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Victor Mature

 
Actor: Victor Mature
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Jan 29, 1915 in Louisville, Kentucky
  • Died: Aug 04, 1999 in Rancho Sante Fe, California
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '40s-'50s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
  • Career Highlights: My Darling Clementine, The Robe, Samson and Delilah
  • First Major Screen Credit: Captain Caution (1940)

Biography

The first male film star to be officially labelled a "hunk," Victor Mature was the son of Swiss immigrants. When he arrived in California to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, Mature was so broke that he lived in a pup tent in a vacant lot and subsisted on canned sardines and chocolate bars. There was speculation amongst his fellow students that Mature's spartan lifestyle was deliberately engineered to draw publicity to himself; if so, the ploy worked, and by 1938 he'd been signed to a contract by producer Hal Roach. Mature's first starring film role was as Tumack the caveman in Roach's One Million BC (1940), which enabled the fledgling actor to display his physique without being unduly encumbered by dialogue. While still under contract to Roach, Mature made his Broadway debut in the Moss Hart/Kurt Weill musical Lady in the Dark, playing a musclebound male model. In 1941, Mature was signed by 20th Century-Fox as the "beefcake" counterpart to the studio's "cheesecake" star Betty Grable; the two attractive stars were frequently cast together in Fox musicals, where a lack of clothes was de rigeur. Apparently because of his too-handsome features, the press and fan magazines went out of their way to make Mature look ridiculous and untalented. In truth, he had more good film performances to his credit than one might think: he was excellent as the tubercular Doc Holliday in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1948), and also registered well in Kiss of Death (1947), Cry of the City (1948), The Egyptian (1954), Betrayed (1954), and Chief Crazy Horse (1955). As the slave Demetrius in The Robe (1953), Mature is more understated and credible than the film's "distinguished" but hopelessly hammy star Richard Burton. Nonetheless, and thanks to such cinematic folderol as Samson and Delilah (1949), Mature was still widely regarded as a lousy actor who survived on the basis of his looks. Rather than fight this ongoing perception, Mature tended to denigrate his own histrionic ability in interviews; later in his career, he hilariously parodied his screen image in such films as After the Fox (1966) and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976). Semi-retired from acting in the late 1970s, Victor Mature ran a successful television retail shop in Hollywood, although in 1984 he did appear in a TV remake of Samson and Delilah, effectively portraying Samson's father. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Victor Mature

from the trailer for Kiss of Death (1947)
Born January 29, 1913(1913-01-29)
Louisville, Kentucky,
United States
Died August 4, 1999 (aged 86)
Rancho Santa Fe, California, United States
Spouse(s) Frances Charles
(1938-1940)
Martha Stephenson Kemp
(1941-1943)
Dorothy Standford Berry
(1948-1955)
Adrienne Joy Urwick
(1959-1969)
Loretta G. Sebena
(1974-1999)

Victor Mature (January 29, 1913 – August 4, 1999) was an American film actor.

Contents

Early life

Victor John Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to a German-speaking father from Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol Italy, Marcellus George Mature [1][2] a cutler, and a Kentucky-born mother of Swiss-American heritage, Clara P. Ackley.[3] An older brother, Marcellus Paul Mature, died at 11 in 1918 from osteomyelitis.[4] Victor Mature was educated at parochial schools, the Kentucky Military Institute and the Spencerian Business School. He briefly sold candy and operated a restaurant before moving to California.[5]

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.

World War II

In July 1942 Mature attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy but was rejected for color blindness. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard after taking a different eye test the same day. He was assigned to the USCGC Storis (WMEC-38), which was doing Greenland patrol work. After 14 months aboard the Storis, Mature was promoted to the rate of Chief Boatswain's Mate. In 1944 he did a series of War Bond tours and acted in morale shows. He assisted Coast Guard recruiting efforts by being a featured player in the musical revue "Tars and Spars" which opened in Miami, Florida in April of 1944 and toured the United States for the next year. In May 1945 Mature was reassigned to the Coast Guard manned troop transport USS Admiral H.T. Mayo (AP-125) which was involved in transferring troops to the Pacific Theater. Mature was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard in November 1945 and he resumed his acting career.[5]

Film career

Victor Mature in the trailer for Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

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. Mature also starred with Hedy Lamarr in Cecil B. DeMille's Bible epic, Samson and Delilah (1949) and as Horemheb in The Egyptian (1954) with Jean Simmons and Gene Tierney. He reportedly stated he was successful in Biblical epics because he could "make with the holy look".

He also starred with Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), and had a romantic relationship with her according to her autobiography. [6] After five years of retirement in 1966 he was lured back into acting by the opportunity to parody himself in After the Fox, co-written by Neil Simon. In a similar vein in 1968 he played a giant, The Big Victor, in Head, a potpourri movie starring The Monkees. The character poked fun at both his screen 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, stating "All I know is it makes me laugh."

Mature was famously modest about his acting skill. 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 sixty-four films to prove it!"[7] He was quoted in 1968 on his acting career: "Actually, I am a golfer. That is my real occupation. I never was an actor. Ask anybody, particularly the critics."[8]

Death

Victor Mature died of leukemia in 1999, at his Rancho Santa Fe, California home, at the age of 86. He was buried in the family plot at St. Michael's Cemetery in his hometown of Louisville.

Filmography

Features
Short subjects

References

  1. ^ 1920 U.S. Census, Louisville Ward 4, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: T625_578; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 98; Image: 1039
  2. ^ World War I Draft Registration, Jefferson County, Kentucky; Roll: 1653508; Draft Board: 3
  3. ^ 1900 U.S. Census, Louisville Ward 4, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: T623 529; Page: 10A
  4. ^ Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records (1852-1910). Microfilm rolls #994027-994058. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky
  5. ^ a b Wise, James E., Jr. and Anne Collier Rehill. Stars in Blue. Naval Institute Press, 1997, p. 201. ISBN 1-55750-937-9.
  6. ^ The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography, Esther Williams, Simon & Schuster, 1999 ISBN 0156011352
  7. ^ Department of Homeland Security, United States Coast Guard History site http://www.uscg.mil/history/FAQS/victormature.asp
  8. ^ Shipman, David. The Great Movie Stars: The International Years. St. Martin's Press, 1972, p. 330

External links

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