List of Mad Men characters
This is a list of fictional characters in the television series Mad Men. The nature of Mad Men is such that it is difficult to divide characters by significance, and all of the characters below have appeared in multiple episodes and their characters have developed over time.
Primary characters
Don Draper
Donald Francis "Don" Draper (Jon Hamm) is the creative director at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; he eventually rises to become a junior partner. Draper is the series' protagonist, and more storylines focus on him than on other characters. By his own choice, little of his past is generally known; he was born Dick Whitman, the illegitimate child of a prostitute who died during childbirth. "Dick" lived with his father and his father's wife until he was 10, at which time his father, a drunk, was kicked in the face by a horse and died. His stepmother then "took up" with a new man, referred to as "Uncle Mack," and had another son named Adam (supposedly fathered by Don/Dick's father, though Adam was born after the death of Mr. Whitman and the appearance of Uncle Mack). During the rare glimpses into Don's past provided in the show we learn his childhood was unhappy, and his stepmother never allowed him to forget he was a "whore child" (see episodes "Long Weekend" and "Hobo's Code," Season One). During military service in the Korean War an officer named Don Draper was killed while the two were posted alone at an isolated base. Dick then switched identification tags with Lt. Draper and assumed his name, cutting off contact with his family and creating a new life for himself. Don Draper has a deep intuitive understanding of the consumer's mind, making him a brilliant ad man and the award-winning star of Sterling Cooper — attracting and retaining major clients, commanding respect from those above and below him, being courted by rival firms, and generally living the picture-perfect good life of a successful businessman in the early 1960s. However, Don rarely seems happy with his "perfect" life: He is often stressed, drinks and smokes constantly, and is prone to spells of moodiness. While he appears to love his wife, he is constantly sleeping with other women. He had a brief affair with client Rachel Menken and was previously involved with beatnik Midge Daniels. He is willing to leave work in the middle of the day to see French New Wave films, and reads poetry by the likes of Frank O'Hara. In Season 2, Don has an affair with the wife of actor/comedian Jimmy Barrett, Bobbie Barrett. Don's wife Betty kicks him out of their house because of his refusal to admit to his affairs. He has three children, Sally, Bobby and a baby named Eugene. Don is at times a warm and loving father, while at other times, cold and aloof. Draper's tenuous and complex feelings toward his children are revealed when Pete Campbell threatened to expose his past—Don at least momentarily considered fleeing to Los Angeles and abandoning his wife and children. Bert Cooper makes him a partner after Roger Sterling's most recent heart attack.
After Betty kicks him out in Season 2, he stays in a hotel and then stays in Los Angeles for three weeks. He returns home at Betty's behest in the Season 2 finale. In Season 3, Betty has her third child, who she names Gene after her father, who passed away during her pregnancy, and has an unconsummated affair with Henry Francis. Later, Betty discovers Don's true identity and confronts him; Don breaks down and reveals his past. Several weeks later, a series of events, including the discovery of Don's identity, Henry Francis' proclamation of love and the deaths of John Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, prompt Betty into a revelation she no longer loves Don.
Peggy Olson
Margaret "Peggy" Olson (Elisabeth Moss), upon introduction, was the ostensibly naïve "new girl" at Sterling Cooper. She was originally Draper's new secretary, but showed surprising talent and initiative, including a knack for understanding the consumer's mind similar to Draper's own (albeit in a rawer, less focused form). Her retiring nature belies a talent for advertising, a quiet determination to succeed, and a surprisingly utilitarian attitude toward relationships. On the night of his bachelor party, Pete Campbell shows up drunk at Peggy's doorstep, and she takes him in for the first of their sexual encounters. Peggy was "discovered" by Freddy Rumsen after a Belle Jolie lipstick focus group, when she offers him his "basket of kisses". Peggy becomes "the first woman copywriter at this place since the War," much to Joan Holloway's bemusement and Pete Campbell's chagrin. In a gruff but ultimately caring fashion, Draper mentors and supports her as she transforms from wide-eyed secretary to one of the company's few non-secretarial female employees. In turn, she behaves with extreme loyalty to him. Pete Campbell and others, however, subject her to some emotional abuse. Due to her success on two recent copywriting assignments, Draper gives her a raise and subsequently promotes her to junior copywriter, with her first account bringing her into more day-to-day contact with Campbell, who serves as the client's account manager. Throughout the first season Peggy visibly gains weight, which is commented on in passing by other characters. In the final episode she gives birth to a son, and it is revealed that she was in psychological denial about the pregnancy and subsequently, her baby is put up for adoption by the State of New York. By the second season Peggy, or Miss Olson, is a junior creative executive and copywriter, leaving the position of Draper's secretary to be filled by less qualified subordinates, and is later promoted again to Freddy Rumsen's job. She asks for, and gets, Rumsen's old office. Peggy is from Brooklyn, where her fairly devout Roman Catholic family also lives. Peggy's mother appears to dote upon her, much to the anger of her much older married sister, Anita. Peggy attends Mass with her family and has occasionally helped Father Gill, a visiting priest, with the odd sermon or ad for a church social function, though she defines her spirituality on her own terms. In the Season 2 finale, after a brief confrontation with Father Gill about the need for confession, she tells Pete he was the father of her baby, and that she gave it away. Midway through Season 3, Peggy moves from Brooklyn to Manhattan to her mother's chagrin. She also has an affair with Duck Phillips, who has been trying to poach her and Pete from Sterling Cooper.
Pete Campbell
Peter Dyckman "Pete" Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is an ambitious young account executive whose father-in-law controls the advertising for Clearasil, a Sterling Cooper account. Campbell is sexually aggressive and pursues Peggy despite his recent marriage, and, with his wife away for the summer, would rape a German au pair residing in his apartment building. He is not well liked by his immediate superiors, but is retained anyway because he comes from a formerly wealthy but still socially influential Manhattan family. Pete's parents are cold to him and disapprove of his decision to go into advertising. Early in Season 2, Pete's father died in an airline accident, and Pete is unsure how to respond, since they were not close. While Pete has displayed talent at his work on several occasions, he is inordinately eager to advance, and is willing to use unethical tactics to do so. At one point he attempts to blackmail Draper into promoting him, threatening to reveal his real identity to Bertram Cooper. However, the ploy fails when Cooper responds with the scornful words, "Mr. Campbell... Who cares?" Pete treats most of the women he knows with veiled contempt and emotional abuse, particularly his wife and Peggy Olson. Pete feels resentment toward his wife and her wealthy parents, who pay for their Manhattan apartment and agree to support a theoretical grandchild that Pete tells his wife he can't afford on his salary. When he and his wife can't conceive, Trudy wants to adopt, but Pete refuses. This strains his relationship with his father-in-law. As Season 2 progresses, Pete often tries to engage Peggy in conversation. In the season finale, he tells her that he's in love with her, and she reveals to him that she had his child, and implies that she no longer has feelings for him. He is a graduate of Deerfield Academy and Dartmouth College.
