Mark Robert Gordon

Mark Robert Gordon is best known for his acting roles on the Guiding Light (1952), New York and regional theaters, and several national TV commercials, as well as for his work as a stage director, playwright, and producer, and as a print model in several national ad campaigns, including for Guess and Biscom. Gordon is the Founding Artistic Director of Off-Broadway's not-for-profit company Do Gooder Productions, which produces in partnership with designated charities tied to the theme of the play. With Do Gooder, he produced the year-long Off-Broadway premiere of Alan Brandt's play "2 ½ Jews", the first Off-Broadway production of "the dreamer examines his pillow" by John Patrick Shanley and the final play by Sidney Morris, and multiple Off-Broadway debuts of new playwrights and directors (including the Off-Broadway directing debut of later-Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis). Gordon also heads the production company The Camelback Kid, the nickname assigned to Gordon by Walter Matthau while the two actors worked together on the set of I'm Not Rappaport (1996). Born in Phoenix, his first roles were in children's theater in Arizona. His later professional training was at Columbia University, the Actors Movement Studio under Loyd Williamson, and privately with Sanford Meisner and Mark Amitin. While still in law school, he was cast in several NYC plays and a bit part in "The Guiding Light" which later grew into his recurring role, and he appeared in several national TV commercials and print model ad campaigns. Following law school, he co-founded Do Gooder and performed in a series of Off-Broadway plays and various small film and TV roles. In 1998, his acting career was interrupted by significant injuries resulting from a car driving onto a New York City sidewalk. Gordon attended public schools in Phoenix and graduated from Princeton University (Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, Afro-American Studies), Columbia University School of Law, and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Active in politics and public service since childhood, his campaign work grew into roles as a campaign strategist, attorney, writer, and advisor to U.S. Presidential, Senate, House, gubernatorial, and state legislative candidates and officials. An entertainment and election attorney, Gordon is a prominent advocate, public speaker, and lawyer for election integrity and voting rights, civil rights and non-discrimination issues, and performing and visual artists and arts organizations. He is the son of Jewish parents: Philip Gordon, a disabled World War II veteran, and Elaine Gordon, a public school teacher. His father married his widowed mother and adopted her two children before the family moved from Brooklyn to Phoenix prior to Mark's birth. His father was a precious metals sculptor with pieces in prominent galleries, museums, and private collections.