The First Major Studio Western To Cast a Black Actor in the Lead Role

“My name's John Ford. I make Westerns." John Ford, one of the Western genre's greatest influences, spoke these words at a Directors' Guild of America meeting to Cecil B. DeMille, considered one of the founders of American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. In a conversation between two cinema greats, John Ford's words couldn't be more accurate. The director with the most Academy Awards under his sleeve, surprisingly never won an Oscar for a Western movie. But his name lives on through his immaculate films. Some were controversial, for which he received his fair share of criticism, particularly for his portrayal of Indigenous Americans and other people of color. In the final decade of his career, however, he made films that seemed to undo the stereotypes his critics had cited that his earlier films propagated. One such movie was a Western that broke the record of being the first ever major studio film in the genre to cast a Black actor in the lead role. That film was 1960's Sergeant Rutledge, with lead actor Woody Strode.