Ford was truly an SOB but he made great movies. He tried to make Strode a star with SGT RUTLEDGE but had to settle for him being a character actor (he also appeared in LIBERTY VALANCE for Ford).
Strode was before his time. He was too masculine, too magnetic, to be anyone's asexual perfect model black. There is no one today like him.
Ford was truly an SOB but he made great movies. He tried to make Strode a star with SGT RUTLEDGE but had to settle for him being a character actor (he also appeared in LIBERTY VALANCE for Ford).
Strode benefited from Ford being as established as he was at the time, or he might not have had his way with casting Strode. But it cost Strode that his acting career just started making strides as those tough, brilliant, old SOBs like Ford (Henrys Hathaway and King, Howard Hawks) were slowing down, retiring, and dying off. By the 1970s, Strode's credits read like "Forgettable and Foregettabler."