Later Life
After his athletic career, Thorpe struggled to provide for his family. He found it difficult to work a non-sports-related job and never held a job for an extended period of time. During the Great Depression in particular, he had various jobs, among others as an extra for several movies, usually playing an American Indian chief in Westerns. He also worked as a construction worker, a doorman (bouncer), a security guard and a ditchdigger, and briefly joined the United States Merchant Marine in 1945. Thorpe was a chronic alcoholic during his later life.
He ran out of money sometime in the early 1950s. When hospitalized for lip cancer in 1950, he was admitted as a charity case. At a press conference announcing the procedure, his wife Patricia wept and pleaded for help, saying, "e're broke.... Jim has nothing but his name and his memories. He has spent money on his own people and has given it away. He has often been exploited."
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