Betty Draper Francis
Elizabeth "Betty" Draper Francis (née Hofstadt; January Jones) is the ex-wife of Don Draper (who affectionately called her "Bets" or on occasion "Birdy") and mother of their three children, Sally, Bobby and Gene. She is a classic early '60s homemaker, with the added intrigue of a past as a professional model. She majored in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr and speaks fluent Italian. Betty is concerned with appearances and in the first season sees a psychiatrist for her nerves. She's recently lost her mother, who also valued looks and appearances highly and encouraged Betty to stay slim so that she could attract a husband. Just as Don is, on the surface, the picture-perfect model of a successful early '60s businessman, Betty appears to be the model wife, but like her husband she sometimes expresses feelings of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction with her "perfect life", and it is implied by her sometimes strained relations with her children that she never wanted to be a mother. She is often lonely, as Don spends most of his days and many nights in Manhattan working—and seeing other women. Although Don sees her as an excellent, caring mother—something he lacked in his own life—he often neglects to treat her as an equal adult companion. She knows nothing of her husband's true past, and wishes he were less remote and more involved in life at home. At the end of the first season, having deduced that her husband receives reports from her psychotherapist, she tells her psychotherapist that she has known for some time that her husband has affairs. By the second season, she appears to have reached an accommodation with Don, and their relationship appears to be less distant. However, at the end of the second season's eighth episode, Betty - fed up with Don's humiliation of her in public and private - calls her husband at work and forbids him from coming home. In the Season 2 finale, Betty finds out she is pregnant, and after sex with another man, subsequently invites Don to come home again. In Season 3, Betty has her third child, who she names Gene after her father, who passes away during her pregnancy, and has an unconsummated affair with Henry Francis. Later, Betty discovers Don's true identity and confronts him; Don breaks down and reveals his past. Several weeks later, a series of events, including the discovery of Don's identity, Henry Francis' proclamation of love and the deaths of John Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald prompt Betty into a revelation that she no longer loves or trusts Don. By the beginning of Season 4, she has married Henry Francis, though they and the children continue to live in the house on Bullet Park Road.
Joan Holloway
Joan Harris (née Holloway; Christina Hendricks) is an office manager at Sterling Cooper who acts as a professional and social mentor, as well as a rival, to Peggy Olson. Joan relishes playing the role of femme fatale, and was engaged in an affair with Roger Sterling before his heart attack. An intelligent and capable woman, Joan loves the glamorous, sexy life she leads, saying of Manhattan, "This city is everything." Unlike Peggy, she does not strive to join the all-male cadre of Sterling Cooper's non-secretarial workforce, preferring to use her sex appeal to exercise control over the men around her. Joan is looking for a "more permanent arrangement", (i.e. husband, marriage, life in the suburbs). She is sexually active, and helps Peggy get a prescription for birth control pills. She lives with a female roommate, a friend from college, who is secretly in love with Joan and once made a failed attempt to initiate a romantic relationship with her. At one point, she had a relationship with copywriter Paul Kinsey, which took place before the beginning of the series. She briefly had a stint as a script reader for Harry Crane's television department. While she showed great enthusiasm and aptitude for the work and interacted well with clients, Harry was blithely ignorant of her contribution and replaced her with a young male university graduate. She said nothing to anyone about her disappointment in losing the position. By the second season, she is engaged to a doctor named Greg. Despite the doctor's appearance as a great catch, he feels threatened by Joan's past sexual experiences, and rapes her on the floor of Don Draper's office. In the third season, Joan showed great poise when greeting corporate bosses from the UK and intervening to save the young British heir's life after an incident in which a clumsy/drunk Sterling Cooper secretary runs over the man's foot with the John Deere tractor/mower during an office party.
Roger Sterling
Roger Sterling, Jr. (John Slattery), was one of the two senior partners of Sterling Cooper, and later a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. He is a former Navy man and World War II veteran and took over his father's partnership at Sterling Cooper. Sterling's father founded the firm with Bert Cooper. He is cynical about the world he has helped to shape, which leads him to extensive womanizing and alcohol use and cigarette smoking. In the episode "Red in the Face", he makes an intoxicated sexual advance toward Draper's wife; a suspicious Don is antagonistic toward his wife for "giggling at [Sterling's] jokes" and appearing interested in Sterling's war stories but is relieved when Sterling reveals it was he who initiated the flirtations. As a result of his lifestyle, Sterling suffers a heart attack while in the company of a young woman in the episode "Long Weekend." He suffers a subsequent heart attack in the following episode after coming into the office to assuage the concerns of executives from Lucky Strike, a prominent firm client. Before his heart attack, he had a longstanding affair with Joan Holloway. In Season 1 he has a wife, Mona (played by Slattery's real-life spouse, Talia Balsam), on whom he cheated regularly, and a young adult daughter named Margaret, with whom he struggles to communicate. In Season 2, he asks Mona for a divorce, and quickly marries Jane Siegel, the twentysomething former secretary of Don Draper. Sterling's marriage to Siegel strains his relationship with Don, who disapproves of Sterling leaving his wife for a younger woman and the very public nature of his marital troubles. The two men eventually reconcile, however, and Sterling is vindicated somewhat when Don's own marriage collapses. According to various clues from the show, Sterling is in his late forties or early fifties.
