Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode (July 25, 1914 – December 31, 1994) was an American athlete, actor, and author. He was a decathlete and football star who was one of the first Black American players in the National Football League (NFL) in the postwar era. After football, he went on to become a film actor, where he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960.

Early life and athletic career

Strode was born in Los Angeles. His parents were from New Orleans; one grandmother was of African-American and Cherokee descent, his grandfather was an African-American and his other grandmother was of Creek descent.

He attended Thomas Jefferson High School in South East Los Angeles and college at UCLA, where he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. His world-class decathlon capabilities were spearheaded by a plus shot put (when the world record was ) and a high jump (the world record at time was ).

College career

Strode, Kenny Washington, and Jackie Robinson starred on the undefeated 1939 UCLA Bruins football team, in which they made up three of the four backfield players. They became famous nationally as "the Gold Dust gang".

Along with Ray Bartlett, there were four Black Americans playing for the Bruins, when only a few dozen at all played on other college football teams. They played eventual conference and Helms national champion USC to a scoreless tie with those championships and 1940 Rose Bowl on the line. It was the first UCLA–USC rivalry football game with national implications.

Strode was also an All-American thrower for the UCLA Bruins track and field team, finishing 4th in the shot put at the 1938 NCAA track and field championships.

Early acting appearances

Strode made his first film appearance in Sundown (1941), playing a native policeman. He had a small role in Star Spangled Rhythm (1942), as a chauffeur of Rochester (Edward Anderson), and could be glimpsed in No Time for Love (1943).

Professional football career

When World War II broke out, Strode was playing for the Hollywood Bears in the Pacific Coast Professional Football League. He was drafted at age 27 and soon joined the United States Army Air Corps and spent the war unloading bombs in Guam and the Marianas, as well as playing on the Army football team at March Field in Riverside, California.

After the war, he worked at serving subpoenas and escorting prisoners for the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. Strode and Kenny Washington were two of the first African Americans to play in major college programs and later the modern National Football League (along with Marion Motley and Bill Willis, who signed with the contemporary rival All-America Football Conference), playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946. No black men had played in the NFL from 1933 to 1946. UCLA teammate Jackie Robinson would go on to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball (in fact, Robinson, Strode, and Washington had all played in the semi-professional Pacific Coast Professional Football League earlier in the decade).

Around the year 1939, Strode, Washington and Robinson provided the UCLA with one of its best seasons in American Football. This had given the three a boost in fame, with fans referring to them as "The Gold Dust Gang". Woody Strode was one of the end position players while Kenny was a running back. Unable to join professional football at the time, the two participated as semi-professional players for the Hollywood Bears. He also said, "On the Pacific Coast there wasn't anything we couldn't do. As we got out of the L.A. area we found these racial tensions. Hell, we thought we were white." One instance where he became the victim of a racial barrier was when the National Football League acted in response to Caucasian players complaining about African Americans taking up job opportunities. whereupon he joined the Calgary Stampeders of the Western Interprovincial Football Union in Canada, where he was a member of Calgary's 1948 Grey Cup Championship team before retiring due to injury in 1949. He broke two ribs and a shoulder. "It was like I had fought Joe Louis," he recalled.

Professional wrestling career

In 1941, Strode had dabbled for several months in professional wrestling. 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.

In 1952, Strode wrestled almost every week from August 12, 1952, to December 10, 1952, in different cities in California. He was billed as the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and the Pacific Coast Negro Heavyweight Wrestling Champion in 1962. He later teamed up with both Bobo Brazil and Bearcat Wright.

Acting career

Strode's acting career was re-activated when producer Walter Mirisch spotted him wrestling and cast him as an African warrior in The Lion Hunters (1951), one of the Bomba the Jungle Boy series. They wanted him to shave his head. He was reluctant until they offered him $500 a week. "I said, 'All right, where are the pluckers? Then Strode realised: "I was out in the world market with a bald head. Trapped for life. Finally, it became way of life."

Rising fame

200px|thumb|left|Strode as Sergeant Rutledge

Strode was next cast in Spartacus (1960) as the Ethiopian gladiator Draba, in which he has to fight Spartacus (played by Kirk Douglas) to the death. Draba wins the contest, but instead of killing Spartacus, he attacks the Roman military commander who paid for the fight. He is killed and his death sparks a gladiator rebellion. Despite his brief time on screen, Strode's performance was highly praised, earning him a nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

Strode had an excellent support part in The Last Voyage (1960) playing an heroic stoker, though he was only billed fifth.

While making Pork Chop Hill he became a close friend of director John Ford. Ford gave Strode the title role in Sergeant Rutledge (1960) as a member of the Ninth Cavalry, who is greatly admired by the other black soldiers in the unit and is falsely accused of the rape and murder of a white woman.

"The big studios wanted an actor like Sidney [Poitier] or [Harry] Belafonte," recalled Strode. "And this is not being facetious, but Mr. Ford defended me; and I don't know that this is going on. He said, "Well, they're not tough enough to do what I want Sergeant Rutledge to be."

