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by KIVA REARDON It says something about Canadian film history that a Google search of “Lee Gordon” brings up few results. Even a visit to TIFF’s Film Reference Library yields little information, beyond short mentions in industry periodicals. This doesn’t suggest that Gordon is not worthy of remembering. Like much of our national cinematic heritage, people and films that broke new ground tend to get overlooked, slipping
The Last Act of Martin Weston (1970), “I’ve done the whole route, starting as a production assistant through script and editing up to associate and now producer. That’s the only way to understand this business.” Gordon’s climb to the top also points to her tenacity, an essential quality for a producer and one that she exhibited on her first major Hollywood production, the United Artists (UA) sci-fi thriller The Lost Missile (1958). During her time on Man Against Crime, Gordon had forged a strong relationship with director and producer William Berke. Admiring her work, Berke took Gordon back with him to Los Angeles in 1958, hiring her as an associate producer on the UA project he was helming. In a turn of events that was suited for the screen itself, Berke died on the third day of shooting. Within days, Gordon made the call to keep the film going. “I stepped in as producer,” she recalled in 1970 in the Toronto Star, “and nixed the idea of stopping production and going for insurance money.” This steadfast determination was not only useful on set but also illustrates how, well before the Equal Pay Act (1963) or the powerful feminist voices of the 1970s, Gordon became a female producer working in Hollywood. Newspaper profiles of Gordon around the release of The Lost Missile spoke to what an incredible feat this was, although their tone exemplified the ingrained sexism she was up against; one headline reads, “Move Over, Men, You’ve Competition.” The authors of the pieces, all male, marvelled at how she managed to make it in “a man’s world” but subtly undermined her professional achievements by emphasising she was “a warmly attractive lass” with a “trim and attractive” form. And yet, Gordon forged on. Following The Lost Missile, Gordon returned to Canada, where she, Haldane and Roy Kroft founded Westminster Films in 1959. Canadian Anglo cinema was struggling at the time, but the three carved a place for themselves as industrial filmmakers, shooting films for Noranda Mines and INCO Industrial while also working with the CBC and Disney (Nikki, Wild Dog of the North, 1961). (It was around this time Haldane and Gordon separated, though they continued to work together for years.) Westminster also made charitable films for the Hospital for Sick Children, the Canada Cancer Society and adoption agencies, the latter earning Gordon some of her highest praise for the short film A Way Out (1972). As Haldane says in his memoir, the company’s eye for talent “enabled us to sometimes take on dry subjects and turn them into works of art.” In this way, Gordon embodied the ideal of the creative producer: one who sees beyond the finances, call sheets and organisation, giving active input into the project’s creative vision. This big-picture thinking is further reflected in her involvement in the founding of the DGC. The only woman in the room—nothing new for Gordon—on that day in 1962, a group of 18 created what would become a cornerstone not just of the Canadian film industry but also an important part in recording its history. Given this, it is fitting that Gordon is receiving the Don Haldane Distinguished Service Award this year. She is finally getting the profile she deserves. Kiva Reardon is the founding editor of cléo, a journal of film and feminism, and the staff film writer for TheLoop.ca. Her work has appeared in Cinema Scope, the National Post, Maisonneuve, POV magazine, NOW magazine and others. fall 2013
MONTAGE
Photo courtesy Lee Gordon and Kiva Reardon.
Below: Lee Gordon filming on the set of The Lost Missile (William A. Burke, 1958). Photo courtesy the estate of Don Haldane
through the historical cracks. (The National Film Board’s digital archive is actively working to counter this.) Of course, undervaluing national works is by no means a purely Canadian characteristic, and as art is said to expand horizons, it’s perhaps natural that we tend to look beyond our own borders for inspiration. While this can counter an insular mindset, in this outward-looking quest there is the risk of failing to recognise what is taking place at home. Which brings us back to Gordon. Gordon’s career spanned an incredibly rich period, from the 1940s to the 1980s. Over those 40-odd years, she became one of the few female producers working in Hollywood in the late 1950s; co-founded the production company Westminster Films; became a founding member of the Directors Guild of Canada; and produced over 200 films. Summarising her career, then, is no easy task, and as such it seems easiest to begin with the basics. Gordon was born in Saskatchewan in 1926 and was, by all accounts—at the time of printing she was too ill to be interviewed—interested in the arts from an early age. Working as a high school teacher while still a teen, Gordon first took to the stage in school productions. It was thanks to her stage presence that she met Don Haldane, who would later become her business partner and husband. In his memoir, A Kid From Olds, Haldane recalls seeing Gordon in a play in Stroud, Ontario, when he was stationed nearby at Camp Borden during World War II. “I saw her perform in her high school play,” he writes, “thought she was outstanding and went backstage to tell her so.” Haldane and Gordon began a relationship while she continued her studies, which laid the groundwork for her transition from theatre to film. In the 1940s, Hollywood had yet to see its post-war boom, and at home, the NFB had only just been founded (thanks to John Grierson and the 1939 National Film Act). A career in film—now an established vocation, with numerous colleges and universities offering courses on the subject—was hardly a common path to take, especially for a woman. So Gordon pursued theatre, maintaining her passion for the performing arts at Iowa State University in the drama department. After convocation, she went on to Columbia University’s writing program, studying there from 1946-1947. Tying the knot with Haldane after she finished at Columbia, the pair remained in New York while he finished his courses at New York University (NYU). Though this was long before cinema studies was considered an area for academic pursuit, NYU already had a core group of people interested in the medium. One of them was Haig Manoogian, the professor who would go on to establish the school’s film studies department and teach the likes of Martin Scorsese. Gordon and Haldane became close with Manoogian who, on the cusp of a new decade, founded the production company Films for Children. It was there that Gordon would truly begin her film education. With no formal training, Gordon learned the trade the old-fashioned way: starting at the bottom. She began as production assistant with Films for Children in 1949, soon moving up to script supervisor and film editor, eventually acting as associate producer on Man Against Crime, a television series starring Ralph Bellamy. By 1957, she was managing the production of the NFB’s Perspective series, which was shot across Europe and Canada. This bottom-up trajectory served her well. Years later, she said, while doing press for
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