The club signed Washington and Strode that spring. Strode had difficulty maintaining the momentum of these roles. 1951: The Lion Hunters; Bride of the Gorilla. [20], He based himself in Europe from 1968 to 1971.[7]. At 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, Strode was an athletic marvel in his prime. Respected Black cavalry Sergeant Brax Rutledge stands court-martial for raping and killing a white woman and murdering her father, his superior officer. 109 minutes. There is a purity to the John Ford style. Do you find this information helpful? While some reviewers and historians claim he could have been a more well-known and cast minority actor if not for his size and physically strong appearance, more along the lines of Sidney Poitier, a near contemporary, Hollywood of the past and present still has few positive roles outside of the stereotypical for ethnic males. I wanted to crawl into a mouse hole, Stewart recalled. Valance gives him a choice: Leave town, or face him in a shootout on Main Street. The pioneering Black character actor relocated from the United States to Europe for a while to pursue bigger and more interesting roles. The two became friends, and Ford later gave Wayne his breakthrough role in Stagecoach, the film that launched Wayne to Hollywood stardom. Woody Strode Tuesday, 28th July 1914 - Saturday, 31st December 1994 Los Angeles CA USA. "I would have lost that role if I hadn't been in shape, and if I hadn't had a lot of experience as a wrestler," Strode told the Pittsburgh Courier after the film's release, according to Slam Wrestling. He and Kenny Washington integrated the National Football League (NFL), and Strode played for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946 before moving to the Canadian Football League in 1948. How many . In a film with Lee Marvin's snarl, Andy Devine's squeaky voice and the accent of the Swedes, John Wayne as usual provides the calm center, never trying for an effect. Also, he appeared in several episodes of the 19521954 television series Ramar of the Jungle, where he portrayed an African warrior. The others were Bill Willis and. But when it came to shooting 1962s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with Duke and Jimmy Stewart on the Paramount lot, the director opted for black and white instead. [33], Colo. It's been 15 years since Woody Strode's prime time in Hollywood ]: [4] Played college football and broke color barrier at the same time as Kenny Washington. Strode's performance in "Spartacus" as the gladiator Draba - who fells Douglas' titular character in a duel, but spares his life to defy the Roman elite - secured him a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Strode was very close to the director. Sergeant Rutledge is a 1960 western film from Warner Brothers and the director John Ford. Woody Strode was a Black Indian (his grandmother was Black Cherokee and his grandfather was Black Muscogee) and an outstanding athlete. Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode (July 25, 1914 December 31, 1994) was an American athlete and actor. After that I said thats all I needed. The film made Strode a major star in European cinema, increasing his salary to a minimum $150,000 per movie. I make westerns.. If someone said, 'there's a Negro over there,' I was just as apt as anyone to turn around and say 'Where? Liberty Valance cannot abide anyone standing up to him, and the shingle is an affront. He was the African antagonist in Tarzan Fights for Life (1958) and an Apache chief who took on Sean Connery in the western, Shalako (1968). Strode moved north and won the Grey Cup with the 1948 Calgary Stampeders, Canadian pro football's only undefeated team. Woody Strode passed away on December 31, 1994 from lung cancer in Glendora, California. After football, he went on to become a film actor, where he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960. Strode also served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. He explains: "The Western is intrinsically the most political movie genre, because, like Plato's 'Republic,' it is concerned with the founding of cities, and because it depicts the various abstract functions of government as direct, physical actions." Subscribe to our newsletter for new stories, tips & events. They reunited 20 years later when he played the title role in Ford's rather neglected 1960 western 'Sergeant Rutledge', as a black Cavalry officer unfairly tried for the rape and murder of a white women and her father. He was a decathlete and football star who was one of the first African American players in the National Football League in the postwar era. Ray Hamel. Born in Los Angeles in 1914, Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode died at age 80 on New Year's Eve 1994. [7], With her he had two children, television director Kalai (a.k.a. [10] Strode and Kenny Washington were two of the first African-Americans to play in major college programs and later the modern National Football League (along with Marion Motley and