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On March 10, 1909, less than three months after becoming the world’s first black heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson fought a six-round, no-decision exhibition match with a young 6’3″, 225-lb. English adventurer at the Vancouver Athletic Club in British Columbia, Canada. Johnson won, although neither boxer was able to knock down the other. Jack Johnson reigned as champion for six more years, then ran afoul of the law, served time, and ended his days as a sideshow and vaudeville attraction. The young Briton survived a world war and went on to become a film star, winning an Academy Award in the process. His name? Victor McLaglen.

As one of filmdom’s most durable and popular actors, Victor was cast most often as a rough and ready military man, a boat captain, or similarly hardy individual. He brought a brand of humor to his roles which made them more memorable than a lot of them deserved to be, as many of his 113 films were formula adventure stories. However, he appeared in every type of film save horror and science fiction, playing opposite a wide array of stars, from Shirley Temple to Mae West, from Bob Hope to John Wayne. McLaglen also worked for many of Hollywood’s top directors, among them John Ford, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Allan Dwan, and Josef von Sternberg. Five of his brothers also became actors, although only Cyril appeared with Victor.

McLaglen was born on December 11, 1886, one of nine children (eight boys, one girl) of an Anglican bishop, in Tunbridge Wells, England, a small city southeast of London. Victor’s father served as bishop of Claremont, South Africa, for several years, but returned to Britain to do missionary work in London’s slums.

At 14, McLaglen was six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds, so he was able to lie about his age and join the British Army, whose term of enlistment was then fourteen years. With the Life Guards, a crack cavalry regiment, he fought the Boers in South Africa. When that conflict ended in 1902, Victor’s parents bought off the balance of his enlistment and apprenticed him to a lawyer. After one week, McLaglen headed for Canada in pursuit of his eldest brother, Fred, whom he idolized. Vic tried his luck at a silver rush in Cobalt, Ontario, and at a nearby gold rush, but failed to make a strike at either.

He then journeyed to Owen Sound in Ontario, where he finally caught up with Fred, who was working as a policeman. Vic found work loading and unloading box cars until he was offered the job of head of the railroad police. He once found himself with three of his men chasing a gang of fur thieves 120 miles into the wilderness, arresting them within a week.

One day the future actor took time out to visit a traveling circus, which featured a fellow who bet $25 against all corners that he couldn’t be knocked down in three rounds of boxing, or thrown during 15 minutes of wrestling. McLaglen out-boxed the man, winning his job as well as the purse. Not long after, the pair formed a vaudeville act known as “The Romano Brothers,” posing as “living statues” and illustrating the classic punches of famous fighters.

Fred McLaglen once devised a scheme whereby Victor was to wrestle an entire football team, the bet being that the team could not dispose of him in an hour. At the last minute, Vic learned that two of his opponents were professionals and improvised a plan of attack. He gouged, kneed and butted his way to victory within 5€ minutes.

Victor continued his very successful boxing career across Canada, leading up to the Johnson match.

When the circus reached Seattle, Victor quit to join his brother Arthur in a vaudeville act in which Arthur would use sledgehammer to crush rocks placed or Vic’s chest. They toured throughout the Pacific, parting when Victor went to India and took on the positions of bodyguard and athletic instructor to a maharajah of boundless wealth.

During a hunt, McLaglen was accidentally shot in the leg by a visiting rajah. He was then promoted to food taster. According to the actor’s autobiography, Express To Hollywood (published in 1934), that job ended when he was walking across the palace lawn, “lousy with pea cocks,” and one of the birds – which are sacred in India – got in Vic’s way and he kicked it. A few months later the rajah was dead – poisoned – but by that time McLaglen was safely on his way to Africa to join his brother Arthur in Nairobi, where they made a handsome living hunting lions. When they had saved enough money, the two revived their vaudeville act – in Cape Town. While they were there, World War I broke out and the brothers hurried back to England to enlist.

Assigned to recruiting duty in London’s Trafalgar Square, McLaglen was losing to another recruiter with a band until he got together with Johnny Summers, a popular bantam weight boxer in his regiment, and staged mock bayonet practice. The sight of this duo lunging at each other with bayonets soon had men joining McLaglen’s regiment in droves.

As a result of this success, he was promoted to captain in a Cheshire battalion. His unit was sent to Iraq, where he learned Arabic and helped smash a spy ring in Basra. He was made Privy Marshal of Baghdad when General Allenby captured that city. His job was to lead units into the desert in search of hidden ammunition (memories of which may have come to mind while making THE LOST PATROL many years later). He was wounded twice and cited for bravery by King George V.

Shortly before the war ended, Captain McLaglen received word of his brother Fred’s death in France. This devastated Victor, who returned to England after the war broken in spirit.

He decided to try his hand at boxing again, but lost two consecutive fights. In the second fight, he was beaten so badly that he let himself be talked into taking an acting job. Film producer I. B. Davidson had witnessed the bout and admired McLaglen’s courage and looks. He offered him a role as a fighter in THE CALL OF THE ROAD. The salary was too good to resist, so McLaglen signed a contract.

The film was shot in a converted garage in Walthamstow, then one of the centers of the British film industry. It also featured Victor’s brother, Cyril, in their first appearance together. Released in October, 1920, THE CALL OF THE ROAD made McLaglen a star at almost 34. After that, he made 17 more pictures in Britain, including that country’s first attempt at color (called “Prizmacolor”), THE GLORIOUS ADVENTURE, a story of the great London fire of 1666. He made the trip to Hollywood in 1924, where he began work at a salary of $300.00 a week.

His first U.S. film was a western called THE BELOVED BRUTE, in which he played the heavy. In 1925, he appeared as the strong man in THE UNHOLY THREE, starring Lon Chaney, and made his first film for John Ford, a boxing story entitled THE FIGHTING HEART.

After appearing as an American legionnaire in BEAU GESTE, McLaglen played his most memorable role to date. Raoul Walsh was set to direct the film version of the hit play, WHAT PRICE GLORY?, and needed someone to play Captain Flagg, the role made famous on Broadway by Louis WoIheim. He tested McLaglen by asking the ex-soldier if he could swear. Insulted, Vic swore for a full minute without repeating himself and landed the part. With Edmund Lowe as Sergeant Quirt, the film was a smash hit. Since it was a silent movie, the actual language used by the pair as they fought for Dolores Del Rio’s favors was toned down considerably in the titles. Lip readers, however, had a field day deciphering the jargon and their word-of-mouth reviews no doubt aided the film’s box office take. WHAT PRICE GLORY? was also the first Fox film to have a symphonic score added to it in early 1927 by the Fox-Case process, Fox’s answer to Warner Brothers’ Vitaphone system. It also spawned a series of McLaglen-Lowe team-ups, running through 1934.

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