Leon Gordon (playwright)

English-born playwright, screenwriter, actor and director (1894–1960)

Georgia Spence
Nancy Evelyn

Leon Gordon Bennett (January 12, 1894 – January 4, 1960) was an English-born playwright, screenwriter, actor, and director who wrote the screenplay for White Cargo.^[1]^[2]

Biography

Gordon was born in Brighton, England in January 1894 and studied at St. John's College. He became an actor and was a leading man with the Boston Repertory Company. He began writing plays. After directing plays in Australia^[3] he joined MGM in 1930.^[4]

He died of a heart ailment at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, in Los Angeles, California on January 4, 1960. He was survived by two daughters.^[5]

Select film credits

Sandra (1924) (as an actor)
White Cargo (1930)
Heartbreak (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Age of Indiscretion (1935)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937)
A Yank at Oxford (1938)
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
They Met in Bombay (1941)
White Cargo (1942)
Kim (1950)
The Hour of 13 (1952)

Select plays

Watch Your Neighbour (1923)
Garden of Weeds (1925)
The Piker (1926)

References

^ "LEON GORDON". The Mercury. Hobart, Tas.: National Library of Australia. 31 December 1926. p. 3. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
^ "MODERN TASTES IN DRAMA". The West Australian. Perth: National Library of Australia. 16 May 1929. p. 20. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
^ "Another Smart Comedy". The Register News-pictorial. Vol. XCV, no. 27, 765. South Australia. 11 August 1930. p. 9. Retrieved 26 February 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
^ Leon Gordon, 64, Writer and Actor: Playwright of 'White Cargo' Is Dead Was Producer and Scenarist at M-G-M New York Times 5 Jan 1960: 31.
^ "Leon Gordon Dies at 66". Motion Picture Daily. 6 January 1960. p. 6. Retrieved 11 April 2016.