Recently Dead

Richard Widmark, whose Oscar-nominated film debut in the 1947 noir Kiss of Death as the giggling psycho who pushes an old woman in a wheelchair down the stairs, died Monday in Roxbury, Connecticut, after a long illness. He was 93. "That damned laugh of mine!" he told a reporter in 1961. "For two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile. I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny and the part I played made me laugh. The guy was such a ridiculous beast." Widmark made over 40 more movies, including Night and the City, Two Rode Together, Broken Lance, and Judgment at Nuremberg. (NY Times)