Obituaries : Michael Gordon, Film Director of ‘Pillow Talk’

Michael Gordon, 83, film director whose work included “Cyrano de Bergerac,” “Pillow Talk,” and “Texas Across the River.” Gordon, a native of Baltimore, studied at Johns Hopkins University and Yale Drama School and spent the 1930s directing theater in New York. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, he directed mostly B movies until the 1950 version of “Cyrano” which won Jose Ferrer an Academy Award. Blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the House Unamerican Activities Committee during the McCarthy era, Gordon spent the 1950s directing such Broadway plays as “Anna Christie” and “The Tender Trap.” He returned to Hollywood in 1959 to do the light romantic comedy “Pillow Talk,” which first paired Doris Day and the late Rock Hudson. Similar successes followed, including “Boys’ Night Out,” “Move Over Darling,” and “Texas Across the River.” Gordon later taught at UCLA. On Thursday in Los Angeles of kidney failure and a heart attack.