Part 1

With a career spanning nearly six decades, cult film legend Gordon Mitchell has done it all in the world of European film. No matter what the part, Mitchell could always be counted on for a reliable performance. Now with great honor, we get to speak to the man himself.


First of all Gordon, allow me to tell you an behalf of Cinema Nocturna how much we appreciate you taking the time to do this gracious interview. Thank you for this opportunity. And now on to the questions!

Q: What was it like growing up for Charles Allen Pendleton?

GORDON: Well, I guess it was the first 15-20 years of my life was the hardest I guess. It's always been hard, I think for everybody. My mother and father divorced when I was four and my mother married another guy Paul, which seems odd because he's an alcoholic. So I spent most of my time taking care of my mother and my sisters, going to work real early in the morning when I was 7 or 8 years old to make a couple bucks, to help put some food in the house. And one thing about it, my stepdad, he went to California, we came out to California in '37, and it changed my life around. I got away from all the bad environment there in Denver, and I got very interested in health then and all the way up through I was thinking about it in high school and took all kinds of courses and got very well known in the world of having a good body. Then WW2 I was in the service and of all things I used to teach Chinese cadets how to survive in the water. Then one day the battle of the bulge came and all of the sudden I was overseas there...ah nowhere I was up there shooting (laughs). That's another story, it could take for hours to tell about that. Then I came back out of the service and I started back to the University of Southern California, I went back in there and I got my teacher's credentials, general, secondary, working on my masters. I taught school in the L.A. school system. During that time there from forty...well I got married in 46, August 18th '46, Mae West day. I used to go out with Mae West way, way, way back when too, 1956-59. But actually my earlier days it was just training and teaching school and of course I got to know my buddies at the beach in Muscle Beach there. Back there in Muscle Beach in those days was really something. Where Steve Reeves was, and of course, and my friend Mickey I got to know, and my dear friend that I worked with almost 50 years Joe Gold, who started the works at the Gold Gyms, which is now the World Gyms, Zabo Koszewski, all the great champions at that time were all working out together. And to make the story very, very short I was noticed at the gym there, the old tanning gym there, they were looking for more Hercules's and so Artie Zeller, who you might know him, he was a great photographer and another one of the muscle boys, took some pictures of me, I sent them in June of 1960. December they called me from Rome to tell me they'd like to meet me. I had no understanding I was going to be the star. I had no idea and I went to Rome for six weeks and of course I stayed thirty years. All my life as the name of Charles Pendleton was one thing, Gordon Mitchell is another thing and that's another story. Actually you might like very well to know about.

I had a friend of mine who knew a medium and she told him a lot of things. I couldn't believe somebody could know that much. So I made an appointment with her and her name was Dr. White. And to make the story short I told her I wanna make an appointment with you at high noon, not high night (laughs). And she was a very sweet woman about in her eighties and we sat there across a little coffee table in a little simple house there in L.A. in a bungalow. She held my hand for about a minute and then she let go with the right hand and she started writing and she says, "Your name is Charles Pendleton.", I guess my buddy who told me about her, he told her a few things and she started telling me things and all of the sudden, I think she says, "You know you had a half brother Paul Jr. and he died when he was 18 months old." Well I remember, never in my whole life have I told anybody about that 'cause there was no reason to. So she starts telling me more and more and she said "but you're very strange, you're Charles Pendleton, but you're Gordon Mitchell too." I said "I don't know anything about Gordon Mitchell." She said well if not, you're going to go to Rome in the future and you'll have a big name as Gordon Mitchell, a long lasting name in the film business. And that kind of broke up my feelings with her. I said "Everything you've told me was great, but this me going to Gordon Mitchell..." We had been to the moon by then. I said "Well, it's like going to the moon, and I've never been to the moon, so everything you've told me is very good up to this Gordon Mitchell stuff, going to be a big film star in Rome." So anyway that happened and when I got to Rome low and behold I almost fainted then because I walked off and all over the airplane, I came off, there was cameramen from all over. So I was walking around and they kept saying "Gordon Mitchell stop! Gordon Mitchell!", and of course it didn't ring on to me yet. Finally, an interpreter, one of them said, "Mr. Pendleton, you're name is Gordon Mitchell, that's the name we gave you." And I always said that Gordon Mitchell hit me in the head like BOOOM I could not believe it. Here this woman told me five years ahead of time, here I am in Rome Gordon Mitchell. And anyway, that first film ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS (MACISTE NELLA TERRA DEI CICLOPI) was my first film and that was the first film that made me a superstar and our film made the most money in Italy that year of all the films. From that time on everywhere I went I had people jumping all over me for my autographs and etc. So that is a little bit about Pendleton to Gordon Mitchell because most of the whole world knows me as Gordon Mitchell and in I think the idea of a couple of hundred films and I just keep on going And I'll let you know that I'm going back to Germany the 21st of August. I will do my friend Clem Carpenheimen's MUSIKILL. Also I'll be painting in my own picture because I've become quite a big name now in the world of paintings, so ah, I get very good at doing abstracts. I have stuff in Tokyo now and in Spain. And I hope next month I'll have my big stuff hanging on the walls of the L.A. Museum of Art. Once that's up there then I'll have a lot of photos with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He bought my first picture. People couldn't believe it, I'm standing there in a good photo of him. Of course, I was his idol when he was a little kid. So, there's more I can tell you about Charles Pendleton but mostly about Gordon Mitchell is the one that you put my name on the front page.

