Hayes Gordon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hayes Gordon OBE AO (25 February 1920 - 19 October 1999) was an American actor, stage director and acting teacher.
Gordon was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He appeared on Broadway in several musicals, including Oklahoma!, Show Boat and Brigadoon. He went to Sydney, Australia in 1952 to star in the musical Kiss Me, Kate. He stayed in the country and established the Ensemble Theatre Company in North Sydney with a group of young students he tutored from the Independent Theatre. This was a co-operative style theatre and also Australia’s first theatre-in-the-round. He also established Australia’s longest surviving acting school, the Ensemble Studios, in the 1950s. He was Principal of the school throughout his lifetime. Toward the end of his life he published Acting and Performing which outlined his Stanislavski-influenced acting methods. He passed on directorship of The Ensemble Theatre to Sandra Bates in 1986.
He had one daughter, Kati, who lived with her mother in the USA. He remarried in the early 1980s to Helen Terry and remained with her until his death.
He was awarded the Order of the British Empire and the Order of Australia for contribution to the arts.
He died in Sydney of heart disease.
