Hollywood Strongman Dies

Friday January 22, 1999 12:00 AM EST

Victor Mature, 86, the brawny star of the 1940s and '50s who played Samson in "Samson and Delilah" and Doc Holliday in John Ford's "My Darling Clementine," died Wednesday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. He had been battling cancer for three years. Tall, dark-haired and muscular, with heavy-lidded eyes and a full mouth, Mature first made his name as a glamour-boy star with a devil-may-care attitude before he gradually gained more critical respect in such films as "Cry of the City" and "Kiss of Death." He retired in 1960 and was married five times.

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