Max Gordon (producer)

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Max Gordon
Born
Mechel Salpeter

(1892-06-28)June 28, 1892
DiedNovember 2, 1978(1978-11-02) (aged 86)
Occupation
  • Producer
SpouseMildred Bartlett (aka Raye Dean)

Max Gordon (June 28, 1892 – November 2, 1978) was an American

theater and film producer. His credits included My Sister Eileen, which he produced both on stage and on film
.

Biography

Born Mechel Salpeter, Gordon was the youngest son of immigrants from Poland. His older brother Cliff used the stage name of "Gordon," which Max adopted as well. Cliff, an entertainer in vaudeville and burlesque, died at age 32 in 1913.

Shortly after his brother's death Gordon, then in his early 20s, formed a

Orpheum
circuits.

In May 1921, Gordon married Mildred Bartlett of Amsterdam, New York, who performed under the stage name Raye Dean; at the request of her fiancé, Bartlett gave up her acting career a few months before the wedding.

George Kaufman offered him fifteen hundred of the sixteen hundred dollars Kaufman had at that time, and Harpo Marx came to see him in the hospital with his pockets stuffed with cash and strewed it over the bed..."[1]

In the 1930s, Gordon became playwright and director George Kaufman's producer of choice, staging ten shows in 25 years, beginning in 1931 with Adele and Fred Astaire's last joint performance in the musical The Bandwagon.[8] In the 1934, Gordon had four shows on Broadway at once, Her Master's Voice, Roberta, The Shining Hour and Dodsworth.[9]

Gordon's other highly successful collaboration was with married playwrights Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin. Kanin's Born Yesterday (1946) ran for 1,642 performances, and remains the seventh longest-running non-musical play in Broadway history.[10] It also gave Judy Holliday her first starring part, and Gordon later recalled that "The minute she walked in, I knew she was it."[11]

Gordon continued producing plays and musicals on Broadway until 1955. Several of his productions were made into popular films such as My Sister Eileen (1942), Born Yesterday (1950) and The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956).

His reputation in the early 1930s was immortalized in Cole Porter's song "Anything Goes" from the 1934 musical of the same name:

When

Rockefeller
still can hoard
Enough money to let Max Gordon
Produce his shows
Anything goes[12]

See also

  • Beloff, Ruth (2007). "Gordon, Max". In .


References

  1. ^ a b c d Margaret Case Harriman (1944). Take Them Up Tenderly,: A Collection of Profiles. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 31–43.
  2. ^ Gordon, Max [né Mechel Salpeter]. (1892-1978). Oxford Companion to American Theatre, 2004, p272.
  3. ^ Listing ibdb.com, Accessed 01 Dec 2007.
  4. .
  5. , p. 448
  6. ^ The New York Times, Thursday, October 16, 1930, p. 33
  7. ^ Green, Stanley, The World of Musical Comedy, Ziff-David Publishing Co., New York, 1960, p. 187-188
  8. ^ Max Gordon (1963). Max Gordon Presents. Bernard Geis. p. 133.
  9. ^ "R&H's Alltime Mark With 4-Show B'way Takeover; Some Famed Precedents". Variety. August 26, 1953. p. 1. Retrieved March 12, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  10. .
  11. ^ Max Gordon (1963). Max Gordon Presents. Bernard Geis. p. 281.
  12. ^ Cole Porter, 'Anything Goes'

External links