Woody Strode

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Woody Strode
Position (s):
End 		Jersey number (s):
39
born on July 25, 1914 in Los Angeles , California
died on December 31, 1994 in Glendora , California
Career information
Active : 1946 - 1949
College : UCLA
Teams
Career statistics
Pass catches     4th
Space gain     37
Stats at NFL.com
Stats at pro-football-reference.com
Career highlights and awards
Woody Strode

Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode (born July 25, 1914 in Los Angeles , California , United States , † December 31, 1994 in Glendora , California) was an American decathlete , American football player and actor .

Life

Strode was born in Los Angeles in 1914, the son of an African American and a Native American of the Blackfoot Indian tribe , of which Strode was a recognized member throughout his life.

In the 1920s Strode began to be athletic and was able to record great success as a decathlete and football player in the 1930s . His - and Kenny Washington - inclusion in the squad of the football team of the Los Angeles Rams in 1946 , which made Strode and Washington the first two black-skinned players of the American football league, the National Football League , represented a sporting historical success . He later moved to the Calgary Stampeders team from the Canadian League (CFL). In 1948 he and his team won the Gray Cup - the Canadian football championship. Around 1935 Strode posed for a picture from the series American Champions , which the painter Hubert Stowitts (1892–1953) exhibited as part of the supporting program for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin . Strode's shorter career as a freestyle wrestler was less successful.

After the end of his sporting career, Strode switched to the film industry: He made his first film appearance in 1941 in the film Arms Smugglers of Kenya . In the 1950s and 1960s he appeared in numerous Hollywood films in which he played mainly supporting roles in which he had a strong physical presence - he was tall (1.93 meters), stocky, bald and had one statuesque-rough physiognomy - could bring out.

Strode had his first notable appearance in 1956 in the historical film The Ten Commandments ( The Ten Commandments (1956) ), in which he was seen in a double role as Ethiopian king and slave. After he became friends with the director John Ford , he received from him u. a. the title role in Sergeant Rutledge (1960), a member of the Ninth Cavalry Division, wrongly accused of rape and murder. This was followed by the role of John Wayne's Assistant "Pompey" in Ford's Western classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ( The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ) and the role of armed with net and trident gladiators (more precisely Retiarius ) "Draba" in Spartacus (1960). A sequence in which Strode engages in a duel with Kirk Douglas , who plays the title role of the slave "Spartacus", has become famous .

Eight years later, Strode played a supporting role in Sergio Leone's cult star, Spiel mir das Lied von Tod : There he appears in the now famous 13-minute opening scene as one of three killers that Charles Bronson awaits at Cattle Corner station . Another classic of the spaghetti westerns in which he played a leading role was Keoma (1976).

Strode, whose first marriage was to a Hawaiian princess, died of lung cancer on December 31, 1994 . His autobiography is available under the title Goal Dust .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hubert Stowitts: Woody Strode - Nudes of American athletes at queer-arts.org
personal data
SURNAME Strode, Woody
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Strode, Woodrow Wilson Woolwine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American decathlete and actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California , USA
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1994
Place of death Glendora , California