Leo Gordon
Encyclopedia
Leo Vincent Gordon was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 movie and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

 as well as a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and novelist. He specialized in playing brutish bad guys during more than forty years in film and television.

Early life and career

Gordon was born in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 on December 2, 1922. He was raised by his father in dire poverty and grew up during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. At the outset of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 he joined the army but soon found he was not suited to life under military discipline. He left the army in 1943 after two years of service. Following his honorable discharge, finding himself homeless and without profession or family, he eventually drifted to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

 and into a life of crime. Following a conviction for armed robbery, he was sentenced to four years at the infamous San Quentin State Prison near San Francisco where he earned a reputation among both the guards and his fellow prisoners as a troublemaker and someone not to fool with.

Following his release, Gordon returned home to New York and found work in construction. He took advantage of the benefits accorded him as part of the G.I. Bill and began taking acting lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...

. During his time at the academy, Gordon was enrolled with several future screen legends including Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...

 and Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, which she had studied under Lee Strasberg....

. For a time, Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...

, later a two-time Academy Award winner, was Gordon's instructor. It was here that he also met his future wife, Lynn Cartwright
Lynn Cartwright
Lynn Cartwright was an American character actress probably best known for her performance as the older version of Geena Davis' character, Dottie Hinson, in the 1992 film A League of Their Own....

, who would have a sporadic but lengthy career as a character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

, mainly in television. They were married in 1950 and remained together until his death a half century later. They had one child, a daughter named Tara.

Actor in film and television

Gordon started his career on the stage and worked with such stars as Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...

 and Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...

. He was soon discovered by a Hollywood agent in a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 production of "Darkness at Noon." Over the course of his career, he would appear in more than 170 film and television productions from the early 1950s to the mid 1990s.

Gordon was often cast to make the most of his large size, intense features, deep menacing voice, and icy stare. One of his earliest films was Riot in Cell Block 11
Riot in Cell Block 11
Riot in Cell Block 11 is a 1954 drama film starring Neville Brand and Leo Gordon. It was directed by Don Siegel, based on the screenplay by Richard Collins.-Plot:...

, which was filmed at San Quentin where Gordon had served time. He was well known to the guards there, who were wary of him since they remembered him vividly as one of their toughest inmates. Throughout the course of the entire shooting schedule at the prison, Gordon was not permitted to enter or leave with the other cast members; he was only allowed to enter and exit by himself and was thoroughly searched each time. The film's director, Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...

, was widely quoted as saying Gordon was the "scariest man I ever met."

Other notable roles included playing a highly charged Dillinger in Siegel's Baby Face Nelson
Baby Face Nelson (film)
Baby Face Nelson is a 1957 film directed by Don Siegel, starring Mickey Rooney as Baby Face Nelson, and featuring Leo Gordon as John Dillinger.-Cast:Mickey Rooney ... Lester M. 'Baby Face Nelson' Gillis Carolyn Jones ... Sue...

, opposite Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

 as the crazed protagonist. Gordon may be most noted for his recurring character "Big Mike McComb" on the Maverick
Maverick (TV series)
Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...

television series from 1957 to 1960, working alongside James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

 and Jack Kelly
Jack Kelly (actor)
Jack Kelly was an American film and television actor most noted for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the TV series Maverick, which ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962...

, including an appearance in the famous "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres, starring James Garner and Jack Kelly, remains the most famous and widely discussed episode of the Western comedy television series Maverick. Written by series creator Roy Huggins and Douglas Heyes and directed by Leslie H...

" episode. Garner later recalled in his videotaped interview for the Archive of American Television
Archive of American Television
The Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....

 that Gordon purposely punched him for real in one of their first scenes together and that Garner hit him back when filming the next scene. Garner and Gordon reunited in the 1970s when Gordon appeared on four episodes of The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files is an American television drama series which aired on the NBC network between September 13, 1974 and January 10, 1980. It has remained in regular syndication to the present day. The show stars James Garner as Los Angeles-based private investigator Jim Rockford and features Noah...

.

One of his best remembered television appearances was a spoof of High Noon
High Noon
High Noon is a 1952 American Western film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The film tells in real time the story of a town marshal forced to face a gang of killers by himself...

, playing an ex-convict who seemingly wants revenge against Andy Taylor in the episode "High Noon in Mayberry" on The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...

. Perhaps Gordon's single most memorable film scene occurred in McLintock!
McLintock!
McLintock! is a 1963 comedy Western starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and loosely based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The film is notable, perhaps even infamous, for its two spanking scenes, in which mother and daughter are each paddled with coal shovels: the daughter by her...

