Victor John Mature (January 29, 1913 – August 4, 1999) was an American actor in The Golden Age of Hollywood, an early example of a "beefcake" leading man.
The son of an Italian-born knife sharpener and cutler and a German mother, Mature was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse in California (opposite future 1950s TV Superman George Reeves) and made his film debut in 1939's The Housekeeper's Daughter. After playing Tumak in the original 1940 version of One Million B.C. the tall, stocky, dark haired actor went on to appear in film noir, westerns and ultimately biblical epics. He took a hiatus from acting from 1942 to 1945 to serve in the coast guard during World War II.
His most famous roles are arguably those of Demetrius in 1953's The Robe and its 1954 sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators, Dr. John 'Doc' Holliday in 1946's My Darling Clementine (opposite Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp) and perhaps the role he is truly best remembered for, that of the doomed biblical strong man Samson in the 1949 Cecil B. DeMille epic Samson and Delilah opposite Hedy Lamarr as Delilah. He got the role of Samson after Burt Lancaster declined due to a bad back and an aspiring young bodybuilder named Steve Reeves was ultimately passed over because he would not lose weight for the role.
Mature was said to be a man of many fears and phobias despite his burly physique. He reportedly infuriated DeMille first by refusing to wrestle a perfectly tame, toothless lion and then ran away during the filming of the jawbone battle when the wind machine kicked up an incredibly violent gust of wind and hid in his dressing room, completely terrified. DeMille hated Mature so much for his behavior that he got on his mega-phone and called Mature "100 percent yellow" so that the rest of the cast and crew could hear him, thoroughly humiliating the actor.
Not especially pretentious or ambitious and always more than happy to admit that he was not the greatest actor who ever lived (he once joked that his real job was being a golfer), by the 1960s Mature slowly began to show himself out of the Hollywood limelight, though he was occasionally lured back into the industry with roles that poked fun at and/or paid homage to his reputation, such as 1966's After the Fox, in which he plays a hammy washed up actor, and what proved to be his last role, a Remake Cameo in the 1984 TV remake of Samson and Delilah as Samson's father, Manoah. In 1991 he was approached to play Sylvester Stallone's father in the 1991 gangster comedy Oscar due to the uncanny resemblance Stallone bore to Mature, but he declined and Kirk Douglas played the part instead.
Mature passed away in 1999 at the age of 86 from leukemia. He was featured in Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).
Selected Filmography:
- I Wake Up Screaming (1941) as Frankie Christopher
- My Darling Clementine (1946) as Doc Holliday
- Kiss of Death (1947) as Nick Bianco
- Samson and Delilah (1949) as Samson
- Androcles and the Lion (1952) as Captain
- The Robe (1953) as Demetrius
- The Egyptian (1954) as Horemheb
- Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) as Demetrius
- Violent Saturday (1955) as Shelley Martin
- Hannibal (1959) as Hannibal Barca
- After the Fox (1966) as Tony Powell
- Head (1968) as the Big Victor
