February 16, 2022 - Woody Strode

Woody Strode, a member of the NFL Forgotten Firsts and Black Bruins, was a UCLA track and football star, a World War II veteran, a professional wrestler, a Golden Globe nominated actor-basically a Renaissance man.
Hubert Stowitt featured a portrait of Strode in his famed exhibition of athletic portraits at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, prompting the Nazis to shut down the exhibit since they did not agree with Jewish and African American athletes portrayed as such powerful, athletic individuals.
World War II found Strode playing for the Hollywood Bears, but he quit to join the US Army Air Corp, stationed in Guam and the Marianas, while also playing in Riverside California on the Army football team.
In 1941, he married Princess Luukialuana Kalaeola, a granddaughter of the last queen of Hawaii-that same year he began both his career as a professional wrestler and as a Hollywood actor, appearing in the movie Sundown. Additionally, he was skilled in martial arts.
Between 1941 and 1962, Strode was billed as the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and the Pacific Coast Negro Heavyweight Wrestling Champion.
After the war, Strode joined his UCLA teammate Kenny Washington on the LA Ram from 1946 to 1948, breaking the NFL color barrier.
Stode didn’t stay with the Rams as long as his counterparts-rumors imply that football management didn’t approve of his marriage to a light-skinned Hawaiian woman-but he instead starred in the CFL, where racism wasn’t an issue, commanding the field for the Calgary Stampeders.
Strode also made his presence known in Hollywood, appearing in The Ten Commandments in 1956 and as Ethiopian gladiator Draba in Spartacus in 1960, battling Kirk Douglass to the death. He went on to work with legendary directors Cecil B. Demille, Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, and John Ford, appearing in almost fifty movies. Fans of John Wayne movies should remember his role as Tobe in the 1962 movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. However, we should note that his starring role in the 1960 movie Sergeant Rutledge was the first mainstream film to treat racism frankly and to star an African American.
Strode lived to age eighty possibly due to his amazing exercise regimen: he daily performed 1,000 free squats, 1,000 sit-ups, and 1,000 pushups until he turned forty. In deference to his age, he reduced those numbers to 500.
Quite simply, on the track, on the football field, on the wrestling mats, or in front of a movie camera, Woody Strode was an amazing man of many talents.
Strode was a legendary man, but many do not realize one of his last recognitions was in the Pixar movie Toy Story. The character of Woody was named after Woody Strode,