(1963), during which John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

 knocks him down a long mudslide after uttering the famous line "Somebody oughta belt you but I won't! I won't! The hell I won't." Another notable role was in the 1966 western Night Of The Grizzly opposite Clint Walker
Clint Walker
Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...

, one of the very few actors who could match Gordon's intense screen presence regarding physical size and strength. Gordon played bounty hunter Cass Dowdy, who would, as one character said: "...hunt anything for a price, man or animal.", but who had a soft spot for his enemy's son. Somehow, Gordon managed to make his character as sympahetic as he was frightening, and his final scene, giving his life to save the boy, is a classic.

Gordon portrayed sympathetic parts when called upon to do so, including his performances in the western Black Patch
Black Patch (film)
Black Patch is a 1957 American Western film directed by Allen H. Miner and written by Leo Gordon, who also plays a supporting role. The film stars George Montgomery and Diane Brewster , and is the first film featuring a musical score by Jerry Goldsmith.-Cast:*George Montgomery as Marshal Clay...

(1957), a film which he wrote, and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama The Intruder
The Intruder (1962 film)
The Intruder is a 1962 American film directed by Roger Corman, after a novel by Charles Beaumont, starring William Shatner. Also called Shame in US release, and The Stranger in the UK release...

(1962), opposite a young William Shatner
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...

. He also appeared as aging wrestler Milo Stavroupolis in Little House on the Prairie
Little House on the Prairie (TV series)
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western drama television series, starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s. The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books...

.

Gordon's final role was as Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...

 in a 1994 episode of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 4, 1992, to July 24, 1993. The series explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones and primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Corey Carrier as the title character, with...

. He also appeared in Maverick
Maverick (film)
Maverick is a 1994 Western comedy film based on the 1950s television series of the same name, created by Roy Huggins. The film was directed by Richard Donner from a screenplay by William Goldman and features Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner, as well as several cameo appearances...

that same year with Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....

 and James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

.

Screenwriter and novelist

Gordon also wrote scripts for television episodes and movies, sometimes writing himself a good role. Frequently billed as "Leo V. Gordon," he wrote dozens of scripts that would later become movies or television episodes. His first successful film script, The Cry Baby Killer
The Cry Baby Killer
The Cry Baby Killer is a 1958 cult film produced by Roger Corman. It was the feature film debut of Jack Nicholson. Until recently, the film was out of print and hard to find. In 2006, it was issued on DVD for the first time by Buena Vista Home Entertainment as part of their Roger Corman Classics...

, featured a young and unknown Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...

. Among the most notable feature films he wrote were You Can't Win 'Em All
You Can't Win 'Em All
You Can't Win 'Em All is a 1970 war film, written by Leo Gordon and directed by Peter Collinson, starring Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson as two American soldiers in 1922 Turkey who protect the three daughters of a Turkish governor while thwarting an Turkish army colonel's attempt to take gold on...

(1970) starring Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

 and Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...

 and Tobruk
Tobruk (film)
Tobruk is a 1967 American war film starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard and directed by Arthur Hiller. The film was written by Leo Gordon and released through Universal Pictures....

(1967) starring Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

 and George Peppard
George Peppard
George Peppard, Jr. was an American film and television actor.Peppard secured a major role when he starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's , portrayed a character based on Howard Hughes in The Carpetbaggers , and played the title role of the millionaire sleuth Thomas Banacek in...

 and directed by Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller, OC is a Canadian film director. His filmography includes 33 major studio releases, including the 1970 film Love Story...

, in which he appeared as Sergeant Krug. In addition to film and television scripts, Gordon also wrote several novels, including the historical Western "Powderkeg."

As a screen writer, he wrote nearly fifty scripts apiece for Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...

and Cheyenne
Cheyenne (TV series)
Cheyenne is a western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season...

as well as episodes for Maverick
Maverick (TV series)
Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...

, in which he had a recurring role during the first two seasons in episodes he did not write. In the 1970s he would frequently appear on the popular police drama Adam-12
Adam-12
Adam-12 was a television police drama which followed two police officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, Pete Malloy and Jim Reed, as they patrolled the streets of Los Angeles in their patrol unit, 1-Adam-12. Created by Jack Webb who is known for creating Dragnet, the series captured a...

, another show he often scripted.

Later life and persona

In contrast to his screen persona, Gordon was a quiet, thoughtful and intelligent man who generally avoided the Hollywood spotlight. He was widely regarded by his fellow actors and his directors as a well-prepared professional. In 1997, he received the "Golden Boot Award" for his many years of work in Westerns. In accepting the award, the actor simply flashed a smile for his fans and remarked "Thank God for typecasting!"

After struggling with a brief illness, Gordon died in his sleep at age 78 at his Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 home from cardiac failure. He and his wife's ashes are interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...

 in Los Angeles.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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