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NAT
PENDLETON
THE
ACTOR WHO PLAYED
SANDOW IN THE MOVIES
Nat
Pendleton was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1895 and was an amateur
and professional wrestler early in his life. He wrestled for the
United States in the 1920 Olympics, losing only one match due
to a controversial point-decision. After the Games, he became
a fan-favorite pro-wrestler before finding success in Hollywood.
He was seen in 109 films over a 40 year career. He spoke in many
dialects, but was typically heard in his films with a flawless
Brooklyn accent. In 1939, Pendleton played another strongman role,
again in a Marks Bros film, called "At the Circus". This time,
his character was named "Goliath". Pendleton co-starred with William
Powell in at least 3 other films, as well, they were "The Thin
Man" (1934), "Reckless" (1935) and "The Return of the Thin Man"
(1939). Besides his typical muscular and strongman co-starring
roles, Pendleton also was in dozens of films playing boxers, tough-guys,
police officers and football coaches. He died in San Diego, California
at the age of 72. A truly fine and versatile actor. Keep an eye
on Turner Classic
Movies for his films.
CONTINUE
TO
THE SANDOW GALLERIES
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The
three photos below show scenes from "The Great Ziegfeld"
with Nat Pendleton as Eugen Sandow. The film's star
was William Powell, who played Florenz Ziegfeld (right,
in the first 2 photos). The motion picture was an epic
biography of Ziegfeld and told the story of Ziegfeld's
beginnings in show business. Eugen Sandow was instrumental
in Ziegfeld's climb to international fame. As you can
see, Pendleton was quite muscular and is shown in the
film recreating many of Sandow's feats-of-strength.
Nat flexs and poses his fine physique in several scenes
in the first half-hour of the two-and-a-half hour film.
It is said Pendleton did not relish playing Sandow in
one way... the physical training and diet to portray
Sandow was a lot of extra work and sacrifice. Pendleton's
performance was not only admirable, but extrodinary,
since Pendleton was already 40 when he played a 30 year
old Sandow in "The Great Ziegfeld". Furthermore, Nat
was a superb character actor and his impression of Sandow's
Prussian-German accent was quite authentic. To my knowledge,
Nat Pendleton is the only actor to ever play Eugen Sandow
in a film.
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(above)
Pendleton plays Sandow
in a scene from the movie
"The Great Ziegfeld"
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