Leo Gordon
| Leo Gordon | |
|---|---|
| Born | Leo Vincent Gordon December 2, 1922 Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States |
| Died | December 26, 2000 (aged 78) Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Years active | 1952-94 |
| Spouse | Lynn Cartwright (1950-2000) (his death) |
Leo Vincent Gordon (December 2, 1922 - December 26, 2000) was an American movie and television character actor as well as a screenplay writer and novelist. He specialized in playing brutish bad guys during more than forty years in film and television.
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[edit] Early life and career
Gordon was born in Brooklyn, New York City on December 2, 1922. He was raised by his father in dire poverty and grew up during the Great Depression. At the outset of World War II he joined the army.
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. During his time at the academy, 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 here that he also met his future wife, Lynn Cartwright, who would have a sporadic but lengthy career as a character actor, 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.
[edit] Actor in film and television
Gordon started his career on the stage and worked with such stars as 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, 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 as Gordon had radiant light blue eyes. One of his earliest films was Riot in Cell Block 11, which was filmed at San Quentin.
Other notable roles included playing a highly charged Dillinger in Siegel's Baby Face Nelson, opposite Mickey Rooney as the crazed protagonist. Gordon may be most noted for his recurring character "Big Mike McComb" on the Maverick television series from 1957 to 1960, working alongside James Garner and Jack Kelly, including an appearance in the famous "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" episode. 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. Garner and Gordon reunited in the 1970s when Gordon appeared as a dimwitted bodyguard on four episodes of The Rockford Files.
One of his best remembered television appearances was a spoof of High Noon, playing an ex-convict who seemingly wants revenge against Andy Taylor in the episode "High Noon in Mayberry" on The Andy Griffith Show. Perhaps Gordon's single most memorable film scene occurred in McLintock! (1963), during which John Wayne 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 The Night of the Grizzly opposite Clint Walker, 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 sympathetic 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 (1957), a film which he wrote, and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama The Intruder (1962), opposite a young William Shatner. He also appeared as aging wrestler Milo Stavroupolis in Little House on the Prairie.
Gordon's final role was as Wyatt Earp in a 1994 episode of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. He also appeared in Maverick that same year with Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner.
[edit] 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, featured a young and unknown Jack Nicholson. Among the most notable feature films he wrote were You Can't Win 'Em All (1970) starring Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson and Tobruk (1967) starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard and directed by Arthur Hiller, 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 and Cheyenne as well as episodes for Maverick, 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, another show he often scripted.
[edit] Later life and persona
In contrast to his screen persona, Gordon was a quiet, thoughtful and intelligent man who generally avoided the Hollywood spotlight.[citation needed] He was widely regarded by his fellow actors and his directors as a well-prepared professional.[citation needed] 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 home from cardiac failure. He and his wife's ashes are interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
[edit] Selected filmography
- The Dictator's Guns (1965)
