Richard Widmark: A Princeton legend

I should be relating Part 3 of Mary (Ogorman) Barr to you in this column, but I am waiting for information to come from Sioux Falls, S.D., to finish the telling of her story. We can take a break from that with an anecdote related to me in my search for the true story of Richard Widmark. I’ll finish up with Richard’s grandmother when I have the information.

I think I had a fairly ordinary childhood that was probably just like any boys, growing up in a small Midwest town like Granville. My friends and I did anything and everything you would expect from boys in the 1950s in a rural community. We played backyard and playground baseball, basketball and football, drank a lot of pop, rode bikes, camped, hiked, sledded until we froze in the winter, fought, and smoked our first cigarettes and corncob pipes.

One of my best friends in early grade school was Roger Eggers. Charlie Jones was his older brother by five years. Roger and Charlie, Jack Ossola, sometimes his sisters Marilyn and Joyce, Louie Anders, sometimes the Hartman clan, and my older brother, Craig, and I, did all kinds of dumb kid stuff with whoever else in the neighborhood wanted to get involved. It never crossed my mind that one of these childhood pals would tell me a story of Richard Widmark. I ran into Charlie and his wife, Sharon, at Menards the other day and listened to this tale.

In late 1968 to December 1970, while I was serving my hitch in the U.S. Army, Charlie, Sharon and their two children, David and Debbie, lived in California. They were encouraged by Sharon’s father, Walt Lindsey, who lived in Canogo Park, Calif., to make the move from Granville. Canogo Park is northwest of Los Angeles. They took root in Thousand Oaks, to the west of Canogo Park and northeast of Hidden Valley by about nine miles.

Charlie found employment right away with Ted Smith Aircraft Co. where they made six-passenger planes, but the job folded after three months when the company moved to Texas. He then got a job with Coast Pool Service, cleaning swimming pools. He worked for Coast Pool Service for eight months and had a regular route. Richard Widmark lived in both Hidden Valley, Calif., and Roxbury, Conn., at the time, and Hidden Valley was on Charlie’s regular route. Hidden Valley is an unincorporated community in the Santa Monica Mountains in southeastern Ventura County.

Charlie tried to clean two pools every hour or so, and he did each pool about twice a month. He cleaned Richard Widmark’s pool at least a dozen times when he worked for Coast Pool Service. He usually had to deal with Widmark’s ranch foreman when he did their pool. The foreman mentioned to Charlie that if he did run into Mr. Widmark, not to make a big thing out of it because the actor didn’t like people “going ape” when meeting him. He was just an ordinary guy who happened to make movies.

Richard Widmark was into the last third of his movie career but still made four movies while Charlie Jones was living in California. Widmark made two films in 1969; “A Talent for Loving,” a western spoof, and “Death of a Gunfighter,” an offbeat western with Lena Horne as his love interest. It has a take in it reminiscent of that great scene in “Two Rode Together” (1961), with Widmark and James Stewart smokin’ and chawin’ along the water. The year was 1969 that Charlie did his eight months cleaning swimming pools. Making movies on location and living on both coasts made it unlikely that Richard Widmark, from Princeton, Illinois, would cross paths with Charlie Jones, from Granville, Illinois.

Charlie was finishing up one day and loading up his truck. It was Charlie’s own personal truck, a 1961 Ford F100 shortbed with C.W. Jones & Son, Granville, Illinois, on the doors. He had to use his own truck and gas on the job. That’s why he tried to set a pace of two pools every hour or so. He had to make a living. He usually had  magnetic signs with Coast Pool Service on the sides of the doors, but he took them off when he did Widmark’s pool. Charlie knew Richard Widmark was from Princeton. His mom, June (Webster) Jones, Eggers, who was three years behind Widmark in the Princeton school system, told him this when he was a kid. She was the sister of William Webster Sr. of Princeton. June was married twice, and her second husband, Roger Eggers Sr., was the brother of former Princeton Police Chief George Eggers.

Charlie saw a tall athletic man with suntanned features walk out of the house as he was putting some hose in the truck bed. The ranch house was weathered cedar, and the man coming toward him was a shirtless and weathered Richard Widmark, not the foreman. Charlie remembers Widmark looked like he worked out and was in real good shape “for an older guy.” Charlie was close to 27, and Richard Widmark was 54.

“Hey, I just wanted to tell you what a great job you’ve been doing with the pool,” Widmark said walking up to Charlie. “My foreman says you always do a good job, and it’s always nice when we’re home and want to use it. Thanks, a lot,” Widmark said shaking Charlie’s hand.

“Thanks, I try to do my best,” said Charlie, trying to keep it low key.

Widmark smiled, “Well thanks again” nodded, looked at the truck door, nodded again and headed toward the barn.

“See ya, Jones,” Widmark said, walking away. Charlie watched him blur into the sunlit haze of the barn, finished packing, got in his truck and headed to his next stop.

Charlie, told me, as he finished his story, “Widmark didn’t have to come out and say a word to me. He paid for and was suppose to get good service, but he came out just the same and told me personally what a good job I did. It said a lot about the guy. He didn’t say a word about my being from Granville, but maybe he knew. He took a good look at the truck door. Who knows?”

Charlie told me he had Bing Russell on his route also. Bing was an actor, baseball club owner and father of actor Kurt Russell. Kurt was on the verge of being Disney’s biggest star in 1969. If Charlie would have stayed on a while longer he would have had Dean Martin’s pool to clean.

Charlie went to work for his wife’s uncle next, who was a contractor in the area, and then in December of 1970, the Jones family moved back to Granville. My old friend Roger Eggers, Charlie’s younger brother, survived a tour in Vietnam, came home and died in a car accident in 1971. He rests in Oakland Cemetery in Princeton along with his mom.

Charlie and Sharon still live in Granville today, married 50 years next year. Charlie liked it when I told him Widmark was married to his first wife for 55 years until her death in 1997. He said it spoke a lot about the man.

Charlie said he still had his first dollar, a 1921 Morgan his grandfather gave him, his first car, a 1948 Ford convertible he restored, and or course, his first wife, Sharon, still in mint condition.

Sharon smiled, gave me a hug, and I shook hands with Charlie Jones. I headed home thinking Charlie had some real common ground with Richard Widmark and boy, it really is a small world. Sometimes it’s all right in your own back yard.