Sterling Cooper (Seasons 1-3/1960-December 1963)
| Character | Portrayed by | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partners | |||
| Don Draper | Jon Hamm |
| |
| Roger Sterling | John Slattery |
| |
| Bert Cooper | Robert Morse |
| |
| Putnam, Powell & Lowe | |||
| Lane Pryce | Jared Harris |
| |
| Account Services | |||
| Burt Peterson | Michael Gaston |
| |
| Duck Phillips | Mark Moses |
| |
| Pete Campbell | Vincent Kartheiser |
| |
| Ken Cosgrove | Aaron Staton |
| |
| Frank Birmingham | – |
| |
| Creative | |||
| Adam Rowe | – |
| |
| Peggy Olson | Elisabeth Moss |
| |
| Paul Kinsey | Michael Gladis |
| |
| Freddy Rumsen | Joel Murray |
| |
| Smitty Smith | Patrick Cavanaugh |
| |
| Victor Manny | Jonathan Walker Spencer |
| |
| Dale | Mark Kelly |
| |
| Art | |||
| Sal Romano | Bryan Batt |
| |
| Marty Faraday | Anthony Burch |
| |
| Kurt Smith | Edin Gali |
| |
| Media | |||
| Harry Crane | Rich Sommer |
| |
| Warren McKenna | John Douglas Williams |
| |
| Mitch Sullivan | – |
| |
| Ted Masters | – |
| |
| Research | |||
| Greta Guttman | Gordana Rashovich |
| |
| Floor | |||
| Joan Harris | Christina Hendricks |
| |
| Jane Siegel | Peyton List |
| |
| Lois Sadler | Crista Flanagan |
| |
| Allison | Alexa Alemanni |
| |
| Hildy | Julie McNiven |
| |
| Lola | Trisha LaFache |
| |
| Olive | Judy Kain |
| |
| Joyce | Julia Carpenter |
| |
| Elaine | Rene Hamilton |
| |
| Charlotte | Kiersten Lyons |
| |
| Wendy | Haley Mancini |
| |
| Marge | Stephanie Courtney |
| |
| Ivy | Zandy Hartig |
| |
| Nannette | Kristen Schaal |
| |
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (Season 3-present/December 1963-)
| Character | Portrayed by | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partners | |||
| Roger Sterling | John Slattery |
| |
| Bert Cooper | Robert Morse |
| |
| Don Draper | Jon Hamm |
| |
| Lane Pryce | Jared Harris |
| |
| Account Services | |||
| Pete Campbell | Vincent Kartheiser |
| |
| Creative | |||
| Peggy Olson | Elisabeth Moss |
| |
| Freddy Rumsen | Joel Murray |
| |
| Joey Baird | Matt Long |
| |
| Art | |||
| Stan Rizzo | Jay R. Ferguson |
| |
| Media | |||
| Harry Crane | Rich Sommer |
| |
| Floor | |||
| Joan Harris | Christina Hendricks |
| |
| Allison | Alexa Alemanni |
| |
Secondary characters
Paul Kinsey
Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Paul has been involved with Joan in the past, and dates an African American woman, who dumps him while they are registering black voters in the South. He lives in a beatnik neighborhood in New Jersey and espouses more Bohemian ideas and attitudes than his fellow young copywriters, listening to jazz and smoking marijuana. He is originally from New Jersey and attended Princeton on a scholarship, two facts he is eager to hide. A fan of science fiction and The Twilight Zone, he has a notably Camelot-era fascination with space. In season two he grows an Orson Welles beard. He initially encourages Peggy to pursue copy writing, noting that "There are female copywriters" but quickly becomes jealous and pettily competitive when her skill becomes clear. He expresses considerable anger when it is clear she was selected to leave the company and join Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
Ken Cosgrove
Kenneth "Ken" Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) is an account executive at Sterling Cooper. He is originally from Vermont and attended Columbia University. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Ken has literary aspirations and has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, an accomplishment that elicits jealousy from Kinsey and Campbell. In season 2 it is revealed that Ken makes considerably more money than Harry. In season 3, Ken and Pete are promoted, sharing the role of accounts director, which infuriates Pete who wanted the role for himself. While not as outwardly ambitious as Pete, he has proven to be a competent executive and an exceptionally talented creative thinker, eclipsing Campbell as a rising star at Sterling Cooper. Eventually, Cosgrove is promoted above Campbell, to the latter's fury. Unlike other supporting cast members, very little is shown of Ken's personal life or his interactions with people outside of Sterling Cooper coworkers. He mentions that his mother was heavyset. In the fourth season, it is revealed he is about to be married. To Pete's chagrin, he later joins SCDP, bringing Birds Eye and other clients with him.
Harry Crane
Harold "Harry" Crane (Rich Sommer) was a media buyer at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Harry is originally from Wisconsin and is married to Jennifer, who works at a phone company. They seem to have one of the few equal marriages in the show; Harry is honest with his wife and is shown asking her advice about his problems at work. Harry flirts with women, but is faithful to his wife until he has too much to drink at an office party and has a one night stand with Hildy. He confesses the infidelity to Jennifer, who kicks him out of his home for a time; he and Jennifer appear to have resolved that issue by the second season, and Jennifer gives birth to a daughter by Season 3. Harry is something of a pushover, accepting far less in pay in negotiations than he could have asked for, and his non-confrontational attitude causes him to mishandle a situation that leads to the firing of his friend and co-worker Sal. Despite these flaws, Harry manages to create and make himself head of Sterling Cooper's television department, and in Season 3 he is elevated under the British administration of Sterling Cooper; he later accepts an offer to join Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as head of media. During season 4, a more confident Harry shows great progress as he is often traveling to Los Angeles and making deals with television networks on the new agency's behalf.
