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Leo Gordon
Leo Vincent Gordon (December 2, 1922 – December 26, 2000) was an American character actor and screenwriter. During more than 40 years in film and television he was most frequently cast as a supporting actor playing brutish bad guys but occasionally played more sympathetic roles just as effectively.
Gordon was born in Brooklyn in New York City on December 2, 1922. Reared by his father in dire poverty, Gordon grew up during the Great Depression. He left school in the eighth grade, went to work in construction and demolition, and then joined the New Deal agency, the Civilian Conservation Corps, in which he participated in various public works projects. After the United States entered World War II in 1941, Gordon enlisted in the U.S. Army, in which he served for two years and received an undesirable discharge. Gordon was in southern California where he and a cohort attempted to rob a bar and its patrons with a pistol. He was shot in the stomach by one of the patrons. Convicted of armed robbery, he served five years in San Quentin Prison, where he furthered his education by reading nearly every book in the library.
Gordon 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 (ADA). During his time at the ADA, Gordon was enrolled with several future screen legends including Grace Kelly and Anne Bancroft. For a time, Jason Robards, later a two-time Academy Award winner, was Gordon's instructor. It was there where he also met his future wife, Lynn Cartwright, who would have a sporadic but lengthy career as a character actor, mainly in television (though her most famous role came in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own when she played Geena Davis's aging character "Dottie Hinson"). They were married in 1950 and remained together until his death a half century later. They had one child, a daughter named Tara.[citation needed]
Gordon started his career on the stage and worked with fellow actors Edward G. Robinson and Tyrone Power. He was soon discovered by a Hollywood agent in a Los Angeles production of Darkness at Noon. Over the course of his career Gordon would appear in more than 170 film and television productions from the early 1950s to the mid-1990s.
In 1954 Gordon portrayed the outlaw Bill Doolin, a native Arkansan who founded the Wild Bunch gang and operated primarily in Kansas, on the syndicated television series Stories of the Century, starring and narrated by Jim Davis.[citation needed]
In 1955 he was cast on the ABC religion anthology series Crossroads in the role of Sergeant Leroy in "All My Love". In 1958 he appeared as Joe Brock in the episode "Desert Fury" of CBS's Tales of the Texas Rangers.[citation needed] That same year Gordon was cast as Zip Wyatt in "Three Wanted Men" of Rex Allen's syndicated Western series Frontier Doctor. He also played a gunslinging professional killer in the pilot for the television version of Gunsmoke; but many changes were later instituted on the series, such as the marshal's office and Long Branch Saloon looking markedly different and the relationship between Matt Dillon and Kitty being subtly more formal as well, so the episode was buried deep in the season in the hope that viewers would not notice, which apparently worked. This pilot likely was S1E26's "Hack Prine".
Gordon was often cast to make the most of his 6-foot-2-inch (188 cm) height, intense features, deep menacing voice, and icy stare. He had radiant light blue eyes. One of his earliest films was Riot in Cell Block 11, shot at Folsom prison. The film's director, Don Siegel, who worked with such screen tough guys as Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, related that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met."
Other notable roles included that of John Dillinger in Siegel's Baby Face Nelson, opposite Mickey Rooney as the crazed protagonist. Gordon may be most noted for his recurring Irish character Big Mike McComb on the ABC/Warner Brothers Western television series Maverick, working from 1957 to 1960 alongside James Garner and Jack Kelly. Gordon's five appearances in the role include the much remembered episode "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres", "According to Hoyle" and "Plunder of Paradise" as well as "War of the Silver Kings", the first installment broadcast. Garner later recalled in his videotaped interview for the Archive of American Television 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. This is obviously visible when Gordon first hits Garner in the stomach, slamming Garner back against a closet door. Garner and Gordon reunited in the 1970s when Gordon appeared as a dimwitted bodyguard on four episodes of NBC's The Rockford Files starring Garner.[citation needed]
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Leo Gordon
Leo Vincent Gordon (December 2, 1922 – December 26, 2000) was an American character actor and screenwriter. During more than 40 years in film and television he was most frequently cast as a supporting actor playing brutish bad guys but occasionally played more sympathetic roles just as effectively.
