamlessly made the transition from leading man to supporting actor. Widmark passed away in 2008 at the age of 93.

Important Added Info: Note that this still has been personally autographed (signed) by Richard Widmark!

Note that this autographed item is part of a remarkable collection. In our last two all-signed auctions, we auctioned hundreds of items from this collection and now we are auctioning 213 more items (plus signed index cards that have a different note on those)!
     In the 1970s, our consignor was a teacher who taught a film class, and he also part-time ran the local movie theater (and he saved all the presskits from the movies the theater showed).
     Starting in the late 1970s through the late 1980s, he wrote to famous celebrities, and enclosed an 8x10 from his collection, and he wrote a literate personalized letter, talking about his work as a film teacher, and discussing his favorite movie by that star.
     He received signed photos back from a good percentage of the people he wrote to, and if the people simply sent him a stock photo back, he did not save it, but if he felt the autograph was genuine, and if they added a personalized note, then he did save them.
     In the late 1980s, he pretty much stopped sending letters and photos, simply because he was just too busy. So this photo (and the vast majority of the other photos we are auctioning for this consignor) were obtained in the late 1970s or 1980s, through personal correspondence with this star. This is of course excellent, because back at that time celebrities were not selling their signatures nearly as much, and many of the stars were pretty forgotten and were happy to get letters from people like our consignor!
     He of course does not have any "Certificates of Authenticity", but he only kept ones he felt were surely authentic, and those are the ones we are auctioning. However, bidders can certainly compare the signatures to known examples on the internet to judge for themselves.

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

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Bruce Hershenson,
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