Sal Romano
Salvatore "Sal" Romano (Bryan Batt) is the Italian-American head art director at Sterling Cooper. He is originally from Baltimore. He is gay and in the closet. Sal turned down a proposition from a Belle Jolie lipstick male employee midway through the first season, admitting that he has thought about having relationships with men but never acted on his impulse, implying it was out of fear of discovery. He joins the other men of Sterling Cooper in their flirtations with the women in the workplace, in order to keep up the appearance that he is as interested in the opposite sex as they are. He speaks to his mother in Italian. In between Seasons One and Two, Sal marries a childhood friend, Kitty (Sarah Drew), who is unaware of his true orientation but over time becomes suspicious.[1] The two entertain Ken for dinner during the second season during which Sal seems taken with his male guest. In the third season premiere, Don Draper becomes aware of Sal's orientation after catching him with a bellhop in a hotel room by accident, but subtly assures him that he'll keep silent by bringing up an ad campaign with the slogan "limit your exposure." Later in the third season with Don's encouragement, Sal branches out into directing commercials for the company while his wife becomes increasingly suspicious of him. Sal is fired from Sterling Cooper when he rejects the advances of a powerful male client. Sal sports a red tie and a gold pinkie ring, which are early indicators of his sexuality; the colored tie and the pinkie ring were two signals that closeted gay men used to signal their desires to each other.[citation needed]
Bert Cooper
Bertram "Bert" Cooper (Robert Morse) is the Senior Partner[2] of Sterling Cooper, a crafty old gentleman who is treated with considerable deference by Sterling and Draper. He founded the agency in 1923 with Roger Sterling's father and it suggested that he knew Roger Sterling as a child; his late wife introduced Roger and Mona, and he keeps a picture of young Roger and Roger's father in his office. Cooper lectures Sterling about being dependent on smoking, and criticizes Draper for his love life (though not for his stolen identity). Cooper's younger sister, Alice, is a partner at Sterling Cooper, and invested in the company when it was just getting started. He has a late period red painting by Mark Rothko and the erotic illustration The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife hung in his office and is a devotee of Ayn Rand. He appears to be an aficionado of Japanese art and culture: his office is decorated in a Japanese motif with shoji dividers among other things, and he requires visitors to remove their shoes before they enter his office; Cooper also walks around the rest of Sterling Cooper in his socks. He is an influential member of the Republican Party, and gets Sterling Cooper involved with the Nixon campaign, providing advertising services to the campaign gratis. Cooper is not present in the office's day-to-day wranglings, but he is devoted to the business and quietly manages various challenges from behind the scenes. After selling a majority interest in the company to a British firm who begins to exert control, he begins to feel less and less significant but accepts it as part of the terms of the buyout. When he discovers that the firm will be selling their business to a rival agency - and will be forced to retire as a result - Bertram goes on to co-found the new agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. According to Roger's tape recordings for the book he is writing, Cooper was given an unnecessary orchiectomy during the "height of his sexual prime."
Lane Pryce
Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) appears at the beginning of the third season as financial officer of Sterling Cooper and PP&L's man in New York. He appoints Campbell and Cosgrove as joint successors to Burt Peterson and communicates PPL's disinterest in the Madison Square Garden account. While his wife is distressed by the move from London, Pryce seems to warm to New York and Sterling Cooper. Pryce does not seem to be highly regarded by his superiors in London, who decide to transfer him to the firm's office in India—a plan that is aborted after Pryce's would-be replacement is injured in a freak accident—and do not inform him of their plans to sell Sterling Cooper. Sterling, Cooper, and Draper convince him to join them in starting a new agency, making him a named partner in exchange for "firing" the three of them to free them from their contractual obligations. Eventually, Lane's marriage falls apart, as his wife informs him that she has returned to London permanently. Lane and Don end up meeting at work, get drunk and go for a night out on the town. Lane ends up sleeping with a friend of a girl that Don is seeing, which is later revealed to be an escort. Lane pays for her services the following morning to Don.
Francine Hanson
Francine Hanson (Anne Dudek) is one of Betty Draper’s closest friends and neighbors. She spends many afternoons gossiping with Betty about the neighborhood's newest resident, a divorcee named Helen Bishop. Francine, married to a man named Carlton, in season 1 has just had a baby. Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair. The clues—secret phone calls to Manhattan and the fact Carlton sleeps at the Waldorf two nights a week—make her wish she could just poison him. By season 2 the couple has reconciled somewhat; Carlton appears to have gained weight, and the insinuation is food has become a substitute for womanizing.
Trudy Campbell
Gertrude "Trudy" Campbell (née Vogel; Alison Brie) is Pete Campbell's wife. Trudy and Pete marry early in season 1 and purchase an apartment on Park Avenue, with the help of Trudy's parents. Trudy is dutiful to her husband, even when he asks her to visit an old beau to get a short story published. In season 2, she expresses her desire to have a child, a desire Pete resists as he does not want to have children yet (not knowing he already conceived a child with Peggy). After discovering that she has fertility problems, Trudy wants to adopt a baby, but Pete balks. In season 3, Trudy and Pete have a closer relationship than they did before and seem to work together as a team, though Pete forcefully pursues a neighbor's au pair when Trudy is away on her summer vacation with her parents. In season 4, Trudy successfully conceives a child, a fact that Pete uses to corner his father-in-law and access a prized account for his firm.
Freddy Rumsen
Frederick C. "Freddy" Rumsen (Joel Murray) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He is the first in the office to notice Peggy Olsen's talent for copywriting while working on an ad campaign for Belle Jolie. Since that time, he has been quite supportive of Olsen's copywriting talents. He likes to seem lighthearted and open despite his age (his eldest daughter turns thirty in season 2, and he served in World War II), playing Mozart pieces on his pants zipper. However, he has serious problems with alcohol, and drinks unusually heavily at work even by Sterling Cooper standards. This ends up costing him his job when, after having too much to drink, he wets his pants and falls asleep shortly before he is supposed to deliver a pitch to Samsonite. Peggy delivers the pitch instead, and Pete reports the episode to Duck Phillips, who proceeds to report this to Sterling; Rumsen is shortly fired, to Peggy's frustration (she felt some loyalty to Freddy on account of his earlier assistance to her) despite the fact that his departure secured a promotion to senior copywriter for her ("Six Months' Leave"). Don and Roger take Freddy out for a night on the town in wake of his departure from the agency. In season 4's second episode, a sober Rumsen returns to work for SCDP, having brought a $2 million account for Pond's Cold Cream. His only condition on coming back was that Pete not be allowed near the account.
Rachel Menken
Rachel Katz (née Menken; Maggie Siff) is the Jewish head of a department store who becomes romantically involved with Draper after she comes to Sterling Cooper in search of an advertising agency to revamp her business' image. During the course of their affair, Don tells her things he has not shared with Midge Daniels or his wife. When Don is blackmailed by Pete Campbell, he comes to Rachel with the suggestion that they run away together to Los Angeles. She reminds him of his duty to his children, and questions whether he would want to abandon his children after having grown up without a father. When Don persists, Rachel comes to the realization that he didn't want to run away with her, he just wanted to run away. She calls him a coward. Their friendship seems to collapse from that point on. Meeting her in season 2 while out to eat with Bobbie Barrett, the wife of a comedian the firm is using to advertise potato chips, the show reveals that Rachel has gotten married in the interim to a man named Tilden Katz, going from Miss Menken to Mrs. Katz. Though it appears that Don is only momentarily shaken by the news of her marriage, several episodes later, after drinking heavily with Roger and Freddie Rumsen, he gives his name as "Tilden Katz" to a bouncer outside an underground club Roger is trying to get them into.