Bill Willis, who signed with the contemporary rival All-America Football Conference), playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946. He was also a professional wrestler, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous George. "The big studios wanted an actor like Sidney [Poitier] or [Harry] Belafonte," recalled Strode. He broke this barrier with his teammate Kenny Washington and Cleveland Browns players Bill Willis and Marion Motley. DON'T MISSJohn Wayne: The Searchers set revelation that saw John Ford speechless[THE SEARCHERS]How the West Was Won: Idiot drunk producer, near-death and more[HOW THE WEST WAS WON]John Wayne: Why Elvis turned down Dukes offer to co-star in Western[ELVIS]. Official Sites, Impeccable musculature and towering height, Often played quiet, dignified men of action, Was one of the first four blacks who integrated professional football in 1946. [7], Along with Ray Bartlett, there were four Black Americans playing for the Bruins, when only a few dozen at all played on other college football teams. There were of course a few black westerns made during the race film era of the 1940s, such as The Bronze Buckaroo and Harlem Rides the Range, but it took until 1960 for a Hollywood studio feature western that featuredblack cowboys in the old west, during the mid to late 19th century to early 20 the century. The closing credits dedicate the film to Strode, who died shortly before its release. Once dubbed "the Jackie Robinson of cinema" by Jet Magazine, Strode shared a backfield with Robinson and Washington in 1939. [21], He had a support role in Tarzan's Fight for Life (1958) and a small part in The Buccaneer (1958). Cattlemen do not. He could beat Glenn Morris, the 1936 Olympic gold-medal decathlete, in . Strode also played the powerful gladiator who does battle with Kirk Douglas in Spartacus (1960). I'd play a Viking with blue contact lenses and a blond wig if I could. Strode also had a brief career as a professional gridiron football player and was among the first African . Yes, but there's more to it than that, and in John Ford's mind, gun ownership is very much an open question. Strode appeared in at least 90 films, from Sunrise in 1941 to his last, The Quick and the Dead, released in 1995. My dream is to play a Mexican bandit in the international market."[20]. It's clear they loved him. Woody Strode has not been elected into the Hall of Fame. The 5/6/70 issue of "Variety", in the Italian Films Shooting column, lists the movie "Violence" filming in Morocco, director. Valuing his toughness, Ford cast Strode as Rutledge over future Oscar winners Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. Woody played for the Los Angeles Rams after their move from Cleveland. He simply does not have to say a word.". Strode, the six-foot-four pioneering athlete turned movie star, was born in 1914, in South Central Los Angeles, to Black and Native American parents. Not surprisingly, the film is considered one of Fords most overlooked and underrated films, and given the subject matter as well as the era in which it was made and released, it was not a box office success either. Hell, we thought we were white. Woodrow Wilson Strode, known as Woody, was a big man on campus. In an interview given before he died, Stewart once described the toll that Fords meanness took on Wayne. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Of course being a director from what is still called The Golden Age of Hollywood and despite the fact that Ford considered himself a political progressive (though he was close friends with actors he worked with who were often right wing reactionaries, like John Wayne and James Stewart), his films were not above dealing in negative racial stereotypes often. Western icon John Wayne had a legendary collaboration with director John Ford that lasted five decades and transformed both mens careers. (One stylistic touch: In this film, he habitually calls Stoddard "Pilgrim," which expresses an insight into the lawyer's character.). He was billed as the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and the Pacific Coast Negro Heavyweight Wrestling Champion in 1962. In the late 1960s, he appeared in several episodes of the Ron Ely Tarzan television series. So why would actors put up with him? . Strode brought the best out of his castmates while stealing scenes, sometimes before he spoke a line. Local sportswriter Halley Harding, a retired Negro Leagues shortstop, led a civic campaign that pressured the Rams to integrate as a condition of playing in the publicly funded L.A. "I know Gus well." "Shawn." "Him too. His 1968 starring role as a thinly-disguised Patrice Lumumba in Seduto alla sua destra (released in the U.S. as Black Jesus) garnered Strode a great deal of press at the time, but the film is largely forgotten now. And on occasion, he was even known to actually physically attack them when he was not playing his patented sadistic practical jokes on them, or when he wasnt on one of his regular drinking binges, which would