Victor Mature

Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor. 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. Film career 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). 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, according to her autobiography, had a romantic relationship with her. After five years of retirement, he was lured back into acting by the opportunity to parody himself in After the Fox (1966), 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 self-deprecatory about his acting skills. 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!" 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." 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. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Victor Mature has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6780 Hollywood Blvd.

Known For: Acting

Born: Louisville, Kentucky, USA, 1913-01-29

Died: 1999-08-04

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1939	The Housekeeper's Daughter	Lefty	35
2	1940	One Million B.C.	Tumak	58
3	1940	Captain Caution	Daniel 'Dan' Marvin	56
4	1940	No, No, Nanette	William Trainor	60
5	1941	I Wake Up Screaming	Frankie Christopher (Botticelli)	69
6	1941	The Shanghai Gesture	Doctor Omar	63
7	1942	Song of the Islands	Jefferson Harper	62
8	1942	My Gal Sal	Paul Dresser	58
9	1942	Footlight Serenade	Tommy Lundy	0
10	1942	Seven Days' Leave	Johnny Grey	60
11	1943	Show-Business at War	Self	70
12	1946	My Darling Clementine	Dr. John 'Doc' Holliday	75
13	1947	Moss Rose	Michael Drego	64
14	1947	Kiss of Death	Nick Bianco	70
15	1948	Fury at Furnace Creek	Cash Blackwell / Tex Cameron	60
16	1948	Cry of the City	Lt. Candella	68
17	1949	Red, Hot and Blue	Danny James	58
18	1949	Easy Living	Pete Wilson	59
19	1949	Samson and Delilah	Samson	65
20	1950	Wabash Avenue	Andy Clark	47
21	1950	Stella	Jeff DeMarco	0
22	1950	Gambling House	Marc Fury	61
23	1951	House of Dreams	Narrator (voice)	0
24	1952	The Las Vegas Story	Lt. Dave Andrews	58
25	1952	Something for the Birds	Steve Bennett	0
26	1952	Androcles and the Lion	Captain	58
27	1952	Million Dollar Mermaid	James Sullivan	64
28	1953	The Glory Brigade	Lt. Sam Pryor	57
29	1953	Affair with a Stranger	Bill Blakeley	43
30	1953	The Robe	Demetrius	68
31	1953	The Veils of Bagdad	Antar	60
32	1954	Dangerous Mission	Matt Hallett	58
33	1954	Demetrius and the Gladiators	Demetrius	65
34	1954	The Egyptian	Horemheb	64
35	1954	Betrayed	'The Scarf'	56
36	1955	Chief Crazy Horse	Crazy Horse	56
37	1955	Violent Saturday	Shelley Martin	68
38	1955	The Last Frontier	Jed Cooper	61
39	1956	Safari	Ken Duffield	56
40	1956	The Sharkfighters	Lt. Cmdr. Ben Staves	53
41	1956	Zarak	Zarak Khan	47
42	1957	Interpol	Charles Sturgis	64
43	1957	The Long Haul	Harry Miller	58
44	1958	Tank Force!	Sgt. David Thatcher	62
45	1958	China Doll	Capt. Cliff Brandon	68
46	1959	Escort West	Ben Lassiter	56
47	1959	Zwischen Glück und Krone	Self (archive footage)	0
48	1959	The Bandit Of Zhobe	Kasmin Khan	0
49	1959	The Big Circus	Henry Jasper 'Hank' Whirling	65
50	1959	Timbuktu	Mike Conway	47
51	1959	Hannibal	Hannibal	56
52	1961	The Tartars	Oleg	55
53	1965	Uncertain Verification	(archive footage)	66
54	1966	After the Fox	Tony Powell	60
55	1968	Head	The Big Victor	62
56	1972	Every Little Crook and Nanny	Carmine Ganucci	0
57	1975	Mi Marilyn	Self (archive footage)	61
58	1976	Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood	Nick	41
59	1979	Firepower	Howard Everett	48
60	1984	Samson and Delilah	Manoah	49
61	1986	Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend	Self (archive footage)	75
62	1999	Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults	Self (Archival Footage)	0

Victor Mature

Film

Television