Sally Draper
Sally Beth Draper (Kiernan Shipka) is the oldest child of Don and Betty Draper. Sally became a more central household character in Season 3. The death of her grandfather, Gene Hofstadt, affected Sally significantly, and deepened the rift between her and her mother, Betty. When her youngest brother is named after their dead Grandfather and given his room, Sally becomes convinced that the baby is the ghost of her dead grandfather and becomes terrified of him. Sally is adventurous, and she has been seen throughout the series making cocktails for her father, smoking one of her mother's cigarettes, and being taught how to drive by her grandfather. Her behavior problems lead Betty to have her see a child psychiatrist in Season 4. Don sometimes calls Sally by the nickname "Salamander".
Bobby Draper
Robert "Bobby" Draper (Maxwell Huckabee, Aaron Hart, and Jared Gilmore) is middle child of Don and Betty Draper.
Gene Draper
Eugene Scott "Gene" Draper is the youngest child of Don and Betty Draper. He was born during the third season and is named after Betty's late father.
Recurring characters
Midge Daniels
Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt) is an art illustrator engaged in an affair with Draper in season 1. She is involved with the Beats and several proto-hippies, smoking marijuana as well as making several references to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. It appears Midge has other lovers besides Don, including one she may be in love with. Aware of her love for one upon seeing a photo of them, Draper ends their affair at the end of season 1 and gives her a bonus he earned. She has not been seen since.
Helen Bishop
Helen Bishop (Darby Stanchfield) is one of the Drapers' neighbors. She is a liberal divorcée and a Mount Holyoke College graduate. As a single mother of two children, Helen works in a jewelry store and volunteered for John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Her divorce as well as her habit of taking long walks has made her the subject of gossip for women in the neighborhood. A further rift develops between Helen and Betty Draper when the former discovered that Betty had given Helen’s son Glen a lock of hair while babysitting him one evening. When Helen confronts Betty at the grocery store, Betty slaps her in the face. It is later discovered that Glen ran away from his home to stay in the Drapers' playhouse in the hopes of eloping with Betty; however, Betty calls Helen to retrieve her son, much to Glen's dismay. Betty confides in Helen that she is separated from Don, and the two seem to reach some kind of understanding.
Glen Bishop
Glen Bishop (Marten Weiner, son of series creator Matthew Weiner) is Helen's son. Aged 9 in season 1 (1960), he develops a crush on Betty Draper. One evening, when she is babysitting him, he walks in on her while she is using the bathroom, and later asks for a lock of her hair. She acquiesces, and when Helen discovers it, she forbids Glen from seeing the Drapers. Late in Season two, Glen is shown to have run away from home and is discovered to have been staying in the Draper's playhouse. He proposes that Betty elope with him, but she instead calls his mother, which seems to kill his love for her. He returns in Season 4, working at a Christmas Tree lot, where he encounters Sally Draper and bonds with her over their now-shared experienced as children in divorced families. After discovering that she hates living in her house, he breaks in with a friend and vandalizes it, but leaves her room untouched.
Duck Phillips
Herman "Duck" Phillips (Mark Moses) is director of account services for a time at Sterling Cooper. In "Indian Summer" when Draper is made partner in the wake of Sterling's heart attack, Cooper gives Draper the authority to appoint a new head of account services. At the end of the first season, Draper brings in Phillips, who is looking for a job after alcoholism and an extramarital affair ended his career at Y&R's London office. Phillips appears to be a recovering alcoholic whose ex-wife and children are moving on with their lives. Phillips immediately challenges Sterling Cooper to broaden their clientele, seeking to attract airlines, automobile manufacturers, pharmaceuticals. At the beginning of season 2, in February 1962, Phillips wants the agency to hire younger creative talent, a move Draper resists. He also pushes Cooper to pursue American Airlines in the wake of a very public plane crash, forcing Don Draper to break his word and "cut" loose a client, Mohawk Airlines, in order to pursue a "bigger fish." At the end of season 2, frustrated at his failure to make partner, Phillips goes to some of his former London colleagues to arrange a merger of Sterling Cooper with the British firm Putnam, Powell & Lowe, which wants to establish a New York office. After the successful merger, Phillips is named president of Sterling Cooper, but he embarrasses himself in a drunken rant when Draper announces his intent to leave the firm. During season 3, it was revealed Duck is now working at Grey, another New York agency. He tries to poach Pete and Peggy from Sterling Cooper, and is unsuccessful, but he and Peggy begin having a sexual relationship. He later resurfaces in season 4 ("Waldorf Stories", episode 45) at the Clio Awards Show and drunkenly humiliates the man giving the introductory speech at the show, prompting security to remove him. Upon witnessing this, Sterling jokes "I miss working with that guy." Duck is a former United States Marine officer and served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He claimed to have killed 17 men at the Battle of Okinawa.
Adam Whitman
Adam Whitman (Jay Paulson) is Dick Whitman's half brother. In the first season episode "5G," Adam finds Don after seeing his picture in the newspaper and tries to re-establish a relationship with him. Initially unwilling to associate with him, Don agrees to meet him at lunch and later visits him at the place where he's staying. Don gives Adam $5,000 and asks him not to try to contact him again. Eventually, Adam mails a package to Don that contains old family photos and soon after hangs himself. Some time later in trying to reach Adam, Don discovers that Adam has committed suicide, which devastates him.
Henry Francis
Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) is a political advisor with close connections to NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the Republican Party. He is instantly infatuated with Betty Draper when he meets her at the Sterlings' Kentucky Derby party, and after they have been in contact for a while, he tells Betty that he is willing to marry her. At the end of Season 3, they plan for Betty to divorce Don and marry Henry. As season 4 begins, Henry and Betty are married and still living with the Draper children in the Drapers' house. His mother disapproves of Betty, aware of why Henry was interested in marrying her.
Suzanne Farrell
At the beginning of Season 3, Suzanne Farrell (Abigail Spencer) is Sally Draper's home room teacher. She engages in an extended period of flirtation with Don, and eventually enters into a sexual relationship with him. Suzanne is depicted as having a degree of idealism and shows hints of the "flower child" culture that will bloom in the late 1960s. Farrell lives in an apartment above the garage of a single-family, detached house. Her younger brother, Danny (Marshall Allman), suffers from epileptic seizures and as a result has become somewhat of a drifter, unable to keep a job for very long.
