Richard Widmark, who created a villain in his first movie role who was so repellent and frightening that the actor became a star overnight, died Monday at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut He was 93-years-old.

His death was announced by wife, Susan Blanchard. She said that Widmark had fractured a vertebra in recent months and that his conditioned had worsened.

As ‘Tommy Udo’, a giggling, psychopathic killer in the 1947 gangster film “Kiss of Death,” Widmark tied up an old woman in a wheelchair (played by Mildred Dunnock) with a cord ripped from a lamp and shoved her down a flight of stairs to her death.

Film critic David Thomson wrote:

“The sadism of that character, the fearful laugh, the skull showing through drawn skin, and the surely conscious evocation of a concentration-camp degenerate established Widmark as the most frightening person on the screen.”

The performance won Widmark his sole Academy Award nomination, for best supporting actor.

Widmark once said:

“Movie audiences fasten on to one aspect of the actor, and then they decide what they want you to be… They think you’re playing yourself. The truth is that the only person who can ever really play himself is a baby.”

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