Biografie

Wrestled for the United States at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium, earning a silver medal, and lost only one match due to a controversial point-decision. After the Games he became a professional wrestler and was a big fan favorite, which led to Hollywood.

According to Mike Chapman in his article on Pendleton in Classic Images (May 2015), Nat was a direct descendant of Revolutionary War hero General Nathanael Greene, who won key victories over the British. It also is reported that Pendleton is a distant relative of "Star-Spangled Banner" composer Francis Scott Key.

Auditioned for the role of Tarzan for MGM but lost out to Johnny Weissmuller.

He was usually cast as a circus strongman, brutish thug, dumb cop or dense buffoon, but he had a college degree and in 1933 wrote the script for Deception (1932), in which he starred--not surprisingly--as a wrestler.

A voracious reader, he wrote poetry, played the banjo and was an avid chess player.