Woody Strode

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Woody Strode
Born Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode
July 25, 1914(1914-07-25)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died December 31, 1994(1994-12-31) (aged 80)
Glendora, California, U.S.
Occupation Sportsman
Actor
Years active 1941–1994
Spouse Princess Luukialuana "Luana" Kalaeloa (1941 - 1980; her death)
Tina Strode (1982 - 1994; his death)

Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode (July 25, 1914 – December 31, 1994) was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960. He served in the US Army during World War II.

Contents

[edit] Early life and athletic career

Strode was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended college at UCLA, where he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. His world-class decathlon capabilities were spearheaded by a 50 ft (15 m) plus shot put (when the world record was 57 ft (17 m)) and a 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) high jump (the world record at time was 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)). Strode posed for a nude portrait, part of Hubert Stowitts's acclaimed exhibition of athletic portraits shown at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (although the inclusion of black and Jewish athletes caused the Nazis to close the exhibit).[1]

Strode, Kenny Washington and Jackie Robinson starred on the 1939 UCLA Bruins football team, in which they made up three of the four backfield players.[2] Along with Ray Bartlett, there were four African-Americans playing for the Bruins, when only a few dozen at all played on other college football teams.[3] They played eventual conference and national champion USC to a 0–0 tie with the 1940 Rose Bowl on the line. It was the first UCLA–USC rivalry football game with national implications.

Strode and fellow UCLA alumnus Kenny Washington were two of the first African-Americans to play in major college programs and later the modern National Football League, playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946. No blacks had played in the NFL from 1933 to 1946.[4] UCLA teammate Jackie Robinson would go on to break the color barrier in Major League baseball (in fact, all three had played in the semi-professional Pacific Coast Professional Football League earlier in the decade). In 1947,1948 and 1949, he played for the Calgary Stampeders of the Western Interprovincial Football Union in Canada, retiring due to injury in 1949.

In 1941 had dabbled for several months in professional wrestling.[5] Following the end of his football career in 1949, he returned to wrestling part-time between acting jobs until 1958, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous George.[6]

[edit] Acting career

As an actor, the 6' 4" (1.93 m) Strode was noted for film roles that contrasted with the stereotypes of the time. He is probably best remembered for his brief Golden Globe-nominated role in Spartacus (1960) as the Ethiopian gladiator Draba, in which he fights Kirk Douglas to the death.

Strode made his screen debut in 1941 in Sundown, but became more active in the 1950s, eventually in roles of increasing depth. He played an African warrior in The Lion Hunters in Monogram's Bomba the Jungle Boy series in 1951. He played dual roles (billed as "Woodrow Strode") in The Ten Commandments (1956) as an Ethiopian king as well as a slave, and in 1959 portrayed the cowardly Private Franklin in Pork Chop Hill. He appeared once on Johnny Weismuller's 1955-1956 syndicated television series Jungle Jim.

He became a close friend of director John Ford, who gave him the title role in Sergeant Rutledge (1960) as a member of the Ninth Cavalry falsely accused of rape and murder; he appeared in smaller roles in Ford's later films Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Seven Women (1966). Strode was very close to the director. During Ford's declining years, Strode once spent four months sleeping on the director's floor as his caretaker, and he was later present at Ford's death.[7]

Strode played memorable villains opposite three screen Tarzans. In 1958, he appeared as Ramo opposite Gordon Scott in Tarzan's Fight for Life. In 1963, he was cast opposite Jock Mahoney's Tarzan as both the dying leader of an unnamed Asian country and that leader's unsavory brother, Khan, in Tarzan's Three Challenges. In the late 1960s, he appeared in several episodes of the Ron Ely Tarzan television series.

Strode's other television work included a role as the Grand Mogul, in the Batman (TV series) episodes "Marsha, Queen of Diamonds" and "Marsha's Scheme of Diamonds."

Strode played a heroic sailor on a sinking ship in the 1960 film The Last Voyage. In 1966, he landed a major starring role in The Professionals, a major box-office success which established him as a recognizable star. Another notable part was as a gunslinger in the opening sequence of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968); after this, he appeared in several other spaghetti Westerns of lesser quality. His 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. He remained a visible character actor throughout the '70s and '80s, and has become widely regarded (along with Sidney Poitier and Brock Peters) as one of the most important black film actors of his time. His last film was The Quick and the Dead (1995).

[edit] Personal life

Strode was the son of a Creek-Blackfoot-black father and a black-Cherokee mother.[8] His first wife was Princess Luukialuana Kalaeloa (aka Luana Strode), a descendant of Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii. They were married until her death in 1980.[9] Strode was a dedicated martial artist under the direction of Frank Landers in the art of SeishinDo Kenpo.[10][11]

[edit] Death

Strode died of lung cancer on December 31, 1994, in Glendora, California, aged 80. He is buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Author

[edit] Toy Story

Main character Sheriff Woody of the Toy Story animated movies by Pixar is named after Strode.[12]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Stowitts, Hubert Julian. American champions; fifty portraits of American athletes by Stowitts, Tiergartenstrasse 21a, Berlin, 9.-15. September 1936, unter dem Protektorat des Amerikanischen Botschafters und Mitwirkung der Vereinigung Carl Schurz, anlässlich der XI. Olympiade, special sport exhibition. Stowitts, 1936
  2. ^ B.J. VIOLETT - TEAMMATES RECALL JACKIE ROBINSON’S LEGACY. UCLA Today magazine, 1997
  3. ^ "Kenny Washington" Encyclopædia Britannica
  4. ^ NFL 2001 Record and Fact Book, Workman Publishing Co, New York,NY, ISBN 0-7611-2480-2, p. 280
  5. ^ Woody Strode, Goal Dust, Madison Books, 1990, ISBN 0-8191-7680-X, p. 121
  6. ^ Woody Strode, Goal Dust, Madison Books, 1990, ISBN 0-8191-7680-X, pp. 171-179
  7. ^ Woody Strode, Goal Dust, Madison Books, 1990, ISBN 0-8191-7680-X, pp. 215-218, 249
  8. ^ Woody Strode, Goal Dust, Madison Books, 1990, ISBN 0-8191-7680-X, pp. 1-3)
  9. ^ Woody Strode, Goal Dust, Madison Books, 1990, ISBN 0-8191-7680-X, p. 78
  10. ^ Fighting Stars Magazine - July 1978
  11. ^ http://www.seishindokenpo.com/ska/index.php/Seishindo_Kenpo
  12. ^ Disney Archives | Woody Character History

[edit] External links
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