"I doubt if I'll ever do another picture," Victor insisted when his Nanny chores were ended. "Nobody ever died from loafing." When asked if he would have ever considered playing a nude scene in any film, he replied, "There's not enough money in the world to get me to play a nude scene. I still have three cousins alive."

In July, 1973, it was announced by producer-director Dico Dimitrov that Victor had been cast as an American government official who helps Czar Nicholas II and his family to escape from 1918 Russia. The Dico Production film, to be called The Escape of Nicholas and Alexandra, was to be based on Dimitrov's theory that the Russian Imperial family was not executed by the Bolsheviks. It was to be a multi-million-dollar Panavision color epic to be filmed in Spain and Finland. Although Dimitrov later announced that Joan Fontaine and Rossano Brazzi would portray the Imperial couple, the plans did not materialize.

Hank Grant reported in the Hollywood Reporter in May, 1974, that Victor "may well be the next Hollywood film veteran to bounce on the Broadway boards. Understand he has a choice from two musicals and a new straight play." Nothing developed from this rumor.

Then to the Matures' great joy and to Hollywood's general amazement, Victor announced that his wife was pregnant. On Sunday, March 16, 1975, she gave birth to a girl whom they named Victoria. When asked if his belated parenthood had convinced him to want more offspring, Victor replied smiling to the press, "I don't want to overdo it."

Although it now seems likely that once dashing, reckless Victor Mature will remain permanently retired from the entertainment field ("I haven't had an agent in years . . . I'll do something if it's good") his legend lives on. In fact, it continues to grow. (As a lark, Victor agreed to make a cameo appearance, along with many other veteran stars, in Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (Paramount, 1976).

Many cinema historians have reclassified his former standing as a studio-manufactured movie star to that of a very competent actor who never received his proper due on the Hollywood soundstages or from the fourth estate.