Gordon was born in Brooklyn in New York City on December 2, 1922. Reared by his father in dire poverty, Gordon grew up during the Great Depression. He left school in the eighth grade, went to work in construction and demolition, and then joined the New Deal agency, the Civilian Conservation Corps, in which he participated in various public works projects. After the United States entered World War II in 1941, Gordon enlisted in the U.S. Army, in which he served for two years and received an undesirable discharge. Gordon was in southern California where he and a cohort attempted to rob a bar and its patrons with a pistol. He was shot in the stomach by one of the patrons. Convicted of armed robbery, he served five years in San Quentin Prison, where he furthered his education by reading nearly every book in the library.
Gordon 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 (ADA). During his time at the ADA, Gordon was enrolled with several future screen legends including Grace Kelly and Anne Bancroft. For a time, Jason Robards, later a two-time Academy Award winner, was Gordon's instructor. It was there where he also met his future wife, Lynn Cartwright, who would have a sporadic but lengthy career as a character actor, mainly in television (though her most famous role came in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own when she played Geena Davis's aging character "Dottie Hinson"). They were married in 1950 and remained together until his death a half century later. They had one child, a daughter named Tara.[citation needed]
Gordon started his career on the stage and worked with fellow actors Edward G. Robinson and Tyrone Power. He was soon discovered by a Hollywood agent in a Los Angeles production of Darkness at Noon. Over the course of his career Gordon would appear in more than 170 film and television productions from the early 1950s to the mid-1990s.
In 1954 Gordon portrayed the outlaw Bill Doolin, a native Arkansan who founded the Wild Bunch gang and operated primarily in Kansas, on the syndicated television series Stories of the Century, starring and narrated by Jim Davis.[citation needed]
In 1955 he was cast on the ABC religion anthology series Crossroads in the role of Sergeant Leroy in "All My Love". In 1958 he appeared as Joe Brock in the episode "Desert Fury" of CBS's Tales of the Texas Rangers.[citation needed] That same year Gordon was cast as Zip Wyatt in "Three Wanted Men" of Rex Allen's syndicated Western series Frontier Doctor. He also played a gunslinging professional killer in the pilot for the television version of Gunsmoke; but many changes were later instituted on the series, such as the marshal's office and Long Branch Saloon looking markedly different and the relationship between Matt Dillon and Kitty being subtly more formal as well, so the episode was buried deep in the season in the hope that viewers would not notice, which apparently worked. This pilot likely was S1E26's "Hack Prine".
Gordon was often cast to make the most of his 6-foot-2-inch (188 cm) height, intense features, deep menacing voice, and icy stare. He had radiant light blue eyes. One of his earliest films was Riot in Cell Block 11, shot at Folsom prison. The film's director, Don Siegel, who worked with such screen tough guys as Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, related that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met."
Other notable roles included that of John Dillinger in Siegel's Baby Face Nelson, opposite Mickey Rooney as the crazed protagonist. Gordon may be most noted for his recurring Irish character Big Mike McComb on the ABC/Warner Brothers Western television series Maverick, working from 1957 to 1960 alongside James Garner and Jack Kelly. Gordon's five appearances in the role include the much remembered episode "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres", "According to Hoyle" and "Plunder of Paradise" as well as "War of the Silver Kings", the first installment broadcast. Garner later recalled in his videotaped interview for the Archive of American Television 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. This is obviously visible when Gordon first hits Garner in the stomach, slamming Garner back against a closet door. Garner and Gordon reunited in the 1970s when Gordon appeared as a dimwitted bodyguard on four episodes of NBC's The Rockford Files starring Garner.[citation needed]