He became a bodyguard for an Indian rajah. After one of his employer's guests accidentally shot him in the leg during a hunt, he was promoted to food taster. Luckily for McLaglen he quit the job--before the rajah was poisoned to death.
[about his early years] Acting never appealed to me, and I was dabbling in it solely as a
means of making money. I rather felt that the greasepaint business was
somewhat beneath a man who was once a reasonably useful boxer.
