An obituary last Thursday about the actor Richard Widmark referred incorrectly to the genesis of the movie “Cheyenne Autumn” and misstated other aspects of his work. The film, in which he played an Army captain, was suggested by the 1953 book “Cheyenne Autumn,” by Mari Sandoz, according to the film’s credits; it was not based directly on Mr. Widmark’s research. Also, the film was released in 1964 — not 1963 — as an accompanying picture caption correctly noted.
In the film “Panic in the Streets,” the epidemic confronting a public-health doctor played by Mr. Widmark was pneumonic, not bubonic, plague. In “Kiss of Death,” the character played by Mildred Dunnock, who is bound to her wheelchair and pushed down a flight of stairs by an ex-convict played by Mr. Widmark, is the mother of an underworld informer — not the mother of an informer played by Victor Mature.
The obituary also omitted two survivors: a stepson, Marc Weisgal, and a stepdaughter, Amy Fonda Ivers. Link
Thanks, Charlene!
