He was the real deal.
Ricci.Wright
Member Posts: 5,128 ✭✭✭✭
Do you remember Leo Gordon??
BornDecember 2, 1922 in New York City, New York, USADiedDecember 26, 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA (cardiac failure)Birth NameLeo Vincent GordonHeight6' 2" (1.88 m)Mini Bio (1)Big, burly character actor, one of the toughest of screen heavies. New York-born Leo Gordon's combination of a powerful physique, deep, menacing voice and icy, withering glare was guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of even the bravest screen hero. Director Don Siegel, who used Gordon in his prison film Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), once said that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met"--this coming from a man who had directed John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Bette Midler! Siegel wasn't talking about just Gordon's screen presence. As a "heavy", Gordon was the real deal--before becoming an actor (he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), Gordon served five years in San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery (during which he was shot several times point-blank by police--and survived). "Riot in Cell Block 11" was filmed at Folsom State Prison--where Gordon also served time--and the Folsom warden remembered him as a troublemaker.At first he refused to allow the film to be shot there if Gordon was to be in it, but Siegel was able to convince him that Gordon was no threat to the prison.
Contrary to his image, though, Gordon was not just a one-note villain. He did play sympathetic parts on occasion, notably in the western Black Patch (1957)--which he also wrote--and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama The Intruder (1962), and turned in first-rate performances, especially in the latter film. Gordon was also a screenwriter, turning out several screenplays for Corman. He wasn't just limited to writing low-budget sci-fi films, either; he penned the screenplay for the WWII epic Tobruk (1967), writing in a meaty part for himself as Kruger, a tough sergeant in a platoon of German Jews masquerading as Nazi soldiers to help blow up a German oil storage facility.
Leo Gordon died in Los Angeles, CA, in 2000 at age 78 of heart failure.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: frankfob2@yahoo.com
Family (1)SpouseLynn Cartwright (14 February 1950 - 26 December 2000) (his death) (1 child)Trivia (1)Father, with Lynn Cartwright, of daughter, Tara Gordon.
Personal Quotes (4)Westerns are fundamental . . . the morality play. There's a good guy and a bad guy. You know which is which. You don't have to go into the psyche to find out his parents were abusive . . . [the heavy is] the guy people remember. You get more recognition.
[on the "benefits" of playing so many heavies] You get more recognition. After all, I look like a heavy. I'm 6' 2", 200 pounds. Got a craggy-* face. I was walking down the street in Morocco when a little kid steps out of the alley and looks at me. He runs a few feet ahead of me--turns around and looks again--he puts his hands down like he's drawing two pistols. He goes, "Bip, bip, bip!' Y'know? Like he's shooting. You figure, "Here you are, a world away from anything you're familiar with, and some little kid in an alley in Morocco recognizes you?" Once, coming down the street in Madrid with my wife, a car slides up and these guys jump out. They were a couple of photographers from the Spanish press. They spent the whole afternoon with us.
[on whether he prefers screenwriting or acting] Writing is more rewarding than acting, but look at my face. Nobody believes I'm a writer. I should be 5' 8", 142 pounds, wear patches on my elbows and horn-rimmed glasses and smoke a pipe. That's a writer.
[about working with John Wayne in Hondo (1953), in which Gordon played a villain who gets killed by Wayne] In the scene . . . where he kills me down by the stream, I reach for my gun and he shoots me. I buckled up and pitched forward. Wayne hollered, "Cut! Cut!", even though John Farrow was directing. Wayne says to me, "What was that? When you get hit in the gut with a slug you go flying backwards". I pulled up my shirt to show him where I'd really been shot in the gut [by police while being arrested for armed robbery many years previously]: "Yeah? I got hit point blank and I went forward".
Comments
Seen him in many westerns which I still enjoy watching reruns/
John Wayne shot him in Hondo. A rat.
Wow. A screen villain who was one in real life. Did not know that. Imagine being in prison and then returning much later to make a movie in that very prison. Not surprised the Warden disapproved of the idea at the outset.
These days I see Leo in a lot of old Adam 12 reruns. If you notice many credits to the writers of the show, Leo Gordon did a lot of episodes. Another bit of trivia about his wife Lynn. Remembering the movie "A League Of Their Own" starring Tom Hanks, it was Lynn Cartwright who played the "old" Dottie of Gena Davis's young Dottie. In her younger years she was quite the hottie!
Ricci, great story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!---------------------------Ray
Sounds like Danny Trejo. He really turned his life around.
Leo was on Adam-12 last night.
He and another guy held up a bank and took officer Reed hostage.
He was planning to murder Reed and was thwarted by officer Malloy popping out of a car trunk and blasting him with the shotgun.
In the close up he was very scary looking !
he was also on an episode of the andy griffith show, he was an ex-con who andy had sent to prison, he was getting released and on his way to mayberry to see andy, every one was worried what he might do. at end of show he gets off the bus with a shotgun, turns out it is a present for andy, as he turned himself around in prison. like to see and ex-con buy a shotgun the day he gets out of prison, get on the bus and drive to sherriffs office today. much simpler world back then........