Q: When you first got involved in Italian cinema you became a staple of the peplum genre, getting your first big breaks with directors like Antonio Leonviola in ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS (1961) and Emimmo Salvi in VULCAN, SON OF JUPITER (1961). Usually the star of these films, was the Italian peplum genre very physically demanding for you?

GORDON: Well, when I got Leonviola in Rome there, they got me in there, and they had very few people that could speak a bit of English. They asked me, what was the last thing I did, and I had to think real fast, so I grabbed Leonviola by the throat and started choking him. "I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you!" (laughs). It was a scene and he said, oh my God he's great! So they said well tomorrow morning we'll do some tests on you. When I did the test they loved it so much he said OK what you're doing is great, we're gonna keep shooting, we have no worries about it, I think you can do it. And of course I just couldn't believe it. Almost everything I did the people were applauding me all the time. I thought, well (laughs) that's strange 'cause I've been on the sets, you know during the summertime as extras, and even the big actors never got applauded, and here they're applauding me for everything I did.

And of course my other great, great friend Emimmo Salvi, which I did many, many pictures with him. GIANT OF METROPOLIS, and stuff and stuff. And you asked me if they were physically demanding of me? All the films I ever did, all my action films, I always did myself as me. I didn't have any stuntmen. I did all the falls and jumping. To this day now I'm paying off for it. Now I have (laughs) bad shoulders, arms, back, and everything else. It's hard for me to move around but I'm still doing it. So remember that's why people knew there were no doubles, it was me doing it.

Q: Also in 1961, you starred in one of the most popular among Italian peplum films, THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS, directed by Umberto Scarpelli. How was the hype surrounding it's release and what type of box office and business did the film do? Also, how did the role help your career?

GORDON: It was Emimmo Salvi's film actually. He wound up doing the film anyway later. Now to be very truthful to you, I had no idea what was happening because as soon as I finished the first film I thought, well in two days before I even finished, they told me, they said you had another film to do and start in two days. But I had no idea all this stuff was happening. This woman (the medium), I guess she told the truth. So immediately I had two days off and I slept I was so wiped out. And then I start to work with Emimmo Salvi and this is where I start a lot of good friendship with Emimmo Salvi. And also Leonviola was very good with Emimmo. I did many, many films with him, and ah, THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS was wonderful. It was a great, great film and I enjoyed it very much.

Q: After having so many starring roles throughout the early to mid-60's in Italian peplum, you decided to venture off into other roles. Did you find it difficult making the transition to other genres?

GORDON: No. I always felt any film, I don't care what it was, I could do the part and ah, be the good guy, the in-between guy, or the bad guy. I mean it didn't make any difference to me, I would do the film. So when the pasta films came out, the spaghetti westerns, I enjoyed doing them very, very much. I made my first one with Mickey Hargitay, which is my dear friend also. I remember he was married to Jane Mansfield, and ah we have a lot of things we're doing together right now for our own society.

Q: Of all of the wide varieties of genres and subgenres in Italian cult cinema - peplum, spaghetti western, giallo, exploitation, horror, post-apocalypse, crime films, etc.- which is the most difficult to prepare for as an actor? Perhaps I should ask, which of these genres do you like doing the least?

GORDON: To be very truthful with you, whenever some people don't like the film, or they did like it, I mean every one of these films I worked on I loved them all. I mean I have something in my heart for every one of these films. Some of them didn't do much but I have a nice feeling about them. So, probably the Maciste, the first one I did, the one that made me a superstar, probably would be the one that I can say that put me onto the map. And I showed the people that I could do this stuff, I had no doubles. In fact there's one scene there in Maciste where he jumps down when he's fighting the cyclops. They asked me to jump down, it was about an 18 foot jump straight down onto the cement there. I said well, if you could make a, kind of a hill right there I could hit it and roll out. He said no you gotta jump straight down. I said well I'll do it but...and I guarantee you're going to finish the film on time. The weight I carried was about 220 then, I says, I hit that floor my ankles are gonna snap, or something's gonna go. So that was one of the few shots you can see right away that some guy was there (laughs). They did it with a quick shot. I told them, I can make two shots out of it, jump in one and come into the other. They made that a big, long jump. I don't know whether you saw SON OF THE SHEIK I did in Egypt. I have 1000 horses behind me, I told them when they had cameras on me, I says, keep one camera on the horse if I go down. If I don't get killed, keep it in there. If I can get up again I'll get on the horse and keep on going (laughs).