Strother Martin
| Strother Martin | |
|---|---|
"What we've got here is failure to communicate"; Martin in Cool Hand Luke (1967)
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| Born |
Strother Douglas Martin, Jr. March 26, 1919 Kokomo, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | August 1, 1980 (aged 61) Thousand Oaks, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1950–1980 |
| Spouse(s) | Helen Meisels (m. 1967; his death 1980) |
Strother Douglas Martin, Jr. (March 26, 1919 – August 1, 1980) was an American character actor who often appeared in support of superstars John Wayne and Paul Newman and was memorable in western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. Martin perhaps is best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, in which he uttered the famous line, "What we've got here is failure to communicate." The line is number 11 on the American Film Institute list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.
Martin was born in Kokomo in Howard County in north central Indiana. For a short time, the Martins moved to San Antonio, Texas but soon returned to Indiana. As a child, he excelled at swimming and diving; he was nicknamed "T-Bone Martin" because of his diving expertise. At 17, he won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. He served as a swimming instructor in the United States Navy during World War II and was a member of the diving team at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He entered the adult National Springboard Diving competition in hopes of gaining a berth on the U.S. Olympic team but finished third in the competition.
After the war, Martin moved to Los Angeles, California and worked as a swimming instructor and as a swimming extra in water scenes in films. He earned bit roles in a number of pictures and soon gained frequent character roles in films and television through the 1950s, having appeared in such programs as the western anthology series, Frontier on NBC and the syndicated American Civil War drama Gray Ghost. He was cast in 1955 as Landry Kersh in the episode "Shadow of God" on the ABC religion anthology series, Crossroads. He gave a memorable performance as a man with learning difficulties in the "Cooter" episode written by Sam Peckinpah in the first season of Gunsmoke (1955).
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