24 March - sad anniversary

Widmark fans know two dates that don't mean anything to anyone else; 26 December 1914 and 24 March 2008.  Richard Widmark's dates of birth and death.  A long life, and a productive one, especially for the film work we love so much and especially given that he didn't even start in Hollywood until his 30s.  On Boxing Day last year the fans celebrated the hundredth anniversary of his birth.  Some in Princeton even managed to get together for the occasion.  And what about this day?  It's spring, the days are getting longer, everything is bursting into life ... it doesn't seem appropriate to be sad, but to celebrate instead.  There's an awful lot of films and other drama to watch and radio to listen to.  Whatever you choose to see or listen to in his memory I hope you enjoy it.  I've been working through some of his best bad-guy roles recently.  Jefty in Roadhouse ... he was a right psycho, wasn't he?  And of course, playing villains meant that we get to see Richard Widmark die - a lot.  His characters are the sort that usually meet a bad end, either at the wrong end of a gunfight, or in a hail of bullets fired by those dispensing rough justice, or most memorably, stabbed to death by not one but a whole queue of people.  To misquote Leonard Cohen*:

Visiting Death till he wore out his welcome
Visiting Death till the right disguise worked.

Yes, he got to die a lot.  We could forgive him that, because he did it so beautifully and we knew we'd see him again in another film, sometime later.  But 24 March 2008 was the last time, for him and for us.  He was a man of his time, and that time came to an end.  But at least we can remember him, and hopefully do so without regret.


* Leonard Cohen Two went to sleep