I want to start today's deep dive by giving you
a bit of a puzzle to solve. Oh, OK. I love a
good puzzle. Right. So try to find the connecting
thread between these four very distinct pieces
of history. Right. Let's hear them. OK. We have
the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the breaking of the
National Football League's color barrier, the
cinematic masterpiece Spartacus, and the Pixar
movie Toy Story. Wow. I mean, that sounds like
an impossible trivia question. It really does.
You're talking about events that span, what,
almost a century? And they cross entirely different
cultural arenas too. Yeah. Like international
sports, civil rights, classical Hollywood cinema,
and modern computer animation. On the surface,
They don't seem to belong in the same conversation
at all. They really don't. But there is a single
flesh and blood connection tying them all together.
And today our mission is to explore the extraordinary
life of the man who links those historical milestones.
It's quite a life. It is. If you're the kind
of person who loves those aha moments, you know,
where seemingly unrelated dots of history suddenly
connect to reveal this much larger picture. Well.
This life story is an absolute masterclass in
Breaking Boundaries. We are diving into the world
of Woody Strode. And we have a fantastic stack
of source material for this deep dive. We're
looking at a really comprehensive biographical
overview of Strode's life. Right? It traces his
journey from his birth in Los Angeles in 1914
all the way to his death in 1994. And the sources
detail his mixed -race heritage, too. He had
African -American, Cherokee, and Creek grandmothers,
and an African -American grandfather. And what
emerges from these pages is a portrait of a man
who constantly, fundamentally refused to be boxed
in by the incredibly restrictive era he lived
in. Yeah. And before we really get into it, I
want to ask you directly, the listener. What
stands out to you when you hear the phrase Hollywood
pioneer? That's a great question. Because usually
we picture like a director with a megaphone,
right? Or an executive inventing some new camera
angle. Or maybe a screenwriter fighting the studio
system. You rarely picture a six foot four world
class decathlete. Which is exactly what Strode
was. I mean, long before he ever stepped in front
of a movie camera, he was absolutely dominating
track and field at UCLA. dominating is almost
an understatement. It really is. We're talking
about a guy throwing the shot put over 50 feet.
And the world record at the time was only 57
feet. Wow. Yeah. He was high jumping 6 feet 5
inches when the global record was 6 feet 10.
So he was literally brushing up against the absolute
limits of human physical achievement at the time.
Exactly. And his physique was so striking that
it actually caused an international incident.
Which brings us to the first piece of that opening
puzzle, right? The 1936 Berlin Olympics. Ah,
yes. So Strode posed for a nude athletic portrait
as part of this acclaimed exhibition by an artist
named Hubert Stowitz, and this was actually displayed
at those games. But, I mean... Considering this
is Berlin in 1936, the Third Reich couldn't have
been happy about a black athlete being featured
as a pinnacle of the human form. Oh, they were
furious. They actually forced the exhibit to
shut down completely. Gloriously, shut down entirely.
Completely. The Nazis simply could not tolerate
an exhibition that dared to include heroic classical
portraits of black and Jewish athletes alongside
their, you know, so -called Aryan ideals. That
is just incredible. It is. Even as a young man
thousands of miles away, just the artistic representation
of Strode's physical form was powerful enough
to threaten the racist ideology of the Third
Reich. Man, just his image disrupted a fascist
propaganda machine. And he brings that exact
same world -class physical presence to the football
field. This is where the sources highlight the
legendary 1939 UCLA football team. A truly historic
team. Oh, yeah. They were undefeated. And the
backfield featured three players who became known
nationally as the Gold Dust Game. It was Woody
Strode, Kenny Washington, and a guy named Jackie
Robinson. Now, to really understand the trajectory
of Strode's life, we have to look at the specific
environment he was operating in at this time.
the sources highlight a very unique, almost sheltered
reality he experienced in Los Angeles. Strode
himself later said he was unconscious of color
growing up. He talked about sitting in the best
seats at the famous Coconut Grove nightclub,
saying that if someone pointed out a black person
in the room, he'd be just as likely to look around
and say, where? I mean, he literally said, hell,
we thought we were white. Yes, exactly. And that
context is crucial. Because in the 1930s, before
national television, celebrity was incredibly
localized. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, he
was living in this protective bubble of Pacific
Coast stardom. His athletic prowess bought him
a level of social access that essentially blinded
him to the broader reality of the country. Right.
