Gordon Mitchell was one of those perfectly developed bodybuilders who jumped on the 'Steve Reeves proved a phenomenal hit and revived the "muscleman" genre, the non-Italian-speaking Mitchell headed off to Europe and began appearing in the same type of badly dubbed sandal-and-spear epics. Adept at displaying both heroics and villainy, he developed his own core of fans, but when the fad wore off around 1965, Mitchell--unlike many of his colleagues in that field who just dropped out of sight--stayed on and appeared in over 100 more films, many of them in the "spaghetti western" genre, staying true to the country that made him a star.
Served in the U.S. army in the Korean War.
Early in his career he toured as one of a group of "strongman" performers--one of whom was Mickey Hargitay --in Mae West s nightclub act.
He built amost single-handedly a small western-like village in the Roman countryside, that was used as the set for several Italian B-westerns.
Following his success in Italy, he helped his muscular friend Dan Vadis get into the Italian movie business.
His funeral memorial service was attended by Arnold Schwarzenegger , Lou Ferrigno , Roland Kickinger , Franco Columbu , Mickey Hargitay , Richard Harrison , Sebastian Harrison , Joe Gold , Scott Brown , Michael A. Martinez , and Robert Amstler in front of the World Gym corporate headquarters.
Honored by the UCLA Film Archive at a July 6, 2003, festival showing of Il gigante di Metropolis in a theater on the Los Angeles campus.
(April 2002) Owner of World Gym International in Marina Del Rey, California
As of March 2006 he was living in Palm Springs, CA, where he was at work writing a book, two plays and a weekly newspaper column on golf.
Brother of Red Mitchell.
