Charles gordone biography
- Charles Edward Gordone was an American playwright, actor, director, and educator.
- Charles Edward Gordone (October 12, 1925 – November 16, 1995) was an American playwright, actor, director, and educator.
- Playwright, actor.
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Charles Gordone was born Charles Edward Fleming on October 12, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio to parents William and Camille Fleming. He took his stepfather’s surname of Gordon when his mother remarried when he was five years old. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, his mother’s hometown, when Charles was very young. After graduating from high school in Indiana, Gordon moved to Los Angeles. In 1942 he enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he spent one semester before joining the U.S. Army Air Corps. Gordon served two years in the Air Corps’ Special Services where he was an organizer of entertainment.
He returned to Los Angeles after his discharge in 1944 and studied music at Los Angeles City College before moving on to California State University, Los Angeles where he earned a B.A. in drama in 1952. Upon graduation, he moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting. It was in New York that Gordon added the “e” to his surname because he spotted another Charles Gordon on the Actors’ Equity membership list. During the late 1950s, Gordone began dir
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Gordone, Charles
Playwright, actor
The first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize for drama was Charles Gordone in 1970 for the dramatic work No Place To Be Somebody. Gordone took the theater world by storm and brought a new type of race consciousness to the stage. His play came on the scene in the 1960s when people embraced the emergence of long silenced African American voices. Its truths brought many awards to Gordone and the opportunity to produce more plays, screenplays, and creative projects. Although other works of equal attention eluded Gordone for the balance of his career, he continued to contribute to both stage and screen. In his later years he was a distinguished lecturer at Texas Agricultural & Mechanical University and continued to do some acting. Gordone saw himself not as a producer of African American or black theater, as it was called, but as someone who presented human experiences not splintered by race. In an interview with Susan Smith he stated, "I don't write out of a black experience or a white experience; it's American." Gordone left a b
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Charles Gordone
American dramatist and playwright (1925–1995)
Charles Gordone | |
|---|---|
Gordone in 1970 | |
| Born | Charles Edward Fleming (1925-10-12)October 12, 1925 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | November 16, 1995(1995-11-16) (aged 70) College Station, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor, director, playwright, producer, educator |
| Education | Los Angeles City College University of California, Los Angeles California State University, Los Angeles (BA) Columbia University New York University |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1970) |
| Spouse | Juanita Barton (m. 1948, divorced)Jeanne Warner (before 1960) |
Charles Edward Gordone (October 12, 1925 – November 16, 1995) was an American playwright, actor, director, and educator. He was the first African American to win the annual Pulitzer Prize for Drama and he devoted much of his professional life to the pursuit of multi-racial American theater and racial unity.[1][2][3]
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