Wissenswertes

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 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.

In her autobiography, Esther Williams details a passionate affair she had with Mature during the filming of Die goldene Nixe (1952). According to Williams, her marriage was on the rocks, she needed love and Mature provided all she wanted.

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

He was supposed to fight the lion bare-handed in Samson und 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".

Attended the Kentucky Military Academy. One of his classmates was future fellow actor, Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell III in Gilligans Insel (1964)).

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

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.

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

A false story has circulated that George Reeves auditioned for the role of Samson in Samson und 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.

Daughter, Victoria, born in 1975.

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.

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

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

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

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

Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).

Was originally going to star with Robert Wagner and Debra Paget in Die Furchtlosen (1956).

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 389-390. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

In December 1953, Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham included Mature in her Oscar predictions. She wrote, "And Vic Mature will surely bag something for Das Gewand (1953), even if Richard Burton doesn't".

According to the Hollywood gossip columns of the time, he was Cecil B. DeMille's top choice for the part of Samson in Samson und Delilah (1949) since December 1947. After several months of considering and discarding other candidates, DeMille finally signed him in June 1948.