Making use of his powerful physique, he became associated with "beefcake" scenes involving bondage and torture. In "Samson and Delilah" (1949) he was blinded and forced to turn a gristmill. In "The Robe" (1953) he suffered while stretched out on a torture-table inside a Roman dungeon. In "Zarak" (1957) he endured two separate floggings. In "Timbuktu" (1959) he found himself staked out, spreadeagle style, under a dangling tarantula.
I'm an emotional actor. When I'm doing a scene, I really believe it. I live the part as long as I'm in the scene.
2
[on Samson and Delilah (1949)] Samson wasn't exactly bad for me. How can you go wrong in a picture that is going to pull in 17 million and maybe as high as 20? Why, I'm getting fan mail from places all over the world that I've never heard of before.
3
[about the movie Head (1968)] I don't understand it. All I know is it makes me laugh.
4
[When asked if it bothered him to play Samson's father in a TV-movie remake (Samson and Delilah (1984)) of his early film, 35 years earlier, in 1949 (Samson and Delilah (1949)) in which he played Samson, he answered] If the money's right, I'd play his mother!
5
Actually, I am a golfer. That is my real occupation. I never was an actor. Ask anybody, particularly the critics.
6
If you're so concerned about fucking privacy, don't become a fucking actor!
7
I'm no actor, and I've got 64 pictures to prove it.
#
Fact
1
Despite his physique and his tough guy persona, Mature was a man of many fears and phobias. Not only did he refuse to wrestle a tame movie lion for Samson and Delilah (1949)--a film that Groucho Marx famously said he would not go to see because "the leading man's tits are bigger than the leading lady's"--but during the jawbone battle, the wind machine kicked up some particularly violent gusts, and Mature fled the sound stage for his dressing room, hiding in terror. According to Cecil B. DeMille biographer Charles Higham, the director publicly humiliated him, using his megaphone to ensure that cast and crew all heard him.
2
Is buried in St. Michael Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.
A false story has circulated that George Reeves auditioned for the role of Samson in Samson and Delilah (1949), but lost the role to Mature. Supposedly, he was given the role of "Wounded Messenger" at the recommendation of Mature, who was very loyal to his friends from his student days at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. The fact is that Reeves was never under consideration for the role of Samson. However, many of the smaller roles in the film were played by Mature's friends from Pasadena.
6
Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).
7
He was a Republican.
8
In her autobiography, Esther Williams details a passionate affair she had with Mature during the filming of Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). According to Williams, her marriage was on the rocks, she needed love and Mature provided all she wanted.
9
Although several sources suggest that Mature's family name was originally Maturi, United States and Austrian birth, immigration, census and other records, as well as Victor Mature himself, are quite clear that as of 1877, the family name was Mature.
10
In Zarak (1956) he played perhaps the only title character in the movies to be flogged to death.
11
Attended the Kentucky Military Academy. One of his classmates was future fellow actor, Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell III in Gilligan's Island (1964)).
12
Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 389-390. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
13
Was color-blind.
14
He attributed his success in Biblical spectacles to his ability to "make with the holy look."
15
Applying for membership in the swank Los Angeles Country Club at the height of his fame, Mature was turned down and told that the golfing facility did not accept actors as members. His response: "I'm not an actor - and I've got 64 films to prove it!".
16
Victor's father, Marcello Gelindo Maturi (later Marcellus George Mature), a knife sharpener and cutler, was born in 1877 in the town of Pinzolo, in the Italian Tyrolean region of Trentino, which was then under the rule of the Austria-Hungary Empire, and was returned to Italian sovereignty in 1918, after WWI. Victor's mother, Clara P. (Ackley), was born in Kentucky. Victor's maternal grandfather, Charles Anthony "Antone" Ackley, was a Swiss immigrant, of Swiss-German descent, while Victor's maternal grandmother, Magdalen "Lena" Weekes, was born in Indiana, to German parents.
17
He was a petty officer in the Coast Guard during World War II. He served on the troop transport ship Admiral Mayo. His service carried him to the North Atlantic, including Normandy, the Mediterranean, Caribbean and many islands in the South Pacific. He was on Okinawa when the A-bomb was dropped on Japan.
Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults
1997
TV Movie documentary performer: "Land on Your Feet", "Blue Shadows and White Gardenias"
Seven Days' Leave
1942
"Pop! Goes the Weasel" / performer: "Please Won't You Leave My Girl Alone" 1942, "You Speak My Language" 1942, "A Touch of Texas" 1942, "Pop! Goes the Weasel"
Footlight Serenade
1942
performer: "I'll Be Marching to a Love Song" - uncredited
My Gal Sal
1942
performer: "I'SE YOUR HONEY IF YOU WANTS ME, LIZA JANE", "OH, THE PITY OF IT ALL", "HERE YOU ARE"
Producer
Title
Year
Status
Character
China Doll
1958
producer - uncredited
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
House of Dreams
1951
Documentary short
Narrator (voice)
I'll Get By
1950
Himself (uncredited)
Screen Snapshots Series 25, No. 7: Hollywood Victory Show
1946
Documentary short
Himself
Screen Snapshots Series 24, No. 4
1944
Short
Himself, Tars and Spars Recruiter
Show-Business at War
1943
Documentary short
Himself (uncredited)
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
Our Queen at Ninety
2016
TV Movie documentary
Himself
The Naked Archaeologist
2005-2010
TV Series documentary
Samson
How the West Was Lost
2008
TV Movie documentary
Dr. John 'Doc' Holliday (uncredited)
The 72nd Annual Academy Awards
2000
TV Special
Himself (Memorial Tribute)
Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults
1997
TV Movie documentary
Himself
20th Century-Fox: The First 50 Years
1997
TV Movie documentary
Actor 'The Robe' (uncredited)
Biography
1995
TV Series documentary
Actor 'The Robe'
Arena
1995
TV Series documentary
Himself
Sphinx - Geheimnisse der Geschichte
1994
TV Series documentary
Hannibal
John Ford
1993
TV Movie documentary
Dr. John "Doc" Hollyday [in "My Darling Clementine"] (uncredited)
Gunfighters of the Old West
1992
Video documentary
Doc Holiday (uncredited)
Legends of the West
1992
Documentary
Actor in 'Chief Crazy Horse' (uncredited)
Entertaining the Troops
1988
Documentary
Himself
Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend
1987
Documentary
Himself
M*A*S*H
1977
TV Series
Dr. John 'Doc' Holiday
Fred Astaire Salutes the Fox Musicals
1974
TV Movie
Himself
The American West of John Ford
1971
TV Movie documentary
actor 'My Darling Clementine (uncredited)
Dynamite Chicken
1971
Himself (uncredited)
ABC Stage 67
1966
TV Series
Himself
The Legend of Marilyn Monroe
1966
Documentary
Himself (uncredited)
Verifica incerta - Disperse Exclamatory Phase
1965
Documentary short
Hollywood: The Great Stars
1963
TV Movie documentary
Himself (uncredited)
Lykke og krone
1962
Documentary
Himself (uncredited)
Valley of the Dragons
1961
Hector (edited from 'One Million B.C.') (uncredited)
$400,000
4.25 million USD
Good Idea.