Don Gordon

Don Gordon, born Donald Walter Guadagno on November 13, 1926, in Los Angeles, California, was an American actor whose career spanned Broadway, television, and film. He died on April 24, 2017, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 90, having been diagnosed with cancer shortly before his death.

Gordon grew up in Los Angeles during the Great Depression, selling newspapers at age eight to help support his family. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Navy at fifteen, persuading his mother to attest that he was eighteen. He earned eleven service stars during his service. After the war, Gordon enrolled in drama school, where he adopted his stage name. As later recounted in The New York Times, he was standing outside the school at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Gordon Street when a classmate suggested he would never succeed in show business as Guadagno and pointed to the street sign as the source of his new surname.

His stage career brought him to Broadway, where he performed between 1954 and 1963. He starred in On an Open Roof and also appeared in Stockade during that period.

On television, Gordon took a starring role in the syndicated series The Blue Angels, which ran from 1960 to 1961 and was based on the United States Navy's precision flight demonstration team. In 1962, he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of Joey Tassili on the CBS legal drama The Defenders, starring E.G. Marshall. He later co-starred in the television series Lucan during 1977 and 1978, and played Harry in the CBS drama The Contender in 1980.

Gordon's film career is closely associated with his friendship with Steve McQueen. The two appeared together in Bullitt in 1968, Papillon in 1973, and The Towering Inferno in 1974. Among his other film credits were The Gamblers, WUSA, and Cannon for Cordoba, all in 1970, followed by The Last Movie in 1971, Z.P.G. and Fuzz and Slaughter in 1972, The Mack and Papillon in 1973, The Education of Sonny Carson in 1974, and Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981, in which he played the ill-fated assistant to the protagonist Damien Thorn. His final credited film appearance was in the 2005 documentary Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool, in which he was among those interviewed about his close friend and colleague.

Gordon married four times. His first marriage, to actress Helen Westcott, took place on February 18, 1948, in Oxnard, California, and ended in divorce in 1953. He was subsequently married to actress Nita Talbot from 1954 to 1958. On December 31, 1959, he married actress Bek Nelson in Los Angeles; the couple adopted a daughter, Gabrielle, in 1966, and divorced on May 23, 1979. On December 24, 1979, Gordon married Denise Farr, daughter of actress Felicia Farr, and remained married to her until his death. He was survived by his wife Denise and his daughter Gabrielle.