Leo Gordon; Familiar Villain in Westerns

Leo Gordon, tough-guy actor famous for playing the villain in scores of Westerns and television shows over nearly 50 years, has died at the age of 78.

Gordon, a real-life villain who served time in San Quentin before turning to acting, died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home after a brief illness, said his daughter Tara Gordon.

In a career that included about 70 films and dozens of TV shows, Gordon created a gallery of mobsters, killers and creeps. The broad-shouldered, 6-foot-2, 200-pound actor with steely blue eyes was one of the most recognized character actors of his time.

He played a killer in the 1954 film “Riot in Cell Block 11,” which was filmed in California’s Folsom Prison.

“Dad had to get frisked every time he went to work,” his daughter said.

Gordon was best known for wearing the black hat in westerns, from “Hondo” in 1953 to “Maverick” in 1994. During the 1950s and 1960s, he seemed to make an appearance on virtually every western TV show, from “Bonanza” to “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin.”

“Thank God for typecasting,” he said in 1997 as he received the Golden Boot award for his western screen work.

Gordon also was a screenwriter with more than a dozen films to his credit, ranging from 1967’s “Tobruk” to Roger Corman’s B-movie “Attack of the Giant Leeches.” He also wrote “The Cry Baby Killer,” which was Jack Nicholson’s movie debut.

For TV, he wrote scripts for shows such as “Bonanza” and “Cheyenne,” and 21 episodes of “Adam-12.”

Born in Brooklyn on Dec. 2, 1922, he was raised by a single father who struggled to make ends meet. Gordon left New York when he joined the Army in 1941. But “he couldn’t take rules” and was honorably discharged after about two years, his daughter said.

He drifted to Southern California and turned to robbery, his daughter said. After four years in San Quentin prison, Gordon returned to New York and was working a construction job when he decided to use his military benefits to take acting classes.

He met his future wife, Lynn Cartwright, when she was studying acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and they were married in 1950.

Gordon went on to stage work, and a Hollywood agent who saw him in the Los Angeles production of “Darkness at Noon” launched his film career by offering him a role in the 1953 western “City of Bad Men.”