But when he and his teammates finally got on
trains and traveled out of the LA area to play
in the Midwest, that bubble burst. They collided
head on with the harsh, systemic Jim Crow laws
of 1930s and 40s America. Okay, let's unpack
this collision because looking at these dates
fundamentally reshapes how we view the timeline
of civil rights and sports. Oh, absolutely. When
we talk about sports integration, the story always
seems to begin and end with Jackie Robinson breaking
baseball's color line in 1947. I mean, that is
the textbook narrative. It is. But wait a minute.
The modern NFL had a strict white only unwritten
rule that had been in place since 1933. And who
broke it? Woody Strode and Kenny Washington when
they signed with the Los Angeles Rams in 1946.
That is a full year before Robinson stepped onto
Ebbets field for the Dodgers. It's a massive
hit. historical blind spot. And it's fascinating
because Robinson Strode and Washington had all
played together, not just at UCLA, but also for
a semi -pro team called the Hollywood Bears during
the war years. But you're right, Strode and Washington
integrating the NFL almost always gets eclipsed
by the baseball narrative. To me, it feels like
history needed a very specific kind of tool to
break down those massive institutional doors.
If you look at Strode's sheer physical presence,
he wasn't just an athlete. History used him like
a battering ram against this wall of segregation.
That's a highly accurate way to look at it. But,
you know, acting as that human battering ram
means you absorb all the impact. And the physical
toll of being a pioneer is exactly what forced
him off the field and into his next life pivot.
Exactly. Because breaking a color barrier isn't
just a symbolic act, you know. It involves real
flesh and blood consequences. By 1948, he's playing
in Canada for the Calgary Stampeders. Right.
And while he achieves greatness there, he actually
wins a great cup, which is essentially the Canadian
equivalent of the Super Bowl. His body completely
gives out. The sources list the injuries, and
they are just brutal. We're talking two broken
ribs and a shattered shoulder. But we have to
look at the mechanics of why he sustained those
injuries. This wasn't just standard football
wear and tear, was it? No, it wasn't. You have
to remember what football looked like in the
1940s, especially for one of the only black players
on the field. The violence was often highly targeted.
Wow. Yeah. Being at the bottom of a dog pile
meant facing deliberate punishing late hits.
Strode later described the aftermath of his football
career by saying, it was like I had fought Joe
Louis. Jeez. So this systemic physical punishment
eventually shattered his shoulder. By 1949, his
football career is over. He's a young man with
a broken body, he has family to feed, and he
needs a paycheck. So he turns to professional
wrestling. Which seems like a totally bizarre
pivot for a guy with a shattered shoulder. You'd
think so, right. But in wrestling, the hits are
choreographed. It allows him to use his massive
physical presence without taking the unscripted
malicious hits he took on the gridiron. Exactly.
So he's wrestling part -time, getting into the
ring with iconic, highly theatrical characters
like Gorgeous George. And that theatricality
is the key mechanism here. Wrestling taught Strode
how to project presence, emotion, and story,
using only his physical form to an audience in
the very back row of an arena. It was kind of
an accidental acting school. And it puts him
in the exact right place at the exact right time.
A film producer named Walter Mirish spots him
in the wrestling ring and realizes that this
guy just commands the room. So Mirish decides
to cast him as an African warrior in a 1951 movie
called The Lion Hunters. But there's a catch
regarding his appearance. Right. A physical transformation
was required. The studio wanted him to shave
his head. Naturally. And Strode was reluctant,
as anyone might be, to drastically change his
appearance for a single role, until they offered
him $500 a week. I mean, in 1951, $500 a week
is astronomical money. It was an absolute fortune.
