Richard Widmark ensured his immortality as a giggling psycho killer (Kiss of Death), a cynical pickpocket (Pickup on South Street), a member of John Ford’s version of the U.S. Cavalry (Two Rode Together), a wary but not sufficiently watchful N.Y. cop (Madigan)…
Yeah, sure. But my very favorite Widmark performance is the one he gave as himself at the one and only Telluride Film Festival that I ever attended, back in 1982, when the actor was one of the Lifetime Achievement Award honorees. Another honoree, Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, made a spectacle of himself one evening by announcing, through a translator: “The cinema, she is a whore. First she charge a nickel, now she charge five dollars. When she learns to give it away, she will be free.” Widmark was not impressed. In fact, judging by his response the following evening, he was suitably pissed. He told a cheering audience: “I want to name you some pimps. Hitchcock… Fellini… Bergman… Orson Welles…” So there.
Courtesy of Joe Leydon’s MovingPictureBlog.
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