#sergeant rutledge

Captain Buffalo (slow version) from the movie Sergeant Rutledge (1960)

Woody Strode for 'Sergeant Rutledge', 1960.

Before becoming an actor, Woody Strode was a star on the football field. Strode, Kenny Washington and famed baseball player Jackie Robinson were stars of the UCLA football team in 1939. And after World War II in 1946, Strode again joined Washington in a historic move. The two played for the Los Angeles Rams as the first Black players to join the NFL in 13 years after the league had banned Black players.

But in 1947, after only one season on the team, Strode was looking for another career. Racism played a role in his departure from the Rams, as he experienced a level of discrimination that he previously hadn’t experienced growing up in California. Born in Los Angeles in 1914, Strode said racial tensions weren’t bad growing up, but got worse as time went on. “The racism was more subtle than in other areas of the US that would say ‘Whites Only.’ Signs in Los Angeles would instead say, ‘We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone.’ We knew we weren’t wanted so we didn’t go there,” he said. Strode and his friends knew that they wouldn’t be welcome in areas like Beverly Hills, Pasadena or Inglewood.

“I didn’t realize that going to UCLA was a rare step for a Black kid,” he said.

While playing for the Rams, Washington and Strode experienced discrimination from other players who were opposed to playing with Black teammates and would be the targets of tackles. Rams owner Dan Reeves also objected to Strode’s interracial marriage to Luana, who was a distant relative to Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii. "You'd have thought I was marrying Lana Turner, the way the whites in Hollywood acted," Strode said.

Road to Hollywood 

When Washington and Strode were UCLA stars, Warner Bros. gave the two summer jobs. They took care of the duo, and they frequently interacted with Jane Wyman, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Ann Sheridan. “I remember walking up to Errol Flynn and him saying, ‘Oh you and Kenny! I just love watching you guys play!’ All the stars were football fans,” Strode said as quoted by historian Donald Bogle. During this time, Strode appeared in three uncredited film roles. But after 1943, his main focus was athletics.

However, in the early 1950s, Hollywood again called Strode when he was discovered while competing in a wrestling match. Unfortunately, his roles from 1951 to 1958 were usually minor and that of natives such as THE LION HUNTERS (’51), JUNGLE MAN-EATERS (’54) and TARZAN’S FIGHT FOR LIFE (’58). It wasn’t until 1960 that Strode was cast in a role with any real substance. Strode recalled director John Ford calling him to his office and saying, “I have a little thing going called Sergeant Rutledge and I thought you would play the title role.” Strode thought Ford was joking.

The film focuses on the Ninth Cavalry in 1866, a Black cavalry regiment of the United States Army that primarily worked to keep the new American West safe. In SERGEANT RUTLEDGE (’60), Strode would play the title character who was the top sergeant of the unit. His character is falsely accused of raping and killing a white teenage girl. The story is told in flashback during the trial as each witness takes the stand.

Warner Bros. wanted Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte for the role, but Ford felt they weren’t tough enough. Strode’s autobiography Goal Dust recounts that Ford wanted an actor who was tough, could fight and didn’t need a double, and he wanted Strode. Ford then cast Strode in his next two films, TWO RODE TOGETHER (’61) and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (’62). Strode is also in Ford’s last feature film, 7 WOMEN (’66).

“He was the first director to pay me $1,000 a week, and most important, he kept me working,” Strode wrote in his autobiography.

Friendship with Ford 

While Ford helped Strode with his career, the two developed a father-son friendship and Strode stayed with Ford for four months near the end of Ford’s life. “We’d sit together in his green room, read books and talk all day. John Ford had become lonely. John Wayne was involved with his family and his own projects and everyone else was scattered. I replaced all those friends,” Strode wrote.

Strode’s wife Luana and his children would visit him at the Ford home and swim, and Ford wanted Strode to attend the funeral of his sister. “Imagine me at this funeral sitting next to God in a turtleneck sweater and his head angel. I felt like Gabriel.” The day before Ford died, Strode was summoned and sat at the end of his bed until Ford died at 6:35 p.m. on August 31, 1973. Strode stayed for two hours until Ford’s body was taken away, according to Ford biographer Scott Eyman.

On to Europe

In 1965, Strode’s race became an issue, but not in the way that you would think. When interviewing to be cast in a role in MAJOR DUNDEE (’65), he was told he was not Black enough. Director Sam Peckinpah said that his character wouldn’t be Black but “a mongrel,” according to his autobiography. Strode was not in the film. “After being colored for 50 years, I wasn’t Black enough to play a Negro,” he wrote.

Because of experiences like this one and other struggles in Hollywood, Strode moved to Europe. Through the late 1960s into the 1970s, he was able to find better roles abroad. In an interview published in the June 1982 issue of Ebony, Strode said he received larger salaries and better roles in Europe than he did in Hollywood. “I’ll continue to work in Europe because I’m a star there. I have the world market on my side even if I don’t have the American market,” he said.

Woody Strode 1914-94