From wikipedia:
Here is a brief review of his filmography. Many are not Hercules, but sword and sandall films with the same purpouse of entertaintment that show legendary adventures and natural muscles in action.
In 1957, Reeves went to Italy and played the lead character in Pietro Francisci's Hercules, a relatively low-budget epic based loosely on the tales of Jason and the Argonauts, though inserting Hercules into the lead role.[1] The film was a major box-office success, grossing $5m in the United States alone in 1959.[4] Its commercial success led to a 1959 sequel Hercules Unchained.
From 1959 through 1964, Reeves went on to appear in a string of sword and sandal movies shot on relatively small budgets,[1] and although he is best known for his portrayal of Hercules, he played the character only twice: in the 1957 film (released in the USA in 1959) and its 1959 sequel Hercules Unchained (released in the US in 1960). He played a number of other characters on screen, including Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Glaucus of Pompeii; Goliath, the bane of the barbarians (actually called "Emiliano" in the Italian version); Tatar hero Hadji Murad; Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome (opposite Gordon Scott as his twin brother Remus); Pheidippides, the famous war-time messenger of the Battle of Marathon; pirate and self-proclaimed governor of Jamaica, Captain Henry Morgan; and Karim, the fabled Thief of Baghdad. Twice he played Aeneas of Troy and twice he played Emilio Salgari's Malaysian hero, Sandokan.
Why des Reeves abandon the films? It's well know, as you can read:
During the filming of The Last Days of Pompeii, Reeves dislocated his shoulder when his chariot slammed into a tree.[1][2] Swimming in a subsequent underwater escape scene, he re-injured his shoulder. The injury would be aggravated by his stunt work in each successive film, ultimately leading to his retirement from filmmaking and weightlifting.[1]
He die of a lymphoma in the firsts months of the new millenium:
