A false story has circulated that George Reeves auditioned for the role of Samson in Samson and Delilah (1949), but lost the role to Mature. Supposedly, he was given the role of "Wounded Messenger" at the recommendation of Mature, who was very loyal to his friends from his student days at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. The fact is that Reeves was never under consideration for the role of Samson. However, many of the smaller roles in the film were played by Mature's friends from Pasadena.
According to Mature, he had an ancestral mix of French, Swiss, German, Italian and Greek.
Although several sources suggest that Mature's family name was originally Maturi, United States and Austrian birth, immigration, census and other records, as well as Victor Mature himself, are quite clear that as of 1877, the family name was Mature.
Applying for membership in the swank Los Angeles Country Club at the height of his fame, Mature was turned down and told that the golfing facility did not accept actors as members. His response: "I'm not an actor - and I've got 64 films to prove it!".
Attended the Kentucky Military Academy. One of his classmates was future fellow actor, Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell III in "Gilligan's Island" (1964)).
Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 389-390. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Daughter, Victoria, born in 1975.
Featured in "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry (McFarland, 2003).
He attributed his success in Biblical spectacles to his ability to "make with the holy look."
He was a petty officer in the Coast Guard during World War II. He served on the troop transport ship Admiral Mayo. His service carried him to the North Atlantic, including Normandy, the Mediterranean, Caribbean and many islands in the South Pacific. He was on Okinawa when the A-bomb was dropped on Japan.
He was a Republican.
In Zarak (1956) he played perhaps the only title character in the movies to be flogged to death.
In her autobiography, Esther Williams details a passionate affair she had with Mature during the filming of Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). According to Williams, her marriage was on the rocks, she needed love and Mature provided all she wanted.
Is buried in St. Michael Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.
Victor's father Marcello Gelindo Mature, a knife sharpener and cutler, was born in 1877 in the town of Pinzolo, in the Italian Tyrolean region of Trentino which was then under the rule of Austria-Hungary, and returned under Italian sovereignty in 1918 after WW I. His family emigrated to the US with his brothers in 1912, and settled in Louisville, Kentucky where he was born.
Was approached for the role of Sylvester Stallone's father in Oscar (1991), which eventually went to Kirk Douglas.
Was color-blind.