American leading man Victor John Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Clara P. , but none came to fruition. He died of cancer at his Rancho Santa Fe, California, home in 1999.
Daughter, Victoria, born in 1975.
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.
Victors 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. Victors mother, Clara P. (Ackley), was born in Kentucky. Victors maternal grandfather, Charles Anthony "Antone" Ackley, was a Swiss immigrant, of Swiss-German descent, while Victors maternal grandmother, Magdalen "Lena" Weekes, was born in Indiana, to German parents.
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: "Im not an actor - and Ive got 64 films to prove it!".
He attributed his success in Biblical spectacles to his ability to "make with the holy look."
Was color-blind.
Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 389-390. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Attended the Kentucky Military Academy. One of his classmates was future fellow actor, Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell III in "Gilligans Island" ).
In Zarak he played perhaps the only title character in the movies to be flogged to death.
Although several sources suggest that Matures 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.
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.
He was a Republican.
Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).
A false story has circulated that George Reeves auditioned for the role of Samson in Samson and Delilah , 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 Matures friends from Pasadena.
Was approached for the role of Sylvester Stallone s father in Oscar , which eventually went to Kirk Douglas.
Was originally going to star with Robert Wagner and Debra Paget in The Proud Ones .
Is buried in St. Michael Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.
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 --a film that Groucho Marx famously said he would not go to see because "the leading mans tits are bigger than the leading ladys"--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.
I was never that crazy about acting. I had a compulsion to earn money,not to act. So, I worked as an actor until I could afford to retire. I,wanted to quit while I could still enjoy life. . . I like to loaf.
Everyone told me I would go crazy or die if I quit working. Yeah? Well,what a lovely way to die.
