The description of Randy Curtis in the musical – 'Beautiful Hunk of Man' – would be frequently used to describe Mature throughout his career. His performance was well received, Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times calling him 'unobjectionably handsome and affable'. The musical debuted on Broadway in January 1941 and was a smash hit, making a star of Danny Kaye and Macdonald Carey, and causing fresh appreciation for Mature's talents. John Barrymore told me I was the only person who could have followed up all that. Mature later described his role:įirst, this secretary came out saying 'What a beautiful hunk of man!' Then Danny Kaye topped that with a long, long introductory number. Shortly afterwards it was announced he would appear instead in the musical Lady in the Dark with a book by Moss Hart and songs from Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill Mature played Randy Curtis, a film star boyfriend of the show's protagonist, magazine editor Liza Elliott ( Gertrude Lawrence). He signed to appear in a play with the Group Theatre, Retreat to Pleasure by Irwin Shaw. Mature was worried about the direction of his career at this stage, claiming, 'nobody was going to believe I could do anything except grunt and groan.' So he went to New York City to try the theatre. Roach announced Mature would support Victor McLaglen in Broadway Limited, but Mature was not cast in the final film.

Wilcox wanted to reunite Mature with Neagle in Sunny. The studio people were so pleased with his performance, they bought an option to take over half of Mature's contract with Hal Roach, enabling them to draw on his services for two films a year over three years.

Īs Hal Roach only made a handful of movies every year, he loaned out Mature's services to RKO, who used him as a leading man in the Anna Neagle– Herbert Wilcox musical, No, No, Nanette. Roach next put him in a swashbuckler set during the War of 1812, Captain Caution (1940). The film was highly publicized and it raised Mature's profile Hedda Hopper called him 'a sort of miniature Johnny Weissmuller'. Roach then gave Mature his first leading role, as a fur-clad caveman in One Million B.C. Roach cast Mature in a small role in The Housekeeper's Daughter (1939), for which one reviewer called him 'a handsome Tarzan type'. Rogers called him 'a rival to Clark Gable, Robert Taylor and Errol Flynn.' Mature signed a seven-year contract with Roach in September 1939. Rogers, an agent for Hal Roach, while acting in a production of To Quito and Back. For three years, he lived in a tent in the back yard of Mrs Willigan, the mother of a fellow student, Catherine Lewis. Mature studied and acted at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. He briefly sold candy and operated a restaurant before moving to California.

Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky, the Kentucky Military Institute, and the Spencerian Business School. An older brother, Marcellus Paul Mature, died of osteomyelitis in 1918 at age 11. (Ackley), was Kentucky-born and of Swiss heritage. His father, Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, was a cutler from Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol (now Trentino in Italy, but at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). 2.11 United Artists and Warwick Productions.

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