--- name: "Victor Mature" canonical: "https://film.one/person/victor-mature" roles: ["Actor"] born: "29 January 1913" died: "4 August 1999" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-20T02:44:00.545215+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Victor Mature Actor. Born 29 January 1913 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Died 4 August 1999. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 29 January 1913, Louisville, Kentucky, USA - **Died:** 4 August 1999 - **Also known as:** Victor John Mature, Виктор Джон Мэтьюр, Виктор Матюр, Віктор Метьюр - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Mature, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q358317, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001514/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/30290 ## Fi1m on Victor Mature > A jaw, a set of shoulders and an air of having been wronged. Victor Mature was Hollywood's idea of a biblical hero, and he agreed louder than any critic that he could not act. In *The Robe* he is better company than the film deserves. Victor Mature acted with his jaw. He set it, squared the shoulders under it, and let the rest of the picture arrange itself around him. In *The Robe* (1953) he plays Demetrius that way from first scene to last, a large man with a grievance and the decency not to shout about it, and it is hard not to like him for it. The film around him is a sermon in sandals, the first shot in CinemaScope, and it spends most of its width on people standing in it and talking. Mature at least looks as though he belongs in a frame that size. He came into films in 1939 under contract to Hal Roach, and *One Million B.C.* (1940) was his first success. Broadway followed, in *Lady in the Dark* (1940-41), then the Coast Guard for the war, then a Fox contract and a run of noirs and westerns. Cecil B. DeMille's *Samson and Delilah* (1949) fixed the image for good: the physique, the loincloth, the earnest stare into the middle distance. *The Robe* and its sequel kept him in a toga through the 1950s. From the mid-1960s the parts thinned, and by *After the Fox* (1966) he was playing Tony Powell, a version of himself, for laughs. The complaint against him was that he was a body and not an actor, and he agreed more loudly than anyone. "Hell, I'm no actor and I've got 28 pictures and a scrapbook of reviews to prove it," he liked to say, and the line did him no favours with people paid to take the work seriously. It is also not quite true. Under John Ford in *My Darling Clementine* (1946) his Doc Holliday is one of the performances critics most often praise, and Henry Hathaway got something similar out of him in *Kiss of Death* (1947): a quiet, held-in intensity, a man trying to get clear of what he has done. Good directors found that in him. DeMille wanted the shoulders, and got them. What we can vouch for is Demetrius. We liked him more than the film deserved, and it took us a moment to see why: Richard Burton is clutching his head and Jay Robinson is shrieking at the wide screen, and Mature is simply standing there looking wronged, which in that company counts for a good deal. He is not doing much. He is doing it steadily, and steadiness was what those epics needed and rarely got. He kept insisting, for years, that he had never been an actor at all. Watch him next to Burton and you can see the point; watch him next to Robinson and you will want to argue. The scrapbook was thicker than he let on. ## Biography Victor Mature was an American stage, film and television actor. Born Victor John Mature on 29 January 1913 in Louisville, Kentucky, he died on 4 August 1999. He trained at the Pasadena Playhouse and made his film debut in the late 1930s. After serving in the US Coast Guard during the Second World War, Mature appeared in *My Darling Clementine* (1946) as Doc Holliday, *Kiss of Death* (1947) as Nick Bianco, *Samson and Delilah* (1949) as Samson, and *The Robe* (1953) as Demetrius. He reprised the latter role in *Demetrius and the Gladiators* (1954) and played Horemheb in *The Egyptian* (1954). His later credits include *After the Fox* (1966) and *Head* (1968). *Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, themoviedb.org.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *The Robe* (1953), Fi1m 48, as Demetrius — [page](https://film.one/film/the-robe.md) ## Complete filmography (62) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Hidden Hollywood II: More Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Vaults* (1999), as (archive footage) - *Sphinx – Secrets of the History* (1994), series, as Hanibal - *Samson and Delilah* (1984), as Manoah - *Firepower* (1979), as Howard Everett - *Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood* (1976), as Nick - *Every Little Crook and Nanny* (1972), as Carmine Ganucci - *Head* (1968), as The Big Victor - *The Legend of Marilyn Monroe* (1966), Actor - *After the Fox* (1966), as Tony Powell - *Uncertain Verification* (1965), as (archive footage) - *Lykke og krone* (1962), Actor - *The Tartars* (1961), as Oleg - *Hannibal* (1959), as Hannibal - *The Big Circus* (1959), as Henry Jasper 'Hank' Whirling - *The Bandit Of Zhobe* (1959), as Kasmin Khan - *Zwischen Glück und Krone* (1959), Actor - *Escort West* (1959), as Ben Lassiter - *Timbuktu* (1958), as Mike Conway - *China Doll* (1958), as Capt. Cliff Brandon - *Tank Force!