Joyce Gordon (March 25, 1929–February 28, 2020) was an American actress.

Early life

Joyce Gordon was born on March 25, 1929, in

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Iowa, most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is the county seat of Polk County, Iowa, Polk County with parts extending into Warren County, Iowa, Wa ...

, to Jule and Diana (Cohn) Gordon. Her father was the founder of the National Barber and Beauty Manufacturers Association. She grew up in Chicago, later attending the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

and the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. In her late teens, she left Chicago and went to New York to seek opportunities to appear on television programs.

Career

On television, Gordon appeared on '' The Ad-Libbers'', '' Studio One'' and ''

Robert Montgomery Presents ''Robert Montgomery Presents'' is an American drama (film and television), drama television series which was produced by NBC from January 30, 1950, until June 24, 1957. The Live television, live show had several sponsors during its eight-year run ...

''. She also acted in commercials, at one point appearing daily on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

as she promoted different products. Gordon was the on screen spokeswoman for Crisco and

Duncan Hines Duncan Hines (March 26, 1880 – March 15, 1959) was an American author and food critic known for his restaurant ratings for travelers. He is best known today for the brand of food products that bears his name. Early life, family and education ...

and did numerous promos for sports and news programs. She was the first woman of many things in her field. In the 1950s, she became the first woman to do network promos, and the first woman announcer for a political convention on network television. She was very active in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and became the first woman to lead a local branch of the union when she became president of the New York branch in 1966. She was the first person to wear glasses on television while playing herself, earning her the nickname "The Girl With the Glasses". She was also the voice of the Intercept messages for callers hear when dialing a disconnected number, forgetting to dial a 1, and othersShe is commonly played on Verizon Wireline Exchanges and Ziply Fiber Exchanges (Former Verizon, GTE and Frontier). Gordon provided English-language voices for actresses who spoke other languages including

Jeanne Moreau Jeanne Moreau (; 23 January 1928 – 31 July 2017) was a French actress, singer, screenwriter, director, and socialite. She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. Mo ...

and

Claudia Cardinale Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale (; born 15 April 1938), known as Claudia Cardinale (), is an Italian actress. Born and raised in La Goulette, a neighbourhood of Tunis, Cardinale won the "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia" competition ...

, such as for ''

Once Upon a Time in the West ''Once Upon a Time in the West'' ( is a 1968 epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone, who co-wrote it with Sergio Donati, based on a story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci and Leone. It stars Henry Fonda, playing against t ...

''. Over a two-year span, she dubbed 32 films that originally had dialog in other languages. On radio, Gordon portrayed Cherry on ''

Mark Trail ''Mark Trail'' is a newspaper comic strip created by the American cartoonist Ed Dodd. Introduced April 15, 1946, the strip centers on Environmentalism, environmental and ecological themes. As of 2020, King Features syndicated the strip to "near ...

'' and Barbara Miller on the comedy ''

My Son Jeep ''My Son Jeep'' is an American situation comedy that ran on NBC Radio January 25, 1953 - June 14, 1953 and was revived on CBS Radio October 3, 1955 – November 9, 1956. A television version ran on NBC July 4, 1953 - September 22, 1953, preceded b ...

''.

Personal life and death

Gordon was married to actor

Bernard Grant Bernard Grant (October 10, 1920 – June 30, 2004) was an American actor. Grant was born in New York City, New York, in The Bronx. He served in the United States Army during World War II. Grant also went to the City College of New York. Active i ...

for more than 50 years, and they had two children, Mark and Melissa. She died on February 28, 2020 at age 90.

References

External links

*
This Is a Recording - Collection of recordings from Cognitronics and Joyce Gordon's recordings
1929 births 2020 deaths Actresses from Chicago Actresses from Des Moines, Iowa Place of death missing Actresses from New York City Screen Actors Guild University of Illinois alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American actresses American television actresses {{US-tv-actor-1920s-stub