Although Mr. Crawford had appeared in two dozen motion pictures over a period of 12 years, the Willie Stark character in ''All the King's Men'' - based on Robert Penn Warren's fictionalized depiction of the rise and fall of Huey P. Long - was the hulking, husky-voiced actor's first starring role, and it won him the New York Film Critics Award as well as the Oscar.

His triumph led to major roles in ''Born Yesterday,'' ''The Mob,'' and ''Not As a Stranger,'' but he was soon back to playing lesser roles, with the notable exception of Fellini's ''Il Bidone'' (''The Swindle'') in 1955.

It was all but forgotten that Mr. Crawford, even before his ''overnight'' stardom in ''All the King's Men,'' had scored a noteworthy success on Broadway in 1937 when he created the role of Lennie, the gentle half-wit, in John Steinbeck's ''Of Mice and Men.'' A younger generation will probably recall him only as the star of the long-running television program ''Highway Patrol.''

In an interview in 1977, Mr. Crawford bluntly acknowledged his disillusionment with his career, which had been hampered by a drinking problem, and said he took any job he could get, including serving as the raspy voice of the pink S.O.S. scouring pad in television commercials. TV 'To Pay the Rent'

''Hell, for an actor it's doughnut-hunting time forever,'' he said, in the gruff, tough-guy manner that characterized many of his roles. ''The take-the-money-and-run days never end. Oscar winner. Big deal. Cukor wants you. Fritz Lang, Fellini - and still you spend a life waiting for another phone call. To pay the rent and keep your face up there, you do TV. Hell, if they're stupid enough to pay you for that junk, that's their problem.''

''I urged my kids to go into acting, early,'' Mr. Crawford continued. ''They saw what a crummy profession this is and got out quickly. My mother, I loved her dearly, but I'll tell ya, I am glad she is dead. Because wherever she is, she is happier, out of this rat race.''

Mr. Crawford early became accustomed to being called ''Helen Broderick's son,'' for his mother was one of the best-known comediennes of her time. She starred in the first ''Ziegfeld Follies'' on Broadway and appeared in many movies.

She and her husband, Lester Crawford, a vaudeville performer, were touring when Broderick Crawford was born, in Philadelphia on Dec. 9, 1911. As a child he lived on New York's West Side, but he accompanied his parents on their tours and often took bit parts in their comedy routines. A College Dropout

He received his high-school education at Dean Academy in Franklin, Mass., and at the age of 18 entered Harvard at his parents' insistence, but dropped out after three weeks. For a time he worked as a longshoreman on the New York waterfront, and spent almost a year as a seaman aboard a tanker.

Mr. Crawford made his legitimate stage debut in 1934, as the football player in the London production of Howard Lindsay's ''She Loves Me Not.'' The play lasted only three weeks, but his performance was seen and admired by Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, as well as their friend Noel Coward, who cast him as the American in his 1935 Broadway production of ''Point Valaine,'' starring the Lunts. Mr. Crawford's small part was well received by the critics, and the show ran 20 weeks.

He appeared in two successive Broadway flops, then acted with touring and stock companies, finally making his Hollywood movie debut in 1937 as a comic butler in ''Woman Chases Man.''

On the train returning to New York he read Mr. Steinbeck's novel, ''Of Mice and Men,'' and became determined to play the role of Lennie, the good-hearted moron who kills the things he loves and is ultimately killed humanely by his best friend to spare him from a lynching.

Mr. Crawford's reading of Lennie's lines for the director, George S. Kaufman, was ''so definitely authentic the first time,' said Mr. Kaufman, that he seemed the ''inevitable actor'' for the role. Broadway audiences agreed and so did the critics, among them Brooks Atkinson, who wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Crawford acted with ''compassion'' a ''meticulously and affectionately modulated'' role. Several Grade-B Movies

A year later, however, Mr. Crawford was back in Hollywood, playing supporting roles in films such as ''Beau Geste,'' ''The Real Glory'' and ''Eternally Yours,'' all released in 1939. He also made a string of class B movies, including ''Tight Shoes,'' ''The Black Cat,'' ''South of Tahiti,'' ''North of the Klondike,'' and ''Slave Girl.''

Mr. Crawford's big break in ''All the King's Men'' resulted from the decision by the screenwriter-director Robert Rossen to purposely cast nonstars in his saga of the vicious, amoral populist politician Willie Stark.

Admiring his performance as ''the big, brawling hick lawyer who makes himself a momentary king,'' Bosley Crowther wrote in The Times that ''Mr. Crawford concentrates tremendous energy into every delineation he plays, whether it is the enthusiasm of a callow bumpkin or the virulence of a drunken demagogue. He draws a compelling portrait of an egomaniac.''

After the handful of major films that followed his 1949 success, Mr. Crawford, who had a reputation as a hard-drinking barroom brawler, returned to low-budget movies, many of them made in Italy and Yugoslavia. He also appeared in the ''Highway Patrol'' television series and two others that were unsuccessful. His last movie, in which he played himself, was George Roy Hill's ''A Little Romance,'' in 1979.

The actor was married four times.