Charles Gordone was an American actor, director, and playwright. He also taught at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, from 1987 to 1995.
Background
Ethnicity:
Charles Gordone was from the family of African-American, Native American, and European heritage.
Charles Gordone was born on October 12, 1927, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. He was the son of William Lee and Camille (Morgan) Gordone. He took his stepfather’s surname of Gordon when his mother remarried when he was five years old. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, his mother’s hometown, when Charles was very young.
Education
In 1942 Charles enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he spent one semester before joining the United States Army Air Corps. Gordon served two years in the Air Corps’ Special Services where he was an organizer of entertainment. He returned to Los Angeles after his discharge in 1944 and studied music at Los Angeles City College before moving on to California State University, Los Angeles where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in drama in 1952.
Upon graduation, Charles Gordone moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting. It was in New York that Gordon added the “e” to his surname because he spotted another Charles Gordon on the Actors’ Equity membership list. During the late 1950s, Gordone began directing as well as acting. He founded his own theatre, Vantage, in Queens, New York in the late 1950s. In 1962, Gordone also founded the Committee for the Employment of Negroes, an organization designed to lobby for more employment opportunities for blacks in theatre.
Between acting and directing jobs, Gordone worked as a waiter in a Greenwich Village tavern. His experiences there inspired him to write his most famous play No Place to be Somebody. The play opened off Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theatre in May of 1969 to rave reviews, and made Gordone an instant celebrity. Over the next two years the play would be performed over 900 times off-Broadway, before moving to the Morosco Theatre on Broadway in 1971.
Gordone continued to write and direct during the 1970s and 1980s but was never able to repeat the success that he enjoyed with No Place. In the mid 1970s he was involved in the Cell Block Theatre Program in New Jersey which used theatre as a rehabilitation tool for inmates. Gordone remained active in community theatres around the United States until accepting a teaching position with Texas A&M University in 1986. Gordone died of cancer on November 13, 1995 in College Station, Texas. He was 70 at the time of his death.
Charles Gordone married his first wife Juanita Barton in 1948. Together, they had two children: Stephen Gordone and Judy Ann Riser. Later they divorced. His second wife was Jeanne Warner. They had one daughter together - Leah-Carla Gordone. During the '60s revolution, "open marriages" were common, and Charles met artist Nancy Meadows. Together they had a son David Brent Gordone. In 1981, Gordone moved back to California, where he met his third wife Susan Kouyomjian.
Father:
William Lee Gordone
Mother:
Camille (Morgan) Gordone
Spouse:
Susan Kouyomjian.
ex-spouse:
Jeanne Warner
ex-spouse:
Juanita Barton
Son:
Stephen Gordone
Daughter:
Judy Ann Riser
Daughter:
Leah-Carla Gordone
References
Contemporary Authors
A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields