Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode (July 25, 1914 – December 31, 1994) was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering African 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.

Early life and athletic career [link]

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). From 1948 to 1949 he played for the Calgary Stampeders of the Western Interprovincial Football Union in Canada, retiring due to injury in 1949.

Professional Wrestling Career [link]

In 1941, Strode 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 1962, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous George.^[6]

Strode was billed as the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Wresting Champion and the Pacific Coast Negro Heavyweight Wresting Champion in 1962 (source: Ring Magazine, May 1962, page 38). In his 1962, debut in Buffalo, New York, Strode defeated Dominick Bravo in 37 seconds (source:Ring Magazine, May 1962, page 37).

In a tag-team match also in Buffalo, Strode and Bobo Brazil lost to Karol and Ivan Kalmikoff. However, in a Cleveland, Ohio match, Strode and Bearcat Wright defeated the Kalmikoff brothers in a non-title match before a then record breaking crowd of 7,261.

Acting career [link]

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 appeared in the third season of the "Daniel Boone" television series as the slave/wrestler Goliath in the episode of the same name.^[8]

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).

Personal life [link]

Strode was the son of a Creek-Blackfoot-black father and a black-Cherokee mother.^[9] 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.^[10] In 1982, he wed Tina Tompson, and they remained married until his death. Strode was a dedicated martial artist under the direction of Frank Landers in the art of SeishinDo Kenpo.^[11][12]

Death [link]

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

Filmography [link]

• Sundown (1941)
• Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)
• No Time for Love (1943)
• The Lion Hunters (1951)
• Bride of the Gorilla (1951)
• African Treasure (1952)
• Caribbean (1952)
• Androcles and the Lion (1952)
• City Beneath the Sea (1953)
• Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)
• Jungle Man-Eaters (1954)
• The Gambler from Natchez (1954)
• Jungle Gents (1954)
• Son of Sinbad (1955)
• Buruuba (1955)
• The Ten Commandments (1956)
• Tarzan's Fight for Life (1958)
• The Buccaneer (1958)
• Pork Chop Hill (1959)
• The Last Voyage (1960)
• Sergeant Rutledge (1960)
• Spartacus (1960)
• The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961)
• Two Rode Together (1961)
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
• Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963)
• Genghis Khan (1965)
• 7 Women (1966)
• The Professionals (1966)
• Seduto alla sua destra, aka Black Jesus, aka Super Brother (1968)
• Shalako (1968)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• Che! (1969)
• Boot Hill (1969)
• Chuck Moll (1970)
• Scipio the African (1971)
• The Deserter (1971)
• The Last Rebel (1971)
• Black Rodeo (1972) (documentary) (narrator)
• The Revengers (1972)
• The Italian Connection (1972)
• The Gatling Gun (1973)
• We Are No Angels (1975)
• Loaded Guns (1975)
• Winterhawk (1975)
• Keoma (1976)
• The Million Dollar Fire (1976)
• Cowboy-San! (1977)
• Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
• Ravagers (1979)
• Jaguar Lives! (1979)
• Cuba Crossing (1980)
• Scream (1981)
• Angkor: Cambodia Express (1982)
• Horror Safari (1982)
• Vigilante (1983)
• The Black Stallion Returns (1983)
• The Violent Breed (1984)
• The Final Executioner (1984)
• Jungle Warriors (1984)
• The Cotton Club (1984)
• Lust in the Dust (1985)
• A Gathering of Old Men (1987)
• Bronx Executioner (1989)
• Storyville (1992)
• Posse (1993)
• The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Author [link]

• Strode wrote an autobiography entitled Gold Dust (ISBN 0-8191-7680-X).

Toy Story [link]

Main character Sheriff Woody of the Toy Story animated movies by Pixar is named after Strode.^[13]

References [link]

External links [link]

• Woody Strode at Find a Grave
• Woody Strode at the Internet Movie Database
• 1940 Yearbook Photo
• Black Jesus: Woody's Benediction (TCM Movie Morlocks)