So Strode says, all right, where are the pluckers?
Good for him. Yeah, he shaves his head. But the
sources note a profound realization he had afterward
when he looked in the mirror. He said. I was
out in the world market with a bald head, trapped
for life, finally became a way of life. Wow.
That shaved head combined with his statuesque
physique became his iconic trademark look for
the rest of his career. But knowing the history
of 1950s Hollywood, the roles he was getting
with that specific look couldn't have been particularly
deep. What's fascinating here is how incredibly
reductive they were. The studios looked at this
man, a college -educated history major, a world
-class athlete who literally integrated the NFL,
and they only saw an exoticized physical prop.
That is so frustrating. In 1952, he literally
played a lion in a movie called Androcles and
the Lion. Not a character named Lion, an actual
non -speaking animal. Are you kidding me? No.
Strode later called it the toughest job I ever
had purely because of the physical discomfort
and the sheer indignity of it. They were entirely
ignoring his intellect and his capacity for actual
dramatic performance. But a physical presence
that magnetic can only stay silent in the background
for so long. Eventually someone, a director with
real vision, was going to notice the powerhouse
actor underneath the muscles. And that shift
finally happens in 1959. Strode was cast in a
Korean war film called Pork Chop Hill, where
he played Private Franklin. Okay. It was a conflicted,
deeply human speaking role, and it brought him
serious critical acclaim. Strode himself called
it the first truly dramatic thing he'd ever done
on film. Which perfectly sets the stage for the
third piece of our opening puzzle, Spartacus.
Yes. In 1960, Stanley Kubrick casts him as Draba,
the Ethiopian gladiator. And if you've seen the
movie, you know the sequence. That's like high.
He is forced into the arena to fight Spartacus,
played by Kirk Douglas, to the death for the
amusement of Roman elites. Strode wins the fight.
He's standing over a defeated Douglas. The crowd
wants blood. Right. But instead of killing Spartacus,
Drava turns, throws his weapon at the Roman spectators,
and sacrafixes himself to the guards. It is the
emotional catalyst that sparks the entire legendary
Gladiator rebellion. What's incredible about
the performance is that his screen time in Spartacus
is actually quite brief, and he has almost no
dialogue. Really any. But he conveys so much
dignity, rage, and profound moral power purely
through his stoicism. The industry noticed too.
It earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best
Supporting Actor. That stoic power caught the
eye of legendary director John Ford, and this
leads to one of the most significant artistic
bonds in Hollywood history. Yes, it really does.
Ford cast Strode in the title role of his 1960
Western Sergeant Rutledge. This was a monumental
deal for the era. Huge. Strode plays a member
of the 9th Cavalry. For context, these are the
Buffalo Soldiers, the historic all -black regiments
formed by the U .S. Army right after the Civil
War. Strode's character is falsely accused of
a horrific crime. Now, the big studio executives
fought Ford really hard on this casting. I'm
sure they did. They wanted a much more established,
bankable star for a leading role, someone like
Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte. I mean, the
studio's pushing for Sidney Poitier makes total
financial sense at the time. He was already a
massive Oscar nominated star. But Ford pushes
back. Was Poitier just too polished for the gritty
reality Ford was trying to build on screen? Exactly.
Ford explicitly told Strode that those other
actors weren't tough enough to be Sergeant Rullidge.
Ford wasn't looking for a polished Broadway delivery.
