Cameron Mitchell: Movies & Box Office

Cameron Mitchell was born Cameron McDowell Mitzell on 1918-11-04 in Dallastown, Pennsylvania, the seventh of seven children of Rev. Charles Michael Mitzell and Kathryn Isabella Ehrhart. He grew up in modest circumstances, moving to Chicora in 1921 when his father became a pastor, and later to Shrewsbury, where he attended Shrewsbury Elementary and New Freedom High School, excelling in spelling bees, baseball pitching and boxing before choosing the stage over sport. A generous loan from his French teacher enabled him to travel to New York in 1937, where he studied at the Theatre School of Dramatic Arts and quickly attracted the attention of legendary actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who not only secured him an audition but also advised him to Anglicize his surname to Mitchell – a change he adopted as his career gained momentum. After a series of odd jobs, including NBC page work and dishwashing, Mitchell made his Broadway debut in 1939, originated the role of Happy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1949), and earned a Theatre World Award, before transitioning to Hollywood under contract with MGM in 1945, where he appeared in Cass Timberlane, Homecoming and other notable films.

Mitchell’s screen career blossomed in the 1950s with a memorable turn in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and a starring role as Buck Cannon in the television western The High Chaparral (1967‑1971). He later became a fixture of European genre cinema, collaborating with Mario Bava on Blood and Black Lace (1964) and Erik the Conqueror (1961), and appeared in numerous exploitation, horror and slasher titles throughout the 1970s and 1980s, such as The Toolbox Murders and The Swarm. Off‑screen, Mitchell married three times – to Johanna Mendel (1940‑1957), Lissa Jacobs Gertz (1957‑1974) and Margaret Brock Johnson Mozingo (1973‑1976) – fathering seven children, among them actors Camille Mitchell and Cameron Mitchell Jr. He served as a bombardier in World II, achieved the rank of second lieutenant, and faced financial difficulties later in life, filing for bankruptcy in 1974. Mitchell died of lung cancer on 1994-07-06 in Pacific Palisades, California, and is interred at Desert Memorial Park.