Did Mature

Did Mature
All Titles TV Episodes Celebs Companies Keywords Advanced Search
Fully supported English (United States) Partially supported Français (Canada) Français (France) Deutsch (Deutschland) हिंदी (भारत) Italiano (Italia) Português (Brasil) Español (España) Español (México)

Jump to:
Overview (5) |
Mini Bio (1) |
Family (3) |
Trade Mark (4) |
Trivia (19) |
Personal Quotes (27) |
Salary (8)

Before Charlton Heston , Victor Mature dominated the "biblical epic" genre, starring in Samson and Delilah (1949), Androcles and the Lion (1952), The Robe (1953), and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)

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 (1956), he endured two separate floggings; and in Timbuktu (1958), he found himself staked out, spreadeagle style, under a dangling tarantula

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.

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.

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!".

He attributed his success in Biblical spectacles to his ability to "make with the holy look."

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 Gilligan's Island (1964)).

In Zarak (1956) he played perhaps the only title character in the movies to be flogged to death.

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.

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.

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 (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.

Was approached for the role of Sylvester Stallone 's father in Oscar (1991), which eventually went to Kirk Douglas .

Was originally going to star with Robert Wagner and Debra Paget in The Proud Ones (1956).

Is buried in St. Michael Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.

He was supposed to fight the lion bare-handed in Samson and Delilah (1949), but he managed to convince Cecil B. DeMille to use a stunt double ( Kay Bell ) instead. "I had no love for the lion," the actor told Movieland Magazine, "and he wasn't carrying any torch for me. In the scene in which I was supposed to be stalking him, Cecil DeMille kept urging me to get closer, and I was calling out, 'Nice kitty, nice kitty.' Didn't do any good. . . A stunt man finally tackled the lion".

George Clooney played a caricature of Victor Mature in the 2016 Coen brothers movie Hail Caesar.

His first biblical film, Samson and Delilah (1949), won the Film Français Grand Prix for Best Foreign Film. His second biblical film, The Robe (1953), was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

In the late 1950s, he had his own production company and planned to star in a biblical movie about King Solomon.

I'm no actor, and I've got 64 pictures to prove it.

If you're so concerned about fucking privacy, don't become a fucking actor!

Actually, I am a golfer. That is my real occupation. I never was an actor. Ask anybody, particularly the critics.

[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!

[about the movie Head (1968)] I don't understand it. All I know is it makes me laugh.

[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.

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.

[of his decision to retire from acting at age 46] It wasn't fun anymore. I was OK financially, so I thought what the hell... I'll become a professional loafer.

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.

I'm pretty proud of about 50% of my motion pictures. 'Demetrius and the Gladiators' ( Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)) wasn't bad. 'The Robe' ( The Robe (1953)) and 'Samson and Delilah' ( Samson and Delilah (1949)) weren't bad. I made 72 of them and I made close to $18 million. So, what the hell? Now I can retire and enjoy life.

Kiss of Death (1947) and then Samson and Delilah (1949) were very important to my career. The success of Death, I'm sure, helped me to get Samson and Delilah (1949), and Delilah led to many good roles in pictures like The Robe (1953) and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954).

Hedy Lamarr , who plays Delilah [in Samson and Delilah (1949)], was gorgeous - George Barnes , who photographed the picture, said to me, "You can shoot her from any angle. She has no bad angles." But I don't think she was well during the picture. Nothing chronic, she was just somehow out of sorts. Let me put it another way: she was not exactly a ball of fire - she just seemed to be loping along. But we got along okay, worked well together, and the camera picked up her beauty and mystique.

In a scene with 3,000 extras, if one guy in the back was picking his nose, Mr. DeMille would spot it and stop everything to chew him out.

DeMille hired the best people in town for his films, and since we were all professionals he didn't feel he had to direct us too much. He figured we knew our jobs. He'd say a few words to us, then shoot the scene. But he didn't miss a trick.

[1992] When Samson and Delilah (1949) came out, I received very flattering telegrams from Mr. DeMille ( Cecil B. DeMille ) and another pioneer filmmaker, Jesse L. Lasky , whose son, Jesse, Jr. ( Jesse Lasky Jr. ), had written the screenplay. I still have them.

[1992] Recently, I was asked to play Sylvester Stallone 's father in a movie, so I gave them my price. It's been a few weeks now and I haven't heard, so it's probably not going to happen. But that's okay, I don't need the work. My father was rich and I took good care of my own money.

Cecil B. DeMille , the producer-director of Samson and Delilah (1949), always saw all of Hollywood to find the best people for his spectaculars. So when I got the call, I wasn't all that anxious to come in for the interview from Laguna, where I was living then. I thought, "Well he's seeing everyone and now it's my turn." Meeting him in his office at Paramount, I found that he had an extensive knowledge of my entire career - that's how thorough he was. When the interview lasted four hours, I knew I was in. While we were talking he mentioned that he was having difficulty casting another important role, the Saran of Gaza. After he described the character to me I said, "It's got to be George Sanders ." And he not only signed me to play Samson, but George Sanders to play the Saran of Gaza.

One time he [ Cecil B. DeMille ] came up to me and said, "Victor, my boy. We're ready to do the scene where you fight the lion. We have a real lion, but he's very tame, a very sweet old lion. His name is Jackie. When you fight him, I'd like you to put your head in his mouth. Now don't worry; nothing can happen - Jackie has no teeth." I said, "Mr. DeMille, I don't even want to be gummed!" I did not do the stunt. No way! Not if there were six people holding Jackie by the tail!

I wasn't pampered the way a Tyrone Power was. Zanuck would say to producers, "If you're not careful, you son of a bitch, I'll give you Mature for your next picture."

