Gordon Scott

Known for ActingBorn 1926-08-03Died 2007-04-30Portland, Oregon, USA

Gordon Scott was an American film and television actor known for his portrayal of the fictional character Tarzan in five films (and one compilation of three made-as-a-pilot television episodes) of the Tarzan film series from 1955 to 1960. Gordon Scott was the eleventh Tarzan, starting with Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle. He was "discovered" poolside, and offered "a seven-year contract, a loin cloth, and a new last name." "Due in part to his muscular frame and 6-foot-3-inch [1.91-metre] height, he was quickly signed to replace Lex Barker as Tarzan" by producer Sol Lesser. Lesser had Gordon change his name because "Werschkul" sounded too much like "Weismueller". Scott's Tarzan movies ranged from rather cheap re-edited television pilots to large-scale action films with high-production values shot on location in Africa. In his early Tarzan films, he played the character as unworldly and inarticulate, in the mold of Johnny Weissmuller, an earlier Tarzan portrayer. In Scott's later films, after a change in producers, he played a Tarzan who was educated and spoke perfect English, as in the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. Scott was the only actor to play Tarzan in both styles. Fearing he would become typecast as Tarzan, Scott moved to Italy and became a popular star in epics of the péplum genre (known in the United States as sword-and-sandal), featuring handsome bodybuilders as various characters from Greek and Roman myth. Scott was a friend of Steve Reeves, and collaborated with him as Remus to Reeves's Romulus in Duel of the Titans. Scott also played Hercules in a couple of international co-productions during the mid-1960s. As the péplum genre faded, Scott starred in spaghetti westerns and Eurospy films. His final film appearance was in The Tramplers (filmed in 1966; released in the United States in 1968).Read more

Movies & web series

Investigating Tarzan

Kolossal - The Magnificent Macisti

Top Secret

The Movie Orgy

Look Back in Anger

The Pot Carriers

The Tramplers

Goliath and the Vampires

Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World

The Shortest Day

The Steve Allen Show

Zorro and the Three Musketeers

The Tyrant of Lydia Against the Son of Hercules

Kerim, Son of the Sheik

Hercules and the Princess of Troy

Tarzan the Magnificent

Gladiator of Rome

Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West

Tarzan and the Lost Safari

A Queen for Caesar

Tarzan's Greatest Adventure

Thunder of Battle

Hero of Babylon

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle

Romulus and Remus

Women in Cell Block 7

Tarzan's Fight for Life

The Lion of St. Mark

Hero of Rome

Tarzan and the Trappers

The Conquest of Mycenae

Danger!! Death Ray

Tarzan: Lord of the Movies

In Search of Tarzan with Jonathan Ross

Tarzan at the Movies, Part 2: The Many Faces of Tarzan

L'Attaque de Fort Adams (Une aventure de Buffalo Bill)