Gordon Connell (March 19, 1923 – June 12, 2016) was an American actor, singer, and dancer.

Personal life

Born William Gordon Connell in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, Connell married Jane Sperry Bennett (aka Jane Connell), a fellow actress and singer, also a native of

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

in 1948. They had two daughters. Jane and Gordon began their careers performing at such

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

night clubs as The Purple Onion and The Hungry I.

Career

They gravitated to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he performed in revues at the Tamiment Playhouse in the Poconos and in several of the

Julius Monk Julius Withers Monk (10 Nov 1912, Spencer, North Carolina – 17 Aug 1995, New York City, New York) was an American impresario in the New York cabaret scene. His 1956 revue, ''Four Below'', has been characterized as "the first legitimate cafe re ...

nightclub revues at Upstairs at the Downstairs, including Monk's "Pieces of Eight" and "Dressed to the Nines". He made his Broadway debut in '' Subways Are For Sleeping'' in 1961. Additional stage credits include '' Hello, Dolly!'', '' Big River'' and '' The Human Comedy''. The Connells appeared together on Broadway twice: in a musical version of '' Lysistrata'' (1972) and ''The Good Doctor'' (1998). His television credits include ''

Green Acres ''Green Acres'' is an American television sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to ''Petticoat Junction'', the series was first broadcast on ...

'', '' The Love Boat'', '' The Jeffersons'', '' The Incredible Hulk'', and '' Sex and the City''. His sole feature film appearance was a small role in

Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a (né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two ...

's '' Rosemary's Baby''. Connell was also a musical theater composer who wrote humorous cabaret songs as well as the score for the award-winning musical ''Bertha the Sewing Machine Girl''.

Death

Jane Connell died on September 22, 2013, at age 87. Gordon Connell died on June 12, 2016, at the age of 93. Both died at Lillian Booth Actors Home of the Actors Fund in

Englewood, New Jersey Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which at the 2020 United States census had a population of 29,308. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from por ...

Filmography

*'' Rosemary's Baby'' (1968) - Allen Stone - Guy's Agent (uncredited)

External links

*
Gordon Connell
at

Internet Off-Broadway Database The Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDB), also formerly known as the Lortel Archives, is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway. The IOBDB was funded and developed by the non-profit Lucille Lortel Foundation ...

*
Jane and Gordon Connell papers, 1923-2015
held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Obituary - New York Times

Obituary - Broadwayworld
{{DEFAULTSORT:Connell, Gordon 1923 births 2016 deaths American male musical theatre actors American male stage actors American male television actors Male actors from Berkeley, California