Hayes Gordon

Hayes Gordon (February 25, 1920 – October 19, 1999) was an American-born actor, director, producer, and acting teacher whose career spanned Broadway, Australian theatre, television, and radio. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he grew up in the city's tenements during the Depression of the 1930s. An only child, Gordon contributed to his family's finances by teaching at Peabody House, an organization that provided education to impoverished children. His first stage experience came through amateur Gilbert and Sullivan productions while he was still in high school.

After leaving school, Gordon studied pharmacy while also performing in variety broadcasts. At the age of twenty, he hosted his own weekly television series, Hayes Gordon Presents, and entertained guests at a hotel in New Hampshire. He eventually earned a Bachelor of Science degree and worked as a control chemist at a food company in New York before taking a position at a pharmacy. A customer's tip about an audition for a bass baritone led him toward a theatrical career, and he subsequently undertook voice training.

Gordon entered professional theatre in 1942 when he joined the chorus of the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, beginning with the operetta Naughty Marietta and following it with The Desert Song. Through the latter production he met lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, which led to a small part in the 1943 Broadway premiere of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma. Later that same year, Gordon was drafted into the army, where his first assignment was Moss Hart's musical play Winged Victory, which toured nationally. During his service he established a theatre education program for the company and studied acting under Sanford Meisner at the Neighbourhood Playhouse.

Returning to Broadway, Gordon appeared in a 1946 revival of Show Boat, the musical Brigadoon, Sleepy Hollow, and the revues Small Wonder and Along Fifth Avenue, with his Broadway career spanning 1943 to 1949. While working on Brigadoon, he began taking acting lessons from Lee Strasberg, the pioneer of method acting. During this period he also appeared in Fashion Story, described as America's first television soap opera, hosted a radio program called Music in the Air, and performed in nightclubs.

In 1951, Gordon's career in the United States was derailed when he became caught up in Senator Joe McCarthy's campaign against alleged communists in the entertainment industry. After refusing to sign a loyalty oath declaring he was not a communist, acting work ceased entirely. In 1952 he traveled to Australia to star in J. C. Williamson's production of Kiss Me, Kate. When a fellow cast member, Maggie Fitzgibbon, learned of his studies with Strasberg, she persuaded him to give informal acting lessons to the company. After the tour concluded in 1953, Gordon remained in Australia, appearing in J. C. Williamson's productions of Annie Get Your Gun and Oklahoma, and hosting the long-running Ford Show variety radio series. From 1955, he played Hajj in Garnet H. Carroll's staging of Kismet, presented the original Late Show television series, and created the afternoon program Medico.

Gordon was also asked to continue teaching Strasberg's technique, known as The Method and rooted in the teachings of Stanislavsky, to J. C. Williamson's company members. He occasionally taught at Doris Fitton's Independent Theatre as well. Among his regular students was Lorraine Bayly, and after eighteen months of study, Bayly and Gordon formed an acting troupe with several other students. Their debut performance, a series of short plays by Tennessee Williams, was staged at Cammeray Children's Library in 1958. Following that performance, the group adopted the name Ensemble Theatre Company, operating on the principle that there would be no stars, only the ensemble. Gordon served as its artistic director, and the company's early members included Reg Livermore, Jon Ewing, and Clarissa Kaye.

After selling out performances, Gordon relocated the company to a derelict warehouse in Sydney's Kirribilli, acquired through fundraising and renovated through voluntary labor by the actors themselves. The resulting Ensemble Theatre, Sydney's first theatre-in-the-round, opened in 1960 with a production of Mel Dinelli's The Man, starring Jon Ewing. Productions of Orpheus Descending and The Drunkard followed, along with Australian plays. Gordon directed the majority of the company's productions while also running the Ensemble's drama school, which hosted poetry readings, school presentations, and film screenings.

From 1966, Gordon directed a series of classic American musicals at Sydney's Menzies Hotel, including Oklahoma, Kiss Me Kate, Out of This World, Can-Can, Wonderful Town, Brigadoon, and South Pacific, with performers including Lorrae Desmond, Judi Farr, Nancye Hayes, Rosina Raisbeck, Reg Evans, and Denis Quilley. In 1967, J. C. Williamson's persuaded Gordon to return to acting, casting him as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. He remained with the production for its three-year run, and the role became the most acclaimed of his Australian career. He later performed in a re-enactment of the landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay for the 200th anniversary of the event, a production that was ultimately disrupted by protesters.

In 1971, Gordon directed Who Killed Santa Claus for Williamson's, and in 1973 he directed The Royal Hunt of the Sun for the Christchurch Arts Festival. That same year, the Ensemble's drama school relocated to Pitt Street. In 1977, Gordon published Toward an Ethical Theatre. The following year he returned to the stage to play Daddy Warbucks in a touring production of Annie with J. C. Williamson's, featuring the original Australian cast. In 1983, the Ensemble Theatre temporarily moved to the Sydney Opera House while a new, larger theatre was constructed in Kirribilli; the new venue opened in 1984 with a staging of The Prisoner of Second Avenue. Gordon reprised his role as Tevye in a 1985–1986 revival of Fiddler on the Roof for the Australian Opera, and in 1986 he handed over the role of Artistic Director of Ensemble Theatre to Sandra Bates.

Gordon's final stage appearance was in Broadway Bound for Gary Penny Productions at the Sydney Opera House in 1988, and his last directorial credit was Jake's Women in 1993. In 1992, he published A Compleat Compendium of Acting and Performing, in Two Parts, which outlined his Stanislavsky-influenced acting methods.

In his personal life, Gordon married and divorced American music theatre performer Katrina Van Oss in the United States. In 1972 he married former student Helen Terry, and the couple had one daughter. Gordon was recognized with an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1979 New Year's Honours for service to the performing arts, and in 1997 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in recognition of his service to the arts and the community. He was also honored with a tribute on an episode of This Is Your Life in 1979. Following his death on October 19, 1999, in Sydney at the age of seventy-nine, the Glugs Theatrical Awards named one of their prizes the Hayes Gordon Memorial Award for Important Contribution to Theatre.