Conrad Hilton
Conrad "Connie" Hilton (Chelcie Ross) is the fictional portrayal of Conrad Hilton, the real founder of the Hilton Hotels chain. He first meets Don Draper, who presumes Conrad is a bartender, at a Kentucky Derby party. He later seeks out Don for help with an advertising campaign with Sterling Cooper. He is known to call Don during the middle of the night, and is the one who reveals to Don that Sterling Cooper will be bought by McCann Erickson during the third season.
Allison
Allison (Alexa Alemanni) is Don Draper's secretary, first at Sterling Cooper and later at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Allison was first seen as Sterling Cooper's receptionist. By Season 3, she had become Don Draper's secretary. Though little developed during the first three seasons, she was depicted as being competent and friendly. She was also shown to have something of an on-again, off-again relationship with Ken Cosgrove. In Season 1, Allison had a one-night stand with Ken on the night of the presidential election. In Season 2, she occasionally flirted with Ken and during Joan's going-away party she was seen sitting on Ken's lap. After Don asked that Jane Siegel be removed as his secretary, Allison was installed as her replacement. Although the sudden formation of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was done without her knowledge, Allison was hired by SCDP sometime during 1964 and continued as Draper's secretary. On the night of the Office Christmas Party in 1964, Allison was asked to bring Draper his apartment keys which he had forgotten at work. Upon entering his apartment, the drunken Draper seduced Allison and they had an impulsive sexual encounter. Draper attempted to forget about the impulsive affair, but ended hurting Allison when she realized he was going to pretend like nothing had happened. She continued to work for Draper for several months, but in the fourth episode of season four, Draper's continual avoidance of the topic finally led her to resign after bursting into tears at a focus group. An insensitive comment made by Draper during her resignation caused her to snap, throw a heavy paperweight at him and leave the office in tears.
Minor characters
Sterling Cooper and Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce
Much of the office drama focuses on the status of women in the office, most of whom are restricted to support positions such as secretaries, receptionists, and switchboard operators. Notably, Peggy Olson began the series as a secretary, but has been able to overcome gender-based prejudice and become a copy writer. For the first two seasons and much of the third season, Joan Holloway was the office manager and the direct supervisor of most of the support staff.
- "Smitty" Smith (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Kurt Smith (Edin Gali) are a young copy writer/art director team hired by Don at the beginning of the second season. "Smitty" is an American, and often has to explain the complexities of American culture to the European Kurt. They always work together. Kurt is a fan of Bob Dylan (whose career was still in its early stages in 1962, when the season is set) and arranges to take Peggy to a concert. Kurt is also openly gay (which causes quite a stir in the office when he announces as much in the breakroom) and quickly dispels the assumption that he is pursuing a romantic relationship with Peggy. Smitty is known to indulge in smoking Marijuana, as does Paul Kinsey. Smitty is seen working for rival advertising company CGC in the fourth season, and it is implied that Kurt is working there as well.
- Burt Peterson (Michael Gaston), an account services executive, is mentioned occasionally by characters, but he remains unseen until the first episode of the third season, in which he is being sacked from his position as Duck Phillips's successor as head of account services. His expresses his displeasure loudly as he leaves the offices.
- Dr. Greta Guttman (Gordana Rashovich) appears in the series premiere as Sterling Cooper's head of research. She is stern and Teutonic. She appears in only a few episodes in the first season, but the organizational chart in Season 3 shows that she is still employed at Sterling Cooper.
- Marty Faraday (Anthony Burch) is a graphic artist in Sterling Cooper's art department who envies Sal Romano's charm with the ladies. After Sal is fired, Marty takes his place in Don Draper's Creative sessions.
- Dale (Mark Kelly) is a copywriter seen occasionally in Season 1 and Season 3.
- Victor Manny (Jonathan Walker Spencer) is a copywriter who shares an office with Peggy Olson after Don offers her a permanent job as a copy writer.
- Warren McKenna (John Douglas Williams) shares an office with Harry in Season 2. Warren is depicted as not working very hard and spending a lot of his time at his desk eating. Warren gets tongue-tied at the sight of Joan for whom he harbors an infatuation.
- Lois Sadler (Crista Flanagan) starts as a switchboard operator in Season 1. In Season 2, she has become Don's secretary, but is depicted as being incompetent and is eventually sacked by Don for embarrassing him. By the end of Season 2, she is back on the switchboard and gives Harry, Paul, and Ken information about the upcoming merger that she has overheard in telephone conversations. In Season 3, she is Paul's secretary. It is Lois who is driving the tractor that causes the mayhem in "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency." Miraculously, she is not fired after this incident. She has a noticeable crush on Sal in Season 1.
- Jane Sterling (neé Siegel) (Peyton List) is a secretary at Sterling Cooper. She is assigned to Don in the second season. Jane clashes frequently with Joan and is about to be fired when Roger intervenes on her behalf. Shortly afterward, she begins an affair with Roger and he leaves his family for her. He quickly proposes out of the blue one morning in the episode "The Jet Set", and as she accepts his offer of marriage, they become engaged towards the end of Season 2. By the start of season 3 she and Roger are married. Their marriage in season three is depicted as tense. Jane is shown to be a heavy drinker, and she is repeatedly rejected by Roger's daughter Margaret, whom she is only two years older than.
- Hildy (Julie McNiven) is Pete Campbell's secretary. She appears to be efficient and conscientious about her job, though Pete often treats her poorly and clearly enjoys antagonizing her. During season 1 she has too much to drink at an office party and has a one night stand with Harry, who is married and is not typically unfaithful to his wife Jennifer (Laura Regan). The next morning both go out of their way to convey regret and a casual attitude, but it isn't clear that either really feel that way. In the second season, Hildy is shown speaking with Harry directly only once, at the office party to celebrate his wife's impending birth. Hildy drunkenly hugs Harry after emotionally telling him what a good father he'll be and repeatedly saying how happy she is for him.
- Lola (Trisha LaFache) is Peggy's secretary at the beginning of Season 3. Peggy expresses her annoyance at Lola's lateness and inattention to her duties and has her replaced within a few episodes. Lola, who is engaged, is shown enjoying the attentions of John Hooker.
