Dan Vadis
Encyclopedia
Dan Vadis was an actor of Greek descent with lineage tracing back to the infamous island of Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...

 in the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

. This former U.S. Navy SEAL and member of the Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....

 Muscleman Revue in the late 1950s, a brawny, durable 6'4" man with curly brown hair, bluish green eyes and an affable demeanor, was just one of many muscle men to take a stab at fame and fortune with the Italian sword and sandal
Sword and sandal
The Peplum , also known as Sword-and-Sandal, is a genre of largely Italian-made Historical or Biblical Epics that dominated the Italian film industry from 1957 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by the "Spaghetti Western"...

 films of the 1960s. Noted film critic Raymond Durgnat
Raymond Durgnat
Raymond Durgnat was a distinctive and highly influential British film critic, who was born in London of Swiss parents...

 famously asked if he was "the brother of Quo?"

His most notable role was "The Triumph of Hercules
The Triumph of Hercules
The Triumph of Hercules, the 1964 film, was one of many Italian sword and sandal epics during the 1960s craze. Originally titled Il Trionfo di Ercole, the film was directed by Alberto De Martino. Hercules was portrayed by Dan Vadis. Comic relief is provided by two bumbling thieves...

" (1964), in which Vadis portrayed Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

 battling golden giants and trying to save his princess love from her evil relative. The film was quickly followed by Hercules the Invincible
Hercules the Invincible
Hercules the Invincible is a 1964 Italian Sword and Sandal film directed by Alvaro Mancori and Lewis Mann and starring Dan Vadis....

retitled Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness, in The Sons of Hercules
The Sons of Hercules
The Sons of Hercules was a syndicated Embassy Pictures television show that aired in the United States of America in the 1960s. The series repackaged 14 Italian sword-and-sandal films by giving them a standardized theme song for the opening and closing titles, as well as a standard introductory...

 television package by Embassy Pictures
Embassy Pictures
Embassy Pictures Corporation was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as The Graduate, The Lion in Winter, This Is Spinal Tap and Escape from New York.-Founding:The company was founded in 1942 by producer Joseph E...

.
After the sword and sandal films faded he moved into spaghetti western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...

s, then became a recurring face in Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

 westerns such as "High Plains Drifter
High Plains Drifter
High Plains Drifter is a 1973 American Western film, with a hint of the supernatural, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and produced by Robert Daley for The Malpaso Company and Universal Pictures. Eastwood plays a mysterious gunfighter hired by the residents of a corrupt frontier mining town...

".

He died 11 June 1987 in Lancaster
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, USA, in a car in the desert (accidental drug overdose; acute ethanol and heroin-morphine intoxication). He was survived by his wife Sharon Jessup and his son Nick Vadis, known as "Nick V".

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