Gordon Sterne

Gordon Sterne (16 January 1923 – 4 April 2017) was a German-born English actor whose career spanned stage, television, and film across multiple decades and continents. Born in Essen, Germany, of Jewish descent, Sterne departed his Nazi-dominated homeland in 1941 and settled in Windsor, Ontario, where his father worked in the tobacco business and his mother encouraged his theatrical ambitions. Before pursuing acting professionally, he studied economics at the University of Western Ontario, then volunteered for the Canadian Army in 1944, serving in the infantry and attaining the rank of sergeant.

In 1945, Sterne traveled to New York and trained at the Dramatic Workshop under its founder Erwin Piscator, graduating alongside Rod Steiger, Bea Arthur, Walter Matthau, Tony Curtis, and Harry Belafonte. He subsequently built an early career in America through radio, television, summer stock, and off-Broadway productions. During the 1940s he took on leading roles in various plays in New Jersey, and in the early 1950s he appeared as Benvenuto Cellini in The Firebrand at Washington's Arena Stage and as Joseph K in The Trial at New York's Provincetown Playhouse.

Sterne relocated to Britain in 1956, where he worked continuously in theatre, television, and film for more than fifty years. His fluency in German and French expanded his professional reach, allowing him to tour Germany in Drop Dead Darling and to perform with the English Theatre in Vienna. His Broadway career included a 1986 appearance in You Never Can Tell.