last for days. If you're a nice guy, you can walk into a room anywhere in the world. Prueba a ver si Netflix, iTunes, Amazon o cualquier otro servicio te deja reproducirlo en streaming, alquilarlo o comprarlo! At the time Ford yelled: Dont hit him Woody! That he does this by mixing in history, humorous supporting characters and a poignant romance is typical; his films were complete and self-contained in a way that approaches perfection. He was a decathlete and football star who was one of the first African American players in the National Football League in the postwar era. [16], In 1952, Strode wrestled almost every week from August 12, 1952, to December 10, 1952, in different cities in California. Ford isn't making an anachronistic statement on racism, but he's being sure we notice it. "I've never gotten over 'Sergeant Rutledge,'" Strode told The New York Times years later. We need him!, In the end, Wayne told Strode: We gotta work together. We both gotta be professionals. "You can't tell the story of the National Football League without telling the story of these four men," he added. ", - IMDb Mini Biography By: "Never used it, but I could walk into the White House with it now. [citation needed], Strode's acting career was re-activated when producer Walter Mirisch spotted him wrestling and cast him as an African warrior in The Lion Hunters (1951), one of the Bomba the Jungle Boy series. He enabled the Stamps to score twice in the title game. He had many murders on his conscience, and much enjoyed using a leather bullwhip. "Their actions on and off the field opened a door that allowed other people to follow.". Ransom Stoddard believes in the U. S. Constitution, the rule by law, the trust in government. Valance and his two sidekicks hold up a stagecoach on the way to town, and when one of the passengers, Ransom, stands up to him Liberty nearly whips him to death. "Visually, he is a tower of strength and also a tower of endurance," film historian Donald Bogle said about Strode in a Turner Classic Movies segment a couple of years ago. His name was the only one of the four "professionals" that was left off of the movie poster; nevertheless, the film was a major box-office success that established him as a recognizable star. Woodrow Wilson Woody Strode (1914-1994) was one of the most prolific and reliable African American actors of a generation. Producers approached him in 1950 to portray a Maasai warrior in a "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" adventure flick. Strode and teammate Kenny Washington were among the best-known college football players in the nation. Shinbone is the only Western town I've seen in a movie with no prostitutes. On top of this, Reese actor Lee Van Clef who went on to star in Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns said that Ford resented the meddling and so would take out his annoyance on Wayne, whose casting as Doniphon was demanded by the studio. Inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. [6] They became famous nationally as "the Gold Dust gang". Three men stand at the center of the story: Stoddard, Doniphon, and Valance. Acting wasn't his first passion, however, as football at Jefferson High School and UCLA brought him initial fame. But the hotel we found was integratedand Count Basie was playing thereand we were fine. In 1964, there was his penultimate work, the nearly three-hour-long roadshow western epic Cheyenne Autumn, complete with an intermission, a70MM Super Panavision print, released by Warners, which told the true story of a Cheyenne tribe who travel by foot across 1,500 miles back to their ancestral hunting grounds, while US Army troops are ordered to send them back by force if necessary. As the two actors filmed an exterior shot on a horse-drawn cart, Wayne was close to losing control of the horses. His mother was full-blooded Blackfoot, and he played often, Indians in John Ford's films. In town, he's nursed back to health by Nora and Peter Ericson, two recent Swedish immigrants who run the local chowhouse. But Rutledge faces it heroically and is not passive either, even breaking ranks and official orders to try to track down the evidence and the real killer who will clear him. The character was named after Woody Strode, the legendary Spartacus actor who starred in numerous Westerns throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Which is sort of remarkable, because they love each other. Strode worked in B-movies through the '70s and '80s and acted as the narrator for Mario Van Peebles' Black Western Posse in 1993. The filmmaker would ask his Western star: How rich did you get while Jimmy was risking his life?, According to Michael Munns John Wayne The Man Behind The Myth, Strode said that the directors constant ridiculing really p***ed Wayne off, but he would never take it out on Ford., The reason being that the filmmakers movies had made him a Hollywood star and the Pompey actor claimed: He ended up taking it out on me.. 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