He needed Strode's specific blend of weathered
history, quiet resilience, and raw physical power
to make the character believable as a battle
-hardened cavalryman. And Strode knew exactly
what the gravity of that role meant. His quote
in the source material about playing Rutledge
is practically poetry. He said, I had the greatest
glory hallelujah ride across the Pecos River
that any black man ever had on the screen. And
I did it myself. I carried the whole black race
across that river. He finally had agents. He
wasn't a sidekick. He was the titular hero. And
the friendship that developed between Strode
and Ford off -camera was just as deep. Strode
said Ford treated him like a son. He noted that
Ford liked a certain crudeness in him that felt
like it belonged to a century past. Their bond
was so strong that years later, during Ford's
declining health, Strode spent four months literally
sleeping on the floor of Ford's home to act as
his caregiver. That's real loyalty. It is. He
was there when the director passed away. I want
to look closely at the art they made together,
because there is one specific scene they shot
that I really need to push back on. OK, let's
hear it. So what does this all mean for the 1962
film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? Strode
plays a character named Pompeii. There's a scene
in a classroom where Pompeii is asked to recite
the Declaration of Independence. He gets through
most of it, but then he pauses, looks down, and
apologizes for forgetting the phrase, all men
are created equal. Right. It's a very famous
scene. When I first read about that, my immediate
reaction was, is this Hollywood holding him back
again? Like, having a Black character apologize
for forgetting the most important fundamental
tenet of American equality? On the surface, it
feels like a subtle degradation of his character's
intelligence. It's a completely understandable
reaction if you look at it through a modern lens.
But if we analyze the mechanics of the time,
it's actually the exact opposite. Really? Yes,
it wasn't a mistake and it wasn't an insult.
You have to remember the exact year this movie
was released. 1962. Ah, OK. The American Civil
Rights Movement is at its absolute boiling point.
Audiences are going to the movie theater right
after watching the evening news, where they're
seeing protests, fire hoses, and police dogs.
Right. The country is tearing itself apart over
this exact issue. So when John Ford has a black
man, played by Woody Strode, the actual man who
integrated the NFL standup in a film that is
fundamentally about the myth -making of American
history, and deliberately choke on the words,
all men are created equal, It is a masterstroke
of intentional poignant commentary. Oh, wow.
Pompey isn't forgetting the words because he
lacks intellect. He's pausing because in his
lived experience in America, those words simply
aren't true. He cannot bring himself to say them.
Man, that gives me absolute chills. So Ford and
Strode are essentially weaponizing the script.
They are using a Western trope to force a 1962
audience to confront their own hypocrisy. Exactly.
But despite these massive artistic triumphs with
directors like Ford, the reality was that the
American studio system in the late 1960s still
could not figure out what to do with a black
leading man. There just weren't enough complex,
dignified roles being written. which forces Strode
to make yet another massive life pivot. From
1968 to 1971, he packs his bags, leaves the Hollywood
system entirely, and relocates to Earth. Talk
about a difficult reset. I mean, he's in his
mid -50s at this point. And it was an incredibly
difficult transition, personally. He talked about
being deeply lonely over there. He arrived with
five pairs of blue jeans. He didn't speak a single
word of Italian or Spanish. And he was completely
culturally isolated. That sounds brutal. But
when he brought up the language barrier to the
European producers, they just shrugged and told
him, not necessary. You ride horses. Here's where
it gets really interesting, because I need to
understand the mechanics of this shift. The contrast
in how he is treated commercially is staggering.
Look at America in 1966. He starred in a major
Hollywood western called The Professionals. He's
one of the four title characters alongside Burt
Lancaster and Lee Marvin, but his name was completely
left off the movie poster, erased from the marketing
entirely. Completely scrubbed. But then he goes
to Europe to make spaghetti westerns like Sergio
Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, and suddenly
his salary absolutely skyrockets. By 1972, he's
making $150 ,000 to star in a movie called The
Italian Connection. Why is a guy who gets scrubbed
from a poster in Los Angeles suddenly getting
his face plastered all over Rome as a top -billed
global icon? If we connect this to the bigger
picture, it's because European audiences in the
post -war era were ravenous for American pop
culture, particularly the archetype of the rugged
Western cowboy. But crucially, They didn't have
the specific racial baggage and Jim Crow neuroses
of the American public. Ah, that makes sense.
