Michael Gordon

Michael Gordon (born Irving Kunin Gordon; September 6, 1909 – April 29, 1993) was an American stage actor and stage and film director.

Gordon was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in a middle class Jewish community. He was a member of the Group Theatre (1935–1940), and was blacklisted as a Communist in the McCarthy era. He later joined the faculty of the UCLA Theater Department. Gordon summered at Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut. Pinebrook is best known for becoming the summer home of the Group Theatre. Some of the other artists who summered there were: Elia Kazan, Harry Morgan, John Garfield, Lee J. Cobb, Will Geer, Clifford Odets, Howard Da Silva and Irwin Shaw.

As a result of being blacklisted, Gordon's Hollywood career falls into two phases. In 1940, he started as a dialogue director and went on to direct B-movies. In the late 1940s, he distinguished himself by directing not just action movies but also melodramas and films noir. He also directed the 1950 film, Cyrano de Bergerac, for which José Ferrer won a Best Actor Academy Award. After being blacklisted, he was forced to stop directing films temporarily, but was called back to Hollywood at the end of the 1950s by producer Ross Hunter, who wanted him to direct Pillow Talk, a vehicle for Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Subsequently, Gordon's second creative phase was concerned with light-hearted comedy films.

Gordon and his wife, Elizabeth Cohn, had three children: Jonathan, Jane (mother of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and Susannah. Gordon died of natural causes on April 29, 1993.