Lee Gordon (promoter)
| Lee Gordon | |
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Promoter Lee Gordon, early 1960s, outside his Jewel Box Revue Club in Darlinghurst, Sydney
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| Born |
Leon Lazar Gevorshner March 8, 1923 Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A. |
| Died | November 7, 1963 (aged 40) London, England |
| Occupation | Businessman, concert promoter |
| Years active | 1940s–1963; his death |
| Spouse(s) | Arlene Topfer (2 children) |
Lee Gordon (born Leon Lazar Gevorshner, March 8, 1923– November 7, 1963) was an American entrepreneur and rock and roll promoter who worked extensively in Australia in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Gordon's jazz and rock'n'roll tours had a major impact on the Australian music scene and he also played a significant role in the early career of pioneering Australian rock'n'roll singer Johnny O'Keefe.
Many parts of Gordon's life story remain sketchy or obscure, and there is much contradictory information about him. The passing of time makes it increasingly difficult to verify or refute the various versions of his life and career, since many of his former close associates like his Australian colleagues Max Moore and Alan Heffernan are now deceased. Although both men wrote memoirs of their collaboration with Gordon, their accounts suggest that Gordon himself was the likely source of many of these contradictory tales, and that he may well have concocted these stories to cover his real activities - although of course his motive for doing so can never be known. There are also notable periods for which there is little or no information about his whereabouts and activities, such as his mysterious trip to America in 1957-58, including his alleged "nervous breakdown" and extended hospitalisation in Hawaii, his movements and activities after final departure from Australia in 1962, and his death in London in 1963.
According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Gordon was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1923, and educated at Highland Park High School, Highland Park, Michigan and at the University of Miami, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1944. However, other sources claim that Gordon was in fact born in 1917 in Coral Gables, Florida.
By the time Gordon graduated from college, he had already begun his involvement in show business, presenting a jazz concert in an ice rink in Muskegon, Michigan. With noted publicist Benn F. Reyes (who was to play a major role in the Big Show tours) Gordon promoted a 'Shakespeare in the Round' project, and then worked for a time with Royal American Shows, a large Tampa-based travelling carnival. For unknown reasons, Gordon left America sometime in the mid-1940s and reportedly worked in several 'colourful' overseas business enterprises - in Lima, Peru, he was involved in a direct mail business, and later he moved to Havana, Cuba, where he exported cigars and roses to the United States and booked American acts into the famous Tropicana Club, Havana’s famous open-air nightclub. The dating of his involvement with the Tropicana is uncertain, although it is possible that he was working there during the period that the Miami Mafia took control of the club in 1946.
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