Right. To an Italian audience, Woody Strode wasn't
a black actor playing a cowboy. He was simply
the ultimate towering embodiment of American
masculinity and cool. Yeah. Strode's European
era proves that the limitations placed on him
for decades were entirely a product of American
systemic racism. It had absolutely nothing to
do with his bankability, his talent or his raw
appeal to audiences. Strode actually summed up
this realization beautifully. He said. Race is
not a factor in the world market. I'd play a
Viking with blue contact lenses and a blonde
wig if I could. I love that quote. He just wanted
to act and be paid his worth, you know, without
the exhausting weight of American racial politics
hanging over every single frame of film. And
this fierce refusal to accept the limitations
placed upon him wasn't just a strategy for managing
his career. It was the ethos of how he lived
his personal life right until the very end. Absolutely.
His off -screen life was just as defiant of the
era's norms. Take his marriage. His first wife
was Princess Lukialuanakalailoa, who was a distant
relative of Liliuokalani, the very last queen
of Hawaii. They had a deeply committed relationship.
raising two children together, and remained married
until she passed away in 1980. But the initial
reaction to their marriage from the American
establishment was incredibly toxic. Yeah, Strode
faced severe racist backlash from the Hollywood
elite for marrying a woman of Hawaiian royal
descent. He later noted the sheer hypocrisy of
it, saying, You'd have thought I was marrying
Lana Turner the way the whites in Hollywood acted.
The systemic friction just never stopped. Never.
But he kept pushing forward. He remained fiercely
dedicated to his physical discipline, spending
years studying traditional martial arts under
the Seishindo Kenpo system, which kept him moving
gracefully well into his old age. He kept working
constantly through the 70s, 80s, and into the
90s. He married again in 1982 to Tina Thompson.
And he stayed active in cinema right up until
he passed away from lung cancer on New Year's
Eve in 1994 at the age of 80. Which brings us
to his final film, The Quick and the Dead, released
in 1995. It was a major Western starring Sharon
Stone, Gene Hackman, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Russell
Crowe. When the screen fakes to black, the closing
credits of that massive Hollywood blockbuster
are dedicated entirely to Woody Strode. It's
a highly fitting tribute from a new generation
of filmmakers who recognized the difficult path
he had cleared for them in the Western genre.
But the ultimate pop culture tribute... And this
brings us to the final piece of our opening puzzle,
happened that exact same year in 1995. Think
about how many times you have sat down to watch
the Pixar movie Toy Story. Countless times for
a lot of people. Exactly. Think about the beloved
loyal cowboy at the center of that massive global
franchise, Sheriff Woody. That character is named
directly after Woody Strode. It's incredible
to think about the mechanics of that legacy.
Millions of children around the world know the
name Woody, entirely unaware that the toy cowboy
they love is a direct tribute to a Black, Native
American, world -class decathlete, NFL pioneering
gladiator who fought the Hollywood studio system.
It's the perfect hidden legacy. So as we wrap
up this deep dive, it's clear that Woody Strode
wasn't just a character actor who happened to
get lucky. He was a pioneer who used every tool
at his disposal to dismantle the barriers in
front of him. And that raises an important question,
something I want to leave you, the listener,
to mull over. Early in our source material, there's
a fascinating detail. Strode majored in history
and education at UCLA. Oh, right. In a 1971 interview,
he reflected on that college degree saying, never
used it, but I could walk into the White House
with it now. But if we look at the totality of
his life, did he really never use it? That is
a fascinating angle. You're saying he applied
it practically rather than academically. Consider
the deeply intentional choices he made by fundamentally
understanding the historical forces of racism,
war and media in the 20th century. Did Woody
Strode intentionally craft his own mythos? Did
he use his understanding of history to outsmart
a system that was explicitly designed to keep
him down? In doing so, he essentially became
a walking, breathing historical event himself.
He didn't just study history in a classroom,
he actively manipulated the levers of culture
to ensure he would be remembered in it. He knew
exactly what he was doing every single step of
the way. And so the next time you talk about
Hollywood pioneers, remember that before someone
can walk gracefully through a newly opened door,
someone else had to act as the battering ram
to break the hinges off. Remember the gladiator
who dropped his weapon, the football player who
refused the sideline, and the cowboy whose name
was on. Remember Woody Strode.