* (1958), as Sgt. David Thatcher - *The Long Haul* (1957), as Harry Miller - *Interpol* (1957), as Charles Sturgis - *Zarak* (1956), as Zarak Khan - *The Sharkfighters* (1956), as Lt. Cmdr. Ben Staves - *Safari* (1956), as Ken Duffield - *The Last Frontier* (1955), as Jed Cooper - *Violent Saturday* (1955), as Shelley Martin - *Chief Crazy Horse* (1955), as Crazy Horse - *Betrayed* (1954), as 'The Scarf' - *The Egyptian* (1954), as Horemheb - *Demetrius and the Gladiators* (1954), as Demetrius - *Dangerous Mission* (1954), as Matt Hallett - *The Veils of Bagdad* (1953), as Antar - *The Robe* (1953), as Demetrius — Fi1m 48, [page](https://film.one/film/the-robe.md) - *Affair with a Stranger* (1953), as Bill Blakeley - *The Glory Brigade* (1953), as Lt. Sam Pryor - *Million Dollar Mermaid* (1952), as James Sullivan - *Androcles and the Lion* (1952), as Captain - *Something for the Birds* (1952), as Steve Bennett - *The Las Vegas Story* (1952), as Lt. Dave Andrews - *House of Dreams* (1951), as Narrator (voice) - *Gambling House* (1950), as Marc Fury - *Stella* (1950), as Jeff DeMarco - *Wabash Avenue* (1950), as Andy Clark - *Samson and Delilah* (1949), as Samson - *Easy Living* (1949), as Pete Wilson - *Red, Hot and Blue* (1949), as Danny James - *Cry of the City* (1948), as Lt. Candella - *Fury at Furnace Creek* (1948), as Cash Blackwell / Tex Cameron - *Kiss of Death* (1947), as Nick Bianco - *Moss Rose* (1947), as Michael Drego - *My Darling Clementine* (1946), as Dr. John 'Doc' Holliday - *Seven Days' Leave* (1942), as Johnny Grey - *Footlight Serenade* (1942), as Tommy Lundy - *My Gal Sal* (1942), as Paul Dresser - *Song of the Islands* (1942), as Jefferson Harper - *The Shanghai Gesture* (1941), as Doctor Omar - *I Wake Up Screaming* (1941), as Frankie Christopher (Botticelli) - *No, No, Nanette* (1940), as William Trainor - *Captain Caution* (1940), as Daniel 'Dan' Marvin - *One Million B.C.* (1940), as Tumak - *The Housekeeper's Daughter* (1939), as Lefty ## Gallery - ![Victor Mature](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-f2807c059e7b.jpg) Victor Mature — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Victor_Mature_-_publicity.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Publicity photo of Victor Mature and Jean Simmons in film Androcles and the Lion (1952)](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-3cf7fc7a0892.jpg) Publicity photo of Victor Mature and Jean Simmons in film Androcles and the Lion (1952) — RKO, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Victor_Mature_and_Jean_Simmons_in_Androcles_and_the_Lion%2C_1952.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Color photograph of Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr as Samson and Delilah (1949).](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-dd2aa036120f.jpg) Color photograph of Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr as Samson and Delilah (1949). — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Color_photograph_of_Victor_Mature_and_Hedy_Lamarr_as_Samson_and_Delilah.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![I Wake Up Screaming - Betty Grable and Victor Mature pool (2021)](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-11dad4751078.jpg) I Wake Up Screaming - Betty Grable and Victor Mature pool (2021) — 20th Century Fox, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/I_Wake_Up_Screaming_-_Betty_Grable_and_Victor_Mature_pool_01.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Victor Mature](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-7f7ae7deee0a.jpg) Victor Mature — Image via TMDB - ![Victor Mature](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-587ed3a44a87.jpg) Victor Mature — Image via TMDB - ![Victor Mature](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-132551ba260d.jpg) Victor Mature — Image via TMDB - ![Victor Mature being discharged from the United States Coast Guard (1945)](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-00e45fd2435a.jpg) Victor Mature being discharged from the United States Coast Guard (1945) — credited as "U.S. Coast Guard photo", Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Victor_Mature_-_USCG.jpg/1280px-Victor_Mature_-_USCG.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Trailer Screenshot of The Robe (1953).](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-080089f221bb.png) Trailer Screenshot of The Robe (1953). — Trailer at TCM, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/The_Robe_1953_Trailer_Screenshot_24.png/1280px-The_Robe_1953_Trailer_Screenshot_24.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Victor Mature](https://film.one/media/person/1237752/gallery-6c29083eca06.jpg) Victor Mature — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/victor-mature