Jim Brown: an immovable fixture in American life with a complex legacy

The star athlete, Hollywood pioneer and civil rights icon, who died on Thursday aged 87, was the paragon for an unflinching brand of masculinity that remained undiluted to the end

100 Rifles is a spaghetti western that begs for judgment in its own time. Burt Reynolds smirks through his starring role as a biracial Native American hero. Raquel Welch, the full-blooded indigenous damsel in distress, adopts a horrific Mexican accent. But the thing that really offended sensibilities was Jim Brown getting top billing as the swashbuckling hero who not only gets the girl, but roughs her up in a squally love scene.

This was heady stuff for 1969, a time when Black actors could scarcely appear on screen with white peers without sparking a national controversy. But Brown would not be chastened by Hollywood's open racism or Martin and Malcolm's assassinations or Jim Crow-era laws explicitly designed to keep him in place. He was resolute, uncompromising, always his own man and the most intimidating presence in the room, to boot. If Friday's announcement of his death at age 87 came as a shock, it's because most figured the Grim Reaper didn't even stand much chance of taking the football great down.