- Olive (Judy Kain) is Peggy's secretary for the remainder of Season 3. She is older than the other secretaries and is married with a college-age son. She seems to have a motherly attitude towards Peggy and tries to give her advice (for example, telling her not to smoke marijuana with Smitty and Paul).
- Hollis (La Monde Byrd) is the elevator operator in the Sterling Cooper building on Madison Avenue. He "has a novel."
- Joyce (Julia Carpenter) is Roger's secretary
- Marge (Stephanie Courtney) is a switchboard operator
- Ivy (Zandy Hartig) is a switchboard operator
- Nannette (Kristen Schaal) is a switchboard operator. She appeared only in the pilot, as the show moved production to Los Angeles and Schaal is a New York-Based actress.
- Elaine (Rene Hamilton)
- Charlotte (Kiersten Lyons)
- Wendy (Haley Mancini)
Putnam, Powell, and Lowe
- John Hooker (Ryan Cartwright), an Englishman, is Pryce's assistant. His title is "secretary" but he insists that his status is not that of the other secretaries at Sterling Cooper. He tells Joan that "I'm Mr. Pryce's right arm; I'm not his typist." He insists that the switchboard operators address him as "Mr. Hooker" rather than as "John." He assumes Joan's position as office manager after her departure to become a housewife. He is referred to as "Moneypenny" by a variety of Sterling Cooper employees, much to his chagrin.
- St. John Powell (Charles Shaughnessy) is the managing director of London-based advertising firm Putnam, Powell, and Lowe. In Season 2, Duck Phillips meets with Powell and Alec Martin to propose that Putnam Powell buy out Sterling Cooper. At that meeting, Powell, goads Duck into drinking alcohol, which results in Duck's falling off the wagon. Powell eventually makes an offer that is accepted. At end of Season 2, Powell and Martin witness Duck's drunken rant against Don, which results in Duck's being pushed out of Sterling Cooper. He is the architect of PP&L's sale to McCann Erickson, keeping the information from Pryce and the rest of the Sterling Cooper staff. He later fires Pryce for "lack of character," furious that he has conspired with Sterling, Cooper and Draper to break their contracts and steal key clients.
- Harold Ford (Neil Dickson) is a Putnam Powell executive close to Powell, who treats Pryce with a degree of condescension.
- Alec Martin (Brandon Hayes) is a Putnam Powell executive who is present at the time of the merger with Sterling Cooper, but who has not appeared in Season 3.
- Guy Mackendrick (Jamie Thomas King) is a young accounts executive who is brought in by PP&L to take over Sterling Cooper in the Season 3 episode "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency." Powell and Ford express much enthusiasm for him. But following a tragic accident in which he loses a foot to a lawnmower driven by a drunken secretary during an office party, Powell and Ford decide that Mackendrick has no future and he is fired.
Archie Whitman
Archie Whitman (Joseph Culp) was Dick and Adam Whitman's father. He slept with a prostitute, who died in childbirth, and Dick was born. He is also the biological father of Adam, but by another woman who also raised Dick. Don tells Betty that his father would "beat the hell out of" him. When Don was a child, a friendly drifter stayed with the Whitmans and had a conversation with Don about how drifters know what kind of owner owns the place where they're staying. With the use of signs carved on the front of the property somewhere, it will indicate whether or not the owner is a good or bad person. When the drifter leaves, Don investigates and finds the sign for a bad person carved onto the fence. While intoxicated, Archie is kicked in the face by his horse and dies instantly, with Dick the only witness.
Gene Hofstadt
Eugene "Gene" Hofstadt (Ryan Cutrona) is Betty's elderly father. A veteran of World War I, he first appeared in the first season when, several months after his wife's death, he began dating another woman, Gloria Massey (Darcy Shean), upsetting Betty. He remarried sometime between November 1960 and April 1962. in 1962, Gene suffered a series of strokes that left him with slowed facilities and short term memory loss. He has become "confused" repeatedly, believing himself to be back in the army or in the midst of prohibition, once even fondling his daughter Betty when he mistook her for his late wife. His declining health eventually led to Gloria leaving him in early 1963 and his coming to live with the Drapers. He becomes close with his granddaughter, Sally Draper, before dying in June 1963.
Gloria Massey
Gloria Hofstadt (Darcy Shean), née Massey, is Gene Hofstadt's second wife, who is despised by her step-daughter Betty. Gloria tries to hide the extent of Gene's illness in Season 2. In Season 3, Gloria is not seen, but William discovers that Gloria, unable to deal with Gene's deteriorating condition, has left him.
William and Judy Hofstadt
William Hofstadt (Eric Ladin) is the younger brother of Betty Draper. He and his wife Judy (Megan Henning) have two daughters. William and Betty disagree over the disposition of their father's house (Betty does not want William to live there) and over how their father will be cared for as his health deteriorates. Judy seems to be a warm and giving caregiver for Gene.
Carla
Carla (Deborah Lacey) is a black woman who works as housekeeper for the Draper household. She continues to work for Betty after her divorce from Don and marriage to Henry Francis.
Jimmy and Bobbie Barrett
Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) is the wife of comedian Jimmy Barrett (born Jimmy Bernstein) (Patrick Fischler), a harsh and deprecating man the firm uses to advertise for their Utz Potato Chips account. After her husband insults the owner's wife Mrs. Schilling about her weight, Don has to intercede and ends up meeting Bobbie, also Jimmy's manager, who shrugs off her husband's behavior. On the way to get Jimmy to apologize to the Schillings, Don and Bobbie end up having sex, despite Don's initial protest. When Bobbie later tries to get more money from Don (in a bathroom of the restaurant they and Schillings are at for the apology) in exchange for the pay-or-play contract of her husband's, Don grabs her hair with one hand and puts the other up her skirt, then threatens to ruin Jimmy, Bobbie appears to enjoy the attention. Bobbie quickly makes her husband apologize. Later she comes to Don with a TV pitch called, "Grin and Barrett," a sort of Candid Camera-type show, except with her husband using his insult comic skills as the host. Don helps her arrange things and they continue to see each other on the side until the two are in a car accident that requires a cover up story. The two resume their affair after a brief hiatus following the accident but the affair ends when Bobbie reveals to Don that she and other women with whom Don has had affairs have been talking about his prowess as a lover. Upset to learn that he has a "reputation" Don leaves Bobbie during the middle of a sexual encounter. Later, during a business dinner, where Don and Bobbie and their spouses are in attendance, Jimmy reveals to Betty, Don's wife, that Don and Bobbie have had an affair. Betty is humiliated and kicks Don out of the home for a time. Though Betty may have suspected affairs in the past, Don's affair with Bobbie appears to be the only affair Betty actually knows about. Don later encounters Jimmy in an underground casino where he delivers a solid punch to Jimmy's face and knocks him off his feet, which Jimmy later rebukes as nothing.
