Woody Strode

Description

This personal portrait portfolio and category name is called “HOLLYWOOD“. I prepared is category to show my versatility and to demonstrate my talent in portrait painting and charcoal drawings.  Most of these performers have inspired me in personality, and talent throughout my life. Anyone who are interested in a commissioned personal portrait from CobbWeb Designs and Illustrations, may get an idea of the artist’s dedication, spirituality, and talent in realism.

Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode (July 25, 1914 – December 31, 1994) was an American athlete and actor. He was a decathlete and football star who was one of the first Black American players in the National Football League 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. Strode also served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.

Strode was born in Los Angeles. His parents were from New Orleans; his grandmother was African-American and “part Cherokee” and his grandfather was an African-American who claimed his own grandmother was Creek.^[2]

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 50 ft (15 m) plus shot put (when the world record was 57 ft (17 m)) and a 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) high jump (the world record at time was 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)). “I got a cultural education—majored in history and education,” he said in a 1971 interview. “Never used it, but I could walk into the White House with it now.”

Strode made his first 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). Strode continued to strive after the war, he worked at serving subpoenas and escorting prisoners for the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office, before being signed, briefly, to the Los Angeles Rams. (1946). Strode also spent 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. 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), 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 realized, “I was out in the world market with a bald head. Trapped for life. Finally, it became way of life. Strode’s acting career extended in small roles from 1951-1960.