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Michael Gordon (born Irving Kunin Gordon; September 6, 1909 – April 29, 1993) was an American stage actor and stage and film director.
Michael Gordon. Director: Cyrano de Bergerac. A stage actor and director, Michael Gordon broke into films in 1940 as a dialogue director, then became a film editor. He directed his first feature in 1942.
- Director, Actor
- September 6, 1909
- Michael Gordon
- April 29, 1993
- Overview
- Films of the 1940s
- After the blacklist
Michael Gordon, (born September 6, 1909, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.—died April 29, 1993, Los Angeles, California), American film director whose career was bisected by the eight years he spent in exile from Hollywood after he was blacklisted for having run afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Gordon attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and then Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1935 he joined the Group Theatre in New York City and became its stage manager. He was also involved with the leftist film groups Nykino and its successor Frontier Films. He began in Hollywood in 1940 as a film editor and dialogue coach at Columbia Pictures. His first directing credits were such B-film series entries as Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood and Underground Agent (both 1942), followed by One Dangerous Night and Crime Doctor (both 1943).
Those films were capable if undistinguished, and Gordon returned to directing theatre in New York. However, when he moved to Universal-International Pictures after World War II, he found a more-respectable class of assignments awaiting him. The first was The Web (1947), a film noir starring such genre icons as Edmond O’Brien, Vincent Price, Ella Raines, and William Bendix; Gordon handled its convoluted plot with facility. But instead of continuing in that vein, he was handed the prestige project Another Part of the Forest (1948), playwright Lillian Hellman’s prequel to The Little Foxes (1941), with the impressive cast of O’Brien, Fredric March, and Dan Duryea.
When Hollywood invited Gordon back, he was fortunate enough to be given the sprightly romantic comedy Pillow Talk (1959), considered the best of the enormously popular Rock Hudson–Doris Day films. Portrait in Black (1960) was a melodrama starring Lana Turner, whereas Boys’ Night Out (1962) was a farce with a deft cast (James Garner, Kim Novak, and Tony Randall). For Love or Money (1963) showcased a rare comic turn by Kirk Douglas, and Move Over, Darling (1963) was a remake of the 1940 screwball comedy My Favorite Wife.
Texas Across the River (1966) was a comic western with Rat Pack members Dean Martin and Joey Bishop, and The Impossible Years (1968), based on the Broadway play, placed David Niven in a comedy about a psychologist in conflict with his headstrong teenage daughter. How Do I Love Thee? (1970), a generation-gap drama starring Jackie Gleason and Maureen O’Hara, was unsuccessful. It brought to an end Gordon’s film career, which had taut drama in the first half, light comedy in the second.
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- Michael Barson
Michael Gordon. Director: Cyrano de Bergerac. A stage actor and director, Michael Gordon broke into films in 1940 as a dialogue director, then became a film editor. He directed his first feature in 1942.
- September 6, 1909
- April 29, 1993
American film director Michael Gordon had his career interrupted for eight years after he was blacklisted for having run afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The first half of his work revolved around drama, while the second half concentrated on light comedy.
Apr 29, 1993 · Michael Gordon (September 6, 1909 – April 29, 1993) was an American stage actor and stage and film director. Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Gordon (film director), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Michael Gordon, film director: born Baltimore 6 September 1909; died Los Angeles 29 April 1993. MICHAEL GORDON'S name does not appear in any lists of Hollywood's best film directors yet...
