Trivia

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.

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.

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.

Owner of World Gym International in Marina Del Rey, California (April 2002)

Following his success in Italy, he helped his muscular friend Dan Vadis get into the Italian movie business.

Honored by the UCLA Film Archive at a July 6, 2003, festival showing of The Giant of Metropolis (1961) in a theater on the Los Angeles campus.

During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Bulge where he was taken prisoner of war. He later obtained a degree at the University of Southern California under the G.I. Bill.

He was one of the American bodybuilder-actors who migrated to Italy in the wake of Steve Reeves' success in the 1958 film Hercules after he sent a photo to an Italian producer who signed him on a contract.

Following a return enlistment for the Korean War, he found film extra work in movies such as Prisoner of War, The Man with the Golden Arm and Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, where he and his friend Joe Gold dragged Charlton Heston's Moses to Pharaoh Yul Brynner.

He became a high school teacher and guidance counselor in Los Angeles, where due to his physique he was given classes containing many delinquent students.

He returned to the United States in the late 1980s and largely retired from acting, becoming the chief operating officer of World Gym in Marina Del Rey, California. He kept making occasional film appearances until his death.

He also appeared in the bizarre 1982 Israeli adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's She as "Hector." The film was directed by Avi Nesher and co-starred Sandahl Bergman.

In France, he is best known for his role as Moskovitz, the hitman in Gérard Oury 's 1980 film "Le Coup du parapluie" In the late 1980s.

Gordon Mitchell was an American actor and bodybuilder, known for his starring roles in Italian sword-and-sandal and Spaghetti Western films.

Mitchell was close friends with fellow American expatriate actors Richard Harrison, Mike Monty (he appeared in a number of films with both and shared an apartment with Monty in Italy during the 1960s), and John P. Dulaney.

From the early 1970s onwards, he started to diversify into everything from horror (Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks), Nazi exploitation (Achtung! The Desert Tigers!), sexploitation (Porno-Erotic Western), French criminal comedy (The Umbrella Coup), and post-apocalyptic films (Endgame).

Like actors Mike Monty, Richard Harrison and John P. Dulaney, Mitchell acted in low-budget action films in the Philippines during the 1980s, having roles in Commando Invasion and SFX Retaliator for director John Gale.

In Italy he found work first in sword and sandal films such as "Sinbad", "Seven Slaves Against the World", "Treasure of the Petrified Forest" (1965), then in Spaghetti Westerns such as" Beyond the Law" and "Savage Guns".

Prior to going to Italy, he saw a clairvoyant who asked him if he had ever been known by the name of Gordon Mitchell. He replied no, but on arrival in Rome, Mitchell was given his new name.