Victor Mature

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Victor Mature
Mature in Cry of the City (1948)
Born	29 January 1913 Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Died	4 August 1999 Rancho Santa Fe, California, USA

Victor Mature (29 January 1913 - 4 August 1999), an American film actor, was born in Louisville, Kentucky to a Tyrolean father, Marcellus George Mature, a cutler, and a Swiss-American mother, Clara Mature. He is often described as an early exemplar of the term "beefcake" due to his muscular physique and stolid onscreen manner. But unlike any of his contemporaries and his many successors, Mature always brought a sense of fragility, doubt and uncertainty to his characters. His Samson in Samson and Delilah is no doubt his best known role; not because of the beefcake, but for the pathos he brings to the blinded hero.

Discovered while on stage at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, his first leading role was as a fur-clad caveman in One Million B.C. (1940), after which he joined 20th Century Fox to star opposite actresses such as Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. However, with the US entry into World War II, Mature entered military service. Rejected by the Navy for color blindness, he enlisted in the Coast Guard, reaching the rank of chief boatswain mate by the war's end.

After the war, Mature was cast by John Ford in My Darling Clementine, playing Doc Holliday opposite Henry Fonda's Wyatt Earp. For the next decade, Mature settled into playing hard-boiled characters in a range of genres such as westerns and Biblical films, such as The Robe (with Richard Burton and Jean Simmons) and its popular sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators (with Susan Hayward). Both films deal with the fate of the robe worn by Jesus before the crucifixion. Victor also starred with Hedy Lamarr in Cecil B. DeMille's Bible epic, Samson and Delilah (1949) and as Horemheb in The Egyptian (1954).

Mature was under no illusions as to his acting prowess. Once, after being rejected for membership in a country club because he was an actor, he cracked, "I'm not an actor - and I've got 67 films to prove it!"

Victor Mature died of leukemia at his Rancho Santa Fe, California, home in 1999, at the age of 86. After his death, his body was brought back to his hometown of Louisville and was buried in his family's burial plot at St. Michael's Cemetery, 1300 Ellison Avenue.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Trivia

• Mature played a giant, The Big Victor, in Head, a potpourri movie starring The Monkees. The character poked fun at both his image, and reportedly RCA Victor, who distributed Colgems Records, the Monkees's label. Mature enjoyed the script, while admitting it made no sense to him. "All I know is it makes me laugh."

• A Los Angeles band adopted the name Hornets Attack Victor Mature, inspired by a newspaper headline. Rock band R.E.M. decided to use that pseudonym for a 1985 performance out of sheer amusement.

• Perhaps because of his brawny physique and because of his frequent casting in adventure movies, Mature often appeared bare-chested as he suffered through on-screen bondage and torture scenes. In 1949's Samson and Delilah he was blinded by a hot sword and forced to turn a grist-mill. In 1953's The Robe Roman soldiers tortured him as he lay stretched out on a table. In 1956's Zarak he endured two separate floggings, one in the opening reel and one in the closing reel. In 1959's Timbuktu he lay spreadeagled under a poisonous spider which slowly dropped down toward his face.

• He owned a rare red Rolls-Royce golf cart that was often seen at the Rancho Santa Fe country club.

[edit] External links

• Victor Mature at the Internet Movie Database
• Mature's Matinee - The Victor Mature Fan Club and Website
• Grave of Victor Mature, with GPS coordinates