Father Gill
Father John Gill (Colin Hanks) is a young Catholic priest in a visiting ministry at the church attended by Peggy's family in Brooklyn, first appearing in the second-season episode "Three Sundays." The fact that he is a Jesuit priest is indicated by the "S.J." after his name on church bulletins in the same episode. A rather progressive priest, he asks Peggy for advice about public speaking and advertising church events (such as a youth dance) after learning about her employment in advertising. He changes the style of a Sunday sermon to include more colloquialisms and to be more accessible to his congregation after listening to Peggy's criticisms, later giving her a copy of the sermon. Father Gill hears about Peggy's pregnancy during Peggy's sister Anita's confession; he appears to have taken an interest in bringing Peggy into the church community more completely. His progressiveness manifests itself at the end of "A Night to Remember," when he pulls out a guitar and begins to sing a folk-Gospel song (which would have been associated with Protestantism and considered rather radical at this time; the Second Vatican Council had only been called the previous Christmas, and had yet to convene). He conveys subtly to Peggy he would hear her confession if she wished, hinting he wishes their friendship to be one where they treat each other as equals. Additionally, he expresses a desire for her to receive the Eucharist. Peggy, for her part, is uncertain how involved she wishes to become - not only in the Church community but also in terms of her own faith, though she does appreciate Father Gill's friendship. At the end of season 2, after a confrontation with Father Gill over the nature of sin and forgiveness, Peggy decides to define her own spiritual faith and leaves the Church.
Andrew and Dorothy Campbell
Andrew Campbell (Christopher Allport) is the father of Pete Campbell. He disapproves of Pete's profession and treats him with contempt. In Season 2, Andrew dies in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1 and it is revealed that he has squandered his wife's fortune and family's inheritance on a lavish lifestyle. Dorothy "Dot" Dyckman Campbell (Channing Chase) is Pete's somewhat detached mother, who communicates her disapproval of Pete and Trudy's exploration into adoption by referring to orphans as "someone else's discards". Insulted, Pete reveals the truth about the family's fortunes to his mother, leaving her stunned.
Bud and Judy Campbell
Andrew "Bud" Campbell Jr. (Rich Hutchman) is Pete's elder brother, an accountant. Bud reveals to Pete the precarious financial state that their father has left and arranges for the liquidation of their mother's assets so that she can live comfortably. Judy (Miranda Lilley) is Bud's wife. Bud tells Pete that he and Judy have no plans for children and he lets slip to their mother Pete and Trudy's exploration of adoption.
Tom and Jeannie Vogel
Thomas and Jeannie Vogel (Joe O'Connor and Sheila Shaw) are Trudy Campbell's parents. Tom is an executive at Richardson-Vicks. In Season 1, he offers to help Pete and Trudy buy an apartment. Tom offers to give Sterling Cooper the Clearasil account if Pete agrees to having a baby soon. In Season 2, after Trudy finds out she is unable to conceive, he pressures Pete to agree to adopt a child. When Pete refuses, Tom cancels the Clearasil account. At the end of Season 3, Pete gets the account back with Trudy's help. In Season 4, Clearasil is dropped by the agency because of a conflict with another account, but Pete is able to manipulate Tom into giving him several larger accounts from Tom's company.
Anna Draper
Anna Draper (Melinda Page Hamilton) is the widow of the real Don Draper, the man whose identity Dick Whitman stole after his death during the Korean War. Anna tracks Dick/Don down while he is working as a used car salesman and confronts him about her husband. Don tells her that he died, and she is heartbroken. Despite the circumstances of their meeting, Don and Anna become close friends, and he buys her a house in California. Anna often serves as an understanding confidant to Don and he stays with her whenever he's in Los Angeles. When Don meets Betty and wants to marry her, he must get a "divorce" from Anna, which she grants him. He pays her another visit during his trip to California during the second season. Anna has a noticeable limp as a result of polio, and has a sister who her late husband was interested in before marrying her. In the fourth season, Anna's niece informs Don that Anna has terminal cancer, devastating him. Anna's sister has kept the news from her, and Don eventually agrees to do the same. In the end, Anna succumbs to her illness.
Ida Blankenship
Ida Blankenship (Randee Heller) is Allison's replacement as Don's secretary. An older woman, Miss Blankenship has a tendency to annoy Don and his co-workers with her attitude and work performance. Don, however, decides to keep her as she is the type of secretary he was looking for - one that he would not have a sexual liaison with. According to Roger's tape recordings for the book he is writing, he was involved romantically with her when she was Bert Cooper's secretary.
Other minor characters
- Marjorie (Bess Rous) - Peggy Olson's roommate in Season 1.
- Wanda (Heather Klar)
- Cleo (Jamie Proctor)
- Camille (Emma Roberts)
- Rosemary (Shayna Rose)
- Joyce (Rona Benson)
- Donna (Sarah Jannett Parish)
- Dora (Kathryn Taylor)
- Janet (Lisa Lupu)
- Rita (Mandy McMillan)
- Vicky (Marguerite Moreau)
- Ethel (Jennifer Dawson)
- Karen Ericson (Carla Gallo) – Peggy's roommate in Season 3. She comes from a Swedish family.
Unseen characters
- Frank Birmingham is an account services executive who is mentioned in by Pete Campbell in "Indian Summer" as a person responsible for a good deal of Sterling Cooper's business.
- Mitch Sullivan is a rival of Harry Crane in the media department whom Harry frequently speaks of in disparaging terms.
- Doug Thompson is the last founding member of Sterling Cooper still alive, other than Bert Cooper. Roger holds a childhood grudge against him.
Some names of unseen characters appear in a Sterling Cooper organizational chart shown in Season 3:
- Ted Masters - Head of TV production
- Adam Rowe - Copy chief
Miscellaneous characters
- Evangeline - Kelly Huddleston
