Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode was an American actor, football player and author.
43 Facts About Woody Strode
2.
Woody Strode was a decathlete and football star who was one of the first Black American players in the National Football League in the postwar era.
3.
Woody Strode served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.
4.
Woody Strode's 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.
5.
Woody Strode attended Thomas Jefferson High School in South East Los Angeles and college at UCLA, where he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
6.
Woody Strode posed for a nude portrait, part of Hubert Stowitts's acclaimed exhibition of athletic portraits shown at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
7.
Woody Strode made his first appearance in Sundown playing a native policeman.
8.
Woody Strode had a small role in Star Spangled Rhythm, as a chauffeur of Rochester and could be glimpsed in No Time for Love.
9.
When World War II broke out, Woody Strode was playing for the Hollywood Bears in the Pacific Coast Professional Football League.
10.
When out on the road with the team, Woody Strode had his first experience with racism, something he wasn't aware of growing up in Los Angeles.
11.
In 1941, Woody Strode had dabbled for several months in professional wrestling.
12.
In 1952, Woody Strode wrestled almost every week from August 12,1952, to December 10,1952, in different cities in California.
13.
Woody Strode was billed as the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and the Pacific Coast Negro Heavyweight Wrestling Champion in 1962.
14.
Woody Strode later teamed up with both Bobo Brazil and Bearcat Wright.
15.
Woody 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, one of the Bomba the Jungle Boy series.
16.
Woody Strode was reluctant until they offered him $500 a week.
17.
Woody Strode had roles in Bride of the Gorilla, African Treasure, an episode of Dangerous Assignment, Caribbean, and Androcles and the Lion, playing the lion, "the toughest job I ever had" he said later.
18.
Woody Strode was in City Beneath the Sea directed by Budd Boetticher, and The Royal African Rifles.
19.
Woody Strode was a gladiator in Demetrius and the Gladiators and was in Jungle Man-Eaters, a Jungle Jim film.
20.
Woody Strode could be seen in The Gambler from Natchez, Jungle Gents a Bowery Boys movie set in Africa, and The Silver Chalice.
21.
Woody Strode was in a TV adaptation of Mandrake the Magician, a pilot for a series that was not picked up, and had small parts in Son of Sinbad, Soldiers of Fortune, and Buruuba a Japanese film set in Africa.
22.
Woody Strode had a support role in Tarzan's Fight for Life and a small part in The Buccaneer.
23.
Woody Strode guest starred on The Man from Blackhawk.
24.
Woody Strode was next cast in Spartacus as the Ethiopian gladiator Draba, in which he has to fight Spartacus to the death.
25.
Woody Strode is killed and his death sparks a gladiator rebellion.
26.
Woody Strode had an excellent support part in The Last Voyage playing a heroic stoker, though he was only billed fifth.
27.
Woody Strode was in The Sins of Rachel Cade and guest starred twice on Rawhide, playing an Australian aboriginal in one episode and a buffalo soldier in the other.
28.
Woody Strode had a bigger role in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for Ford, playing Pompey, John Wayne's hired hand.
29.
Woody Strode guest starred on The Lieutenant, The Farmer's Daughter and Daniel Boone and had roles in the features Genghis Khan and 7 Women, the latter the last film he made for Ford.
30.
Woody Strode landed a major starring role as an expert archer and soldier of fortune in the 1966 Western The Professionals.
31.
Woody Strode's name was the only one of the four "professionals" that was left off of the movie poster; nevertheless, the film was a major box-office success that established him as a recognizable star.
32.
Woody Strode based himself in Europe from 1968 to 1971.
33.
Woody Strode's 1968 starring role as a thinly-disguised Patrice Lumumba in Seduto alla sua destra garnered Strode a great deal of press at the time, but the film is largely forgotten now.
34.
Woody Strode was an Indian in Shalako and played a gunslinger in the opening sequence of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West.
35.
Woody Strode stayed in Europe to make another Western The Unholy Four and went back to Hollywood to do a TV movie Breakout and two Westerns The Deserter, and The Gatling Gun.
36.
Woody Strode went to Europe to make Scipio the African and did some more Westerns: The Last Rebel, and The Revengers.
37.
Woody Strode later said his salary in Italy went up to $10,000 a week.
38.
Woody Strode did The Italian Connection, for which he was paid $150,000.
39.
Woody Strode was in Storyville, and Posse, working with director Mario Van Peebles.
40.
The closing credits dedicate the film to Woody Strode, who died shortly before its release.
41.
In 1980, Woody Strode was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
42.
Woody Strode is buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.
43.
Woody Strode was a dedicated martial artist under the direction of Frank Landers in the art of Seishindo Kenpo.