Mature, Victor John, BMC

In July 1942 Mature attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy but was rejected for color blindness. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard after taking a different eye test the same day. He was assigned to the icebreaker Storis (WMEC-38), in Boston Harbor, which was doing Greenland patrol work (28 Nov 1942). After 14 months aboard the Storis, Mature was promoted to the rate of Chief Boatswain's Mate.
 
In 1944 he did a series of War Bond tours and acted in morale shows. He assisted Coast Guard recruiting efforts by being a featured player in the musical revue "Tars and Spars" which opened in Miami, Florida in April 1944 and toured the United States for the next year. On 15 May 1945 Mature was reassigned to the Coast Guard manned troop transport USS Admiral H. T. Mayo which was involved in transferring troops to the Pacific Theater. Between tours sea duty, Mature appeared at Bond rallies for the Coast Guard eventually starring in the Coast Guard show "Tars and Spars", a morale show which toured the country during WWII. Mature was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard in November 1945 and he resumed his acting career.

American leading man. Born Victor John Mature (to knife sharpener Marcellus George Mature, born Marcello Gelindo Maturi in Pinzolo, Trentino, and a Swiss-American mother, Clara Ackley) in Louisville, Kentucky, Victor Mature worked as a teenager with his father as a salesman for butcher supplies. Hoping to become an actor, he studied at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. He auditioned for Gone with the Wind (1939) for the role ultimately played by his fellow Playhouse student, George Reeves. After achieving some acclaim in his first few films, he served in the Coast Guard in World War II. Mature became one of Hollywood's busiest and most popular actors after the war, though rarely was he given the critical respect he often deserved. His roles in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) and in Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death (1947) were among his finest work, though he moved more and more frequently into more exotic roles in films like Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Egyptian (1954). Never an energetic actor nor one of great artistic pretensions, he nevertheless continued as a Hollywood stalwart both in programme and in more prominent films like The Robe (1953). More interested in golf than acting, his appearances diminished through the 1960s, but he made a stunning comeback of sorts in a hilarious romp as a very Victor Mature-like actor in Neil Simon's After the Fox (1966). Golf eventually took over his activities and, after a cameo as Samson's father in a TV remake of his own "Samson and Delilah" (Samson and Delilah (1984) (TV)), he retired for good. Rumors occasionally surfaced of another comeback, most notably in a never-realized remake of Red River (1948) with Sylvester Stallone, but none came to fruition. He died of cancer at his Rancho Santa Fe, California, home in 1999.

Source: imdb.com