Actor Woody Strode Dies

Woody Strode, a onetime pro football player whose commanding presence in Westerns and period epics helped blaze trails for black film actors, died in his sleep Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 80.

His daughter said he had been

diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago. He recently completed "The Quick and the Dead," a Western with Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman, she said.

Mr. Strode had the kind of screen countenance that in today's more encouraging racial climate, might have made him a star. During the 1950s and '60s, however, he was a supporting actor, playing such roles as the Ethiopian king in "The Ten Commandments" (1956), a gladiator in "Spartacus" (1960) and the eponymous soldier in "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960).

In his "Blacks in American Film and Television," critic-historian Donald Bogle writes that Mr. Strode "won . . . a significant following among black males" at a time when "black moviegoers rarely saw an assertive, physical black man of action."

Other film credits include "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962), "Two Rode Together" (1961), "The Professionals" (1966) and "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1969). His legacy as a black movie cowboy was honored in Mario Van Peebles' "Posse" (1993), whose grizzled narrator was portrayed by Mr. Strode.

Born in Los Angeles and educated at UCLA, Mr. Strode was one of the first blacks to play in the NFL during the 1940s. In "75 Seasons," a documentary commemorating the NFL's diamond jubilee, Mr. Strode alluded to the adversity he and his fellow black trailblazers faced in those postwar years. "If I have to integrate heaven," Mr. Strode said, "I don't want to go."