For Hawkeye legend Harold Bradley Jr., ‘Iowa was in his veins’

IOWA CITY — Fear usually gets a bad rap. But for one iconic University of Iowa alum, it might have made him the international Renaissance man he became — the kind of Hawkeye legend lore.

“I think that's one reason he tapped into so many things,” Oliver Bradley said of what he believes was his father’s “fear of missing out.”

“He had a lot of opportunities knock at his door,” Bradley said. “And instead of saying, ‘Well, I'm doing this right now, I can’t,’ I think he let himself be swayed to those opportunities.”

But long before Harold Bradley Jr. was a Hawkeye football star, U.S. marine, NFL player, civil rights activist, teacher, husband, father and internationally-esteemed artist, producer, actor and musician, he was born on Oct. 13, 1929, in Chicago — just days before the stock market crash that snowballed into the Great Depression.

He grew up on Chicago’s south side with a father who the year before became one of just 13 African Americans to play in the NFL before World War II — and just the second Black lineman in league history, as a member of the Chicago Cardinals.

But the family wasn’t all sports all the time, as his parents’ social circle included Black artists like Duke Ellington and E. Simms Campbell, a well-known cartoonist.

So when Bradley Jr. in 1946 enrolled at the UI — where his father two decades earlier also played football, making him among only a few Black athletes at the college level at that time — Bradley Jr. complemented his athletic endeavors with a major in the arts.

Best known at that time for his achievements on the gridiron, though, Bradley Jr. — the second half of the first Black father-son combo to play UI football — was among just five Black players on the 1950 Hawkeyes. Together, they earned themselves the nickname “Orange Bowl Five” — as the first Black players to have competed inside what was then known as the Orange Bowl stadium in Miami.

Before graduating in 1951 with a degree in fine arts, Bradley Jr. was named MVP of the 1950 Hawkeyes. His first post-graduation move was to join the U.S. Marine Corps — serving for three years, during which time he played football for the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego Devil Dogs.

Catching the attention of a pro scout, Bradley Jr. began his NFL career with the Cleveland Browns from 1954 to 1956 — winning the NFL Championship game, before it was called the Super Bowl, in two of his three seasons there. But his passion for other things — and perhaps his fear of missing the opportunity to pursue them — kept his football career short, capping his final season with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1958.

“Most of his opportunities moved through periods that really catapulted him way, way to the forefront of that area of which he was in,” Oliver Bradley, 59, told The Gazette. “He had extremely high points in it.”

Bradley Jr.’s football career is among many examples, his son said.

“It's not normal, it’s not usual that somebody has that kind of football career where he only played professional football for about six years, but he played it at the height of where he could be playing it,” Bradley said.

The same goes for his dad’s painting career, acting career and singing career — all of which would follow.

“He was in the right place at the right time,” Bradley said of his father — recently honored with a permanent exhibit at the Iowa Memorial Union showcasing his life and legacy.

‘That was mandatory’

Upon stepping away from football, Bradley Jr. leaned into his passion for the arts — landing a scholarship in 1959 to study at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, a medieval city in central Italy and home to the campus geared toward educating foreign students on Italian language and culture.

Bradley Jr.’s Italian itch began years earlier, when he took a European trip in hopes of learning more about art from different cultures. But once on campus, he fell in love with the country and his would-be wife — a German student named Hannelore Zacharias, a Jewish Holocaust survivor.

They married in 1962 and opened an art studio that year in Rome. Folkstudio, profiled at one point by Time magazine, by day featured Bradley Jr.’s paintings — spanning watercolor, tempera, oils and collage — and by night moonlit as a jazz club, even hosting folk musicians like Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger.

He also broke into the Italian acting scene around that time, snagging parts or even starring in more than 20 movies from 1960 to 1967 — including alongside Elizabeth Taylor in “Cleopatra” and the Italian version of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

“My sisters and I were born in Europe,” Oliver Bradley said. “When I was 3 or 4, that's when we moved to the States. My dad felt he wanted to be closer to what was going on in the civil rights movement.”

In 1968, Bradley Jr. took a job as curator for the Illinois Arts Council in Chicago, also teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and working with its Center for Upgrading Education Services via extension projects in local schools. He later took a post on the Illinois State Board of Education, producing educational TV programs.

Given all those projects, Bradley said of his dad, “He was not always there, but there.”

Recognizing his father as a whole person — raised among a certain generation — Bradley acknowledged, “He was a father with all the ups and downs that parents of that generation had. But, as far as a person from his generation, I would say he was a good father.”

And his imprint was felt, even if his presence sometimes wasn’t.

“We all played violin, but it had nothing to do with my father's music,” Bradley said. “We were in youth symphony. And I did some extracurricular sports.”

But it was not required. It wasn’t pushed. Only one thing was: “The only thing he forced us to do was to have religion once a week,” Bradley said. “That was mandatory.”

‘Inherited from my dad’

Given his wife was Jewish and he was a Christian Scientist, Bradley Jr. didn’t require his kids go to a specific church or synagogue.

“But it was important that we would have ethics once a week,” said Bradley, who today identifies as Jew, while one of his sisters is active in her Methodist church. “My father was fine with that as long as we would get an ethical upbringing.”

Bradley himself went to the University of Illinois, and his parents went back to Italy — at first on vacation around Christmas of 1986 to celebrate Folkstudio’s 25th anniversary.

“And my dad was rediscovered,” he said. “And they kind of got stuck there again.”

Although Bradley Jr. would make a few more film appearances, this time of his life was mostly about music — performing with a well-known gospel group at a church, the Folkstudio and other jazz clubs. He toured Italy with Jona’s Blues Band and made a CD.

He died April 13, 2021, in Rome at 91 and was posthumously honored with a UI distinguished alumni award. In addition to the IMU exhibit, dedicated and unveiled in April to a crowd including some members of the Hawkeye football team, the UI Stanley Museum of Art is in talks to display some of his work, Bradley told The Gazette.

“It’s very moving,” he said of the ways in which the university is remembering his father and his contributions as a “breaker of barriers.”

“It's so sad that my dad's not around to experience these things,” he said. “Because Iowa was in his veins.”

An appreciation for the Hawkeyes is among the things Bradley Jr. imprinted on his son — who today, much like his father, doesn’t want to be defined by a job or a place.

“If you were to ask me, ‘What am I? What do I do?’ I actually hate giving an answer,” said Bradley, who splits time between Rome and Berlin. “Because I don't want to be necessarily branded as just one thing. There are a lot of things about me that I think make me interesting — as an all-around global person. That probably is something I inherited from my dad.”

That and, perhaps, his fear.

“Fear of missing out on something,” Bradley said. “Not being able to tie myself down with this literal, mortal fear of missing out on other things that could be interesting to do, I think, has kept me from being pigeonholed.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com