Nat Pendleton

2014 Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame Inductee

August 9, 1895 – October 12, 1967

Few wrestlers of the era enjoyed the spotlight quite like Nathaniel Greene “Nat” Pendleton.

A two-time AAU champion and Olympic silver medalist, Pendleton continued to attract attention through a successful professional wrestling career, which he later parlayed into a long-standing Hollywood film career.

It is doubtful that Pendleton ever wrestled in Iowa, but he was born in Davenport, Iowa, to Adelaide E. and Nathaniel G. Pendleton. As a native Iowan, he is recognized by the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Pendleton was a powerful and charismatic athlete who quickly became one of the most recognized figures at Columbia University, where he began his wrestling career. He won the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) championship at 175 pounds in 1914 and followed it with another title in 1915. Shortly after graduating in 1916, he won two National AAU Wrestling Championships while representing the New York Athletic Club.

In 1920, Pendleton reached a level no other Columbia wrestler had achieved. Competing in the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, he won the silver medal. The American team had expected him to bring home gold, but he was defeated in the semifinals by Switzerland’s Robert Roth in a controversial decision.

Following the Olympics, Pendleton became a successful professional wrestler. However, that career was cut short after a highly publicized match ended in a career-ending knee injury.

Pendleton later became a well-known character actor in motion pictures. He appeared in more than 100 films, with screen credits including You Said a Mouthful, The Great Ziegfeld, Young Doctor Kildare, Northwest Passage, Top Sergeant Mulligan, and Death Valley.

Though never a leading man, Nat Pendleton maintained steady work in Hollywood from the 1920s through the 1940s. Wisely investing his earnings, he retired from film in 1947 following the releases of Scared to Death (with Bela Lugosi) and Buck Privates Go Home (with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello). After retiring, Pendleton moved to San Diego but occasionally took on television roles in the 1950s.

Pendleton died of a heart attack in San Diego in 1967 at the age of 72. He was inducted posthumously into the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2014.