Gordon Mitchell

Gordon Mitchell, born Charles Allen Pendleton on July 29, 1923, in Denver, Colorado, and died on September 20, 2003, was an American actor and bodybuilder known for his starring roles in Italian sword-and-sandal and Spaghetti Western films. He began working out in his Denver neighborhood, served in the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Bulge, where he was taken prisoner of war, and later obtained a degree at the University of Southern California under the G.I. Bill. He worked as a high school teacher and guidance counselor in Los Angeles, found film extra work in The Ten Commandments and other films, and was one of the American bodybuilder-actors who migrated to Italy after the success of Steve Reeves in the 1958 film Hercules, where he was given the new name Gordon Mitchell.