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He reverted to type in Joseph Mankiewicz’s No Way Out (1950), as a thoroughly unpleasant racial bigot who tries to stir up a lynch mob against Sidney Poitier, the young doctor he wrongly blames for his brother’s death. Racism was new territory for Hollywood, and Widmark gave a chilling performance. It was not one, however, likely to raise his stock with female fans, and he was big enough now to demand to play no more such parts.

From then on Widmark was cast increasingly in more likeable, less exceptional roles, often in poor films. Widmark proved not to be too fine a judge of scripts or people. He said of Marilyn Monroe, his co-star in Knock (1952): “That broad will never make it. She’s much too obvious.”

In 1955 he ended his contract and took control of his own career, with mixed results. He gave such an embarrassing performance as the Dauphin in Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan (1957) that he was, he said: “scared to leave the house for two weeks. I wasn’t worth five bucks.”

Redemption was at hand with Time Limit (1957), a screen version of the Broadway play about a courtmartialling during the Korean War; and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). John Wayne then offered him the part of the drunk Jim Bowie in The Alamo (1960). Wayne was also directing and he and Widmark were in a state of constant tension on set, but somehow it was not reflected on film.

Working with “the Duke” gave Widmark an entry into John Ford’s stock company. He starred in the disappointing Two Rode Together (1961) with James Stewart; and in Cheyenne Autumn (1964), a film whose grandiose intentions ended in a dispirited mess. Widmark idolised Ford, and regretted the failure of their projects together.

Just as Widmark’s career appeared to be running out of steam, he pulled out two of his finest performances. The first was in The Bedford Incident (1965) which he also produced. Again he played opposite Poitier, although this time, for the first time ever in a film, Poitier’s colour was not mentioned. Widmark played the skipper of the USS Bedford, a destroyer which chases a Soviet submarine in the Arctic and accidentally fires an atomic weapon.

After a few more action films came Madigan (1968), a big-city adventure yarn with Widmark as a dedicated policeman who is not above using his badge for a few fringe benefits. Widmark was at his best, and appeared in a good if short-lived television series of the same name (1972).

Widmark did not reach such heights again. The parts for an ageing lead dried up. He often supported younger stars in films such as Against All Odds (1984), or Who Dares Wins (1982), when a touch of old Hollywood class was called for. He could usually count on appearing in a film or two a year throughout the 1970s and 1980s; there was more TV and he returned to villainous form in Coma (1978).

He relished spending more time on his ranch in Connecticut. He had never enjoyed hustling for parts, one reason why, as Elia Kazan put it, he remained “vastly underrated”. Another reason was that, like James Stewart, Widmark never looked as if he was acting at all. His ease in front of the camera told against him when compared to flashier types. But that ease also enlivened many humdrum films, while in the right film, he could be superb.

His first wife died in 1997. He is survived by his second wife, Susan, whom he married in 1999, and a daughter.

Richard Widmark, actor, was born on December 26, 1914. He died on March 24, 2008, aged 93