American leading man. Born Victor John Mature (to a German-speaking Tyrolean father, Marcellus George Mature, a cutler, and a Swiss-American mother, Clara Mature) in Louisville, Kentucky, Victor 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 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 and in Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death were among his finest work, though he moved more and more frequently into more exotic roles in films like Samson and Delilah and The Egyptian. Never an energetic actor nor one of great artistic pretensions, he nevertheless continued as a Hollywood stalwart both in programmers and in more prominent films like The Robe. 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. Golf eventually took over his activities, and after a cameo as Samson's father in a TV remake of his own "Samson and Delilah", he retired for good. Rumors occasionally surfaced of another comeback, most notably in a never-realized remake of Red River with Sylvester Stallone, but none came to fruition. He died of cancer at his Rancho Santa Fe, California, home in 1999.
China Doll (1958): $125,000
Samson and Delilah (1949): $50,000
My Gal Sal (1942): $1,250/week
Song of the Islands (1942): $1,250/week
The Shanghai Gesture (1941): $450/week
One Million B.C. (1940): $250/week
The Housekeeper's Daughter (1939): $100/week

Daughter, Victoria, born [1975] Victor Mature 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, and the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and many islands in the South Pacific. He was on Okinawa when the A-bomb was dropped on Japan. In "Zarak" (1956) he played perhaps the only title character in the movies to be flogged to death Victor's father Marcello Gelindo 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 Austria-Hungary, and returned under Italian sovereignty in 1918 after WW I. He emigrated to the US with his brothers in 1912, and settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Applying for membership in the swank Los Angeles Country Club at the heighth 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 67 films to prove it!" 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). He attributed his success in Biblical spectacles to his ability to "make with the holy look." Was color-blind. 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). In Zarak 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, U.S. 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 Victor Mature during the filming of "Million Dollar Mermaid." According to her, her marriage was on the rocks, she needed love, and Mature provided all she wanted. Never one to claim great acting credentials, when turned down for membership in an exclusive country club because "we don't admit actors," he replied, "Im NOT an actor, and have the reviews to prove it!"