Nat Pendleton (Who’s Who at MGM, 1937) 🇺🇸
Although Nat Pendleton was born on a farm in Iowa, August 9, he was raised in New York. He attended Polytechnic preparatory school in Brooklyn and Englewood High School in New Jersey. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University, where he majored in economics.
While attending Columbia, Pendleton captained the wrestling team and won the National Intercollegiate heavy-weight wrestling championship. After winning the A. A. U. national title, he won the world’s amateur heavyweight championship at Amsterdam in the 1920 Olympics.
In Oil Business Abroad
After graduation, he was stationed in Portugal as a representative of the Standard Oil Company. He later organized an import and export business that operated out of Lisbon and covered the west coast of Africa, France, Spain, Belgium, England and Germany. He sold his business after four years of operation and became a purchasing agent for the United States government in Spain. Later, he returned to America and took a position with General Motors.
He became interested in pictures, so he collaborated with Bernarr MacFadden and organized the True Stories Films, Inc. of which he was vice president and general manager.
Nat decided to go on the stage and appeared in “Naughty Cinderella,” “My Girl Friday,” “The Gray Fox,” “The Brass Ring,” “Celebrity” and others. Then he appeared with Ruth Chatterton in a picture titled, “Laughing Lady,” and with Maurice Chevalier in “The Big Pond.”
Is a Banjo Player
Under contract to M-G-M, Nat has played in The Thin Man, “Murder in the Rear Car,” “Straight is the Way,” “Death on the Diamond,” “Cat’s Paw,” “Sing and Like It,” “Gay Bride,” Reckless, “Murder in the Fleet,” ‘Here Comes the Band,” “It’s In the Air,” The Great Ziegfeld, “The Garden Murder Case,” “Sworn Enemy,” and “Under Cover of Night.”
He is six feet tall, weighs 200 pounds, has dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He is still very interested in foreign trade and economics. He plays a banjo. He still keeps in trim through wrestling and also plays tennis. He is not married.
Actor and Writer
Pendleton is not only an actor but a writer as well, having authored an expose of the wrestling racket, which was recently produced as a picture.
General Nathaniel Greene, of Revolutionary War fame, was his great-grand-uncle. The composer of “The Star Spangled Banner,” Francis Scott Key, was another great-grand uncle. George Pendleton, another great grand-uncle, was Abraham Lincoln’s ambassador to Germany.
Reads Five Languages
He usually portrays “dumb guys” on the screen, but can read and write five languages with ease.
When Pendleton left for England to fulfill a film engagement, he planned to return to M-G-M after he had completed the picture and made a tour of the continent.
Hollywood has not softened this “hard guy”. He wrestles almost daily in Los Angeles gymnasiums. Once, he challenged “Man Mountain” Dean and Soldier Frank Leavitt to wrestling matches, offering to forfeit $1,000 to charity if he lost. The challenge went untaken.
Collection: Who’s Who at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1937)