He based himself in Europe from 1968 to 1971. In 2021, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Personal life and death

His first wife was Princess Luukialuana Kalaeloa (a.k.a. Luana Strode), a distant relative of Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii. "You'd have thought I was marrying Lana Turner, the way the whites in Hollywood acted," he later said. In 1982, at the age of 68, he wed 35-year-old Tina Tompson He is buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

Strode was a dedicated martial artist under the direction of Frank Landers in the art of Seishindo Kenpo.

Tributes

Sheriff Woody of the Toy Story series of animated films is named after Strode, as was the recurring character of the Santa Barbara Coroner in the television series Psych.

Championships and accomplishments

  • Cauliflower Alley Club
  • Iron Mike Mazurki Award (1992)

Filmography

  • 1941 Sundown as Tribal Policeman (uncredited)
  • 1942 Star Spangled Rhythm as Woodrow, Rochester's Motorcycle Chauffeur (uncredited)
  • 1943 No Time for Love as Black Sandhog (uncredited)
  • 1951 The Lion Hunters as Walu
  • 1951 Bride of the Gorilla as Nedo, Policeman
  • 1952 African Treasure as Mailman (uncredited)
  • 1952 Caribbean as Esau, MacAllister Guard
  • 1952 Androcles and the Lion as The Lion
  • 1953 City Beneath the Sea as Djion
  • 1953 The Royal African Rifles as Soldier
  • 1954 Jungle Man-Eaters as One of Native Escorts to Biplane (uncredited)
  • 1954 Demetrius and the Gladiators as Gladiator (uncredited)
  • 1954 The Gambler from Natchez as Josh
  • 1954 Jungle Gents as Malaka (uncredited)
  • 1955 Son of Sinbad as Palace Guard (uncredited)
  • 1955 Buruuba as Native Chief
  • 1956 The Ten Commandments as King of Ethiopia and Bythia's Bearer
  • 1958 Tarzan's Fight for Life as Ramo
  • 1958 The Buccaneer as Toro
  • 1959 Pork Chop Hill as Private Franklin
  • 1960 The Last Voyage as Hank Lawson
  • 1960 Sergeant Rutledge as First Sergeant Braxton Rutledge
  • 1960 Spartacus as Draba
  • 1961 The Sins of Rachel Cade as Muwango
  • 1961 Two Rode Together as Stone Calf
  • 1962 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as Pompey
  • 1963 Tarzan's Three Challenges as Khan / Dying Leader
  • 1965 Genghis Khan as Sengal
  • 1966 7 Women as Lean Warrior
  • 1966 Daniel Boone (1964 TV series) as Goliath – S3/E3 "Goliath"
  • 1966 The Professionals as Jake
  • 1968 Seduto alla sua destra, aka Black Jesus, aka Super Brother as Maurice Lalubi
  • 1968 Shalako as Chato
  • 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West as Stony, Member of Frank's Gang
  • 1969 Che! as Guillermo
  • 1969 Boot Hill as Thomas
  • 1970 Chuck Moll as Woody
  • 1971 The Deserter as Jackson
  • 1971 The Gatling Gun as Runner the Scout
  • 1971 Scipio the African as Massinissa, re di Numidia
  • 1971 The Last Rebel as Duncan
  • 1972 Black Rodeo (Documentary) as The Narrator
  • 1972 The Revengers as Job
  • 1972 The Italian Connection as Frank Webster
  • 1975 Loaded Guns as Silvera
  • 1975 We Are No Angels as Bill "Black Bill"
  • 1975 Winterhawk as "Big Rude"
  • 1976 Keoma as George
  • 1977 Oil! as Ben
  • 1977 Kingdom of the Spiders as Walter Colby
  • 1978 Cowboy-San! as Baddie
  • 1979 Ravagers as Brown
  • 1979 Jaguar Lives! as Sensei
  • 1980 Cuba Crossing as Titi
  • 1981 Scream as Charlie Winters
  • 1982 Angkor: Cambodia Express as Woody
  • 1982 Invaders of the Lost Gold as Cal
  • 1982 Vigilante as Rake
  • 1983 The Black Stallion Returns as Meslar
  • 1984 The Violent Breed as Polo
  • 1984 The Final Executioner as Sam
  • 1984 Jungle Warriors as Luther
  • 1984 The Cotton Club as Holmes
  • 1985 Lust in the Dust as Blackman, Hard Case Gang
  • 1987 A Gathering of Old Men as Yank
  • 1989 The Bronx Executioner as Sheriff Warren (archive footage)
  • 1992 Storyville as Charlie Sumpter
  • 1993 Posse as Storyteller
  • 1995 The Quick and the Dead as Charlie Moonlight

Television

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Year

! Title

! Role

! Notes

|-

| 1961 || Rawhide || Corporal Gabe Washington || S3:E10, "Incident of the Buffalo Soldier"

|-

| 1961 || Rawhide || Binnaburra || S3:E20, "Incident of the Boomerang"

|-

| 1980 || The Dukes of Hazzard || Willie || S3:E7, "The Great Santa Claus Chase"

|}

Author

  • Strode wrote an autobiography titled Goal Dust ().

See also

  • List of gridiron football players who became professional wrestlers

References

Citations

Sources

  • 1940 Yearbook Photo
  • Cagematch profile