Hayes Gordon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Hayes Gordon | |
|---|---|
 Hayes Gordon on the cover of biography by Lawrence Durrant |
|
| Born | February 25, 1920 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | October 19, 1999 (aged 79) Sydney, Australia |
| Occupation | Stage, film actor |
| Spouse(s) | Helen Terry |
Hayes Gordon AO OBE (February 25, 1920 – October 19, 1999) was an American actor, stage director and acting teacher.
Gordon was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein, and appeared on Broadway in several musicals, including Oklahoma!, Show Boat and Brigadoon. He also appeared in America's first television soap opera Fashion Story. In 1951 work became scarce because he had been named in a newsletter Red Networks that specialised in naming alleged communists and sympathisers, and after he refused to sign a loyalty oath declaring that he was not a communist, work dried up completely.[1]
He went to Sydney, Australia in 1949 to star in the musical Kiss Me, Kate. He stayed in the country and established the Ensemble Theatre Company [2], 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 for the rest of his life. Toward the end of his life he published Acting and Performing which outlined his Stanislavsky-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 appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1979, and an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1997, for his contribution to the arts.
He died in Sydney of heart disease.
[edit] References
- ^ Katrina Strickland, article An ideal life, in The Weekend Australian, 23-24 August 1997, p. 11.
- ^ AusStage - Gateway to the Australian Performing Arts. AusStage (contributor Hayes Gordon). Retrieved on 2008-04-29.
[edit] External links
- Hayes Gordon at the Internet Broadway Database
- Hayes Gordon at the Internet Movie Database
- Ensemble Theatre website
 |
This article about a United States film actor born in the 1920s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