You automatically accepted the pictures they wanted to give you unless you wanted to take a suspension for the length of the picture plus eight weeks. My agent, Myron Selznick, was one of the few who didn't play games with the studio. He actually worked for his clients. "Look, Vic," he'd say, "why lose all that money? If the picture's a flop, it doesn't hurt you, it hurts the studio." That was the great thing about being under contract.

[on retirement] I thought it would be a good idea to sort of enjoy what I had worked so hard for and see how the other half of the world lived.

I loaf very gracefully. There's a lot to be said about loafing if you know how to do it gracefully.

[on Tyrone Power ] One director of mine got so nervous when Ty Power came on to the set to watch that he forgot where he told me to walk in a scene. "You stupid son of a bitch," he yelled. "I told you to go to the other side." I picked him up gently and threw him into a breakaway wall and the wall collapsed. There was dead silence except for one guy on the catwalk who applauded because the director had been picking on me for six weeks.

I took acting five times as seriously as anyone else. I just couldn't show it. Some kind of complex, I guess.

Hollywood was wonderful in the forties. [20th Century] Fox was like a country club.

You've got to be one thing or the other in Hollywood. Either people think you're lousy jerk like me or a great guy like Gable. Not six people know Gable intimately, yet everyone will tell you what a great guy he is.

[on Cecil B. DeMille ] That DeMille, what a guy! What a showman. He used to say, "Vic, they say I'm corny. All right, what is corn? It's food that springs from the heart of our America. Iowa, Kansas, Missouri. It feeds our people. It feeds the starving of Europe - of the world. Vic, I'm glad to be corny." And they can kid about the old master all they want, but there isn't a big star on the lot who doesn't come to visit him, and even Hope and Crosby, I've noticed, are respectful in the presence of DeMille.

Filmography

by Year

by Job

by Ratings

by Votes

by Genre

by Keyword

Did You Know?

Personal Quotes

Trivia

Trademark

Photo & Video

Photo Gallery

Trailers and Videos

Opinion

Awards

Related Items

Credited With

News

External Sites

Professional Services

Get more at IMDbPro

a list of 30 people
created 5 months ago

a list of 25 people
created 17 Jul 2020

a list of 35 images
created 02 Oct 2017

a list of 34 people
created 10 Jan 2017

a list of 31 people
created 26 Feb 2020

American leading man Victor John Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Clara P. (Ackley) and Marcellus George Mature, a cutler and knife sharpener. His father, born Marcello Gelindo Maturi in Pinzolo, Trentino, was Italian, and his mother was of Swiss-German and German descent. Mature worked as a teenager with his father as a salesman for butcher supplies. Hoping to become an actor, he studied at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. He auditioned for Gone with the Wind (1939) for the role ultimately played by his fellow Playhouse student, George Reeves . After achieving some acclaim in his first few films, he served in the Coast Guard in World War II. Mature became one of Hollywood's busiest and most popular actors after the war, though rarely was he given the critical respect he often deserved. His roles in John Ford 's My Darling Clementine (1946) and in Henry Hathaway 's Kiss of Death (1947) were among his finest work, though he moved more and more frequently into more exotic roles in films like Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Egyptian (1954). Never an energetic actor nor one of great artistic pretensions, he nevertheless continued as a Hollywood stalwart both in programme and in more prominent films like The Robe (1953). More interested in golf than acting, his appearances diminished through the 1960s, but he made a stunning comeback of sorts in a hilarious romp as a very Victor Mature-like actor in Neil Simon 's After the Fox (1966). Golf eventually took over his activities and, after a cameo as Samson's father in a TV remake of his own "Samson and Delilah" ( Samson and Delilah (1984)), he retired for good. Rumors occasionally surfaced of another comeback, most notably in a never-realized remake of Red River (1948) with Sylvester Stallone , but none came to fruition. He died of cancer at his Rancho Santa Fe, California, home in 1999.

Other Works

|
Publicity Listings

|
Official Sites

January 29 ,

1913

in Louisville, Kentucky, USA

August 4 ,

1999

in Rancho Santa Fe, California, USA (leukemia)

Loretta G. Sebena
( 22 February 1974 -
4 August 1999) (his death)
(1 child)

Adrienne Joy Urwick
( 27 September 1959 -
6 February 1969) (divorced)

Dorothy Stanford Berry
( 28 February 1948 -
8 November 1955) (divorced)

Martha Stephenson Kemp
( 17 June 1941 -
10 February 1943) (divorced)

Frances Charles ( 30 January 1938 -
1940) (annulled)

Marcellus George Mature

Clara Ackley

Your browser isn’t supported anymore. Update it to get the best YouTube experience and our latest features. Learn more

Vintage Dancer | 1920s Fashion | 1920s Mature Women Fashion, Mrs. Clothing

The Daughter Wears a 1920s Casual Dress while Mother Wears Modest Clothing of Late 1910s

The Mother Wears a Natural Waist Dress while the Daughter is in a New Drop Waist Dress

1926 Mother and Daughter

1920 Mrs. Marshall & Mrs. Harding Wearing Clothes from the Late Teens

1923 Mrs. LaFollette Wears a High Waist Lace Gown and Long Coat

1923 Mr. & Mrs. Louis Schneide Wears a Wide Sash Waist Dress and Fringe Shawl

1921 Mrs. Daniels & Mrs. Dewey Wear Late 1910s Dresses

1922 Mrs. Work & Mrs. Wallace Wear Tunic Dresses with Thin Belts

1922 Waistless Tunic Dresses

1923 Mrs. Coolidge in an Embroidered Dress

1923 Long Gowns for Eveningwear

1923 Evening Gowns and Opera Coat for Mature Women

1923 Long Dress, Faux Waistband

1923 Beaded Sleeves on a Long Pleated
Mature Solo Video
Lingerie Older
Ru Masturbating

Did Mature

Report Page