During the early days of television, just by being herself, actress Joyce Gordon anachronized a gender stereotype.
“I am not a glamorous girl – most women are not,” she volunteered in an interview in 1961. “I am an attractive, up-to-date young woman – glasses and everything.”
Confident and clinically perceptive, Ms. Gordon, who died at age 90 on February 28, became famous as “The Girl with the Glasses” because she subconsciously wore her prescription glasses on camera while she was delivering live , advertising spots for products like Crisco and Duncan Hines cake mixes.
For all the titles her glasses inspired, however, Mrs. Gordon was also known for her voice. It reached radio listeners and viewers through advertisements and promotional announcements. Film buffs have heard it in dubbed foreign films – replacing, for example, Claudia Cardinale in Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West”, released in the United States in 1969.
And, according to her agent, she was the voice of the ubiquitous recording that informed callers in the 1980s and 1990s that “the number you reached is no longer in service”.
Her daughter, Melissa Grant, confirmed the death of Mrs. Gordon in Manhattan.
Ms. Gordon has been recognized for having opened other avenues professionally. According to the Screen Actors Guild, she paved the way in 1966 as the first woman to lead a local union unit when she was elected president of the New York chapter in 1966. She was the first woman to serve as announcer on a network Television broadcast of a national political convention, in 1980 on ABC, and the first to advertise live for a network, broadcasting sports news and programs on NBC for four decades.
“Her talented, voice-over stature was essential in convincing the advertising industry to take the concerns of commercial artists seriously at the start of this contract,” said Gabrielle Carteris, President of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and radio artists.
Ms. Gordon has presented many household items and personal products on television, but, as one interviewer wrote, “she probably did more for the eyes of American women than all professionals and their conferences.”
His glasses were not an accessory.
She had squinted at the camera while repeating an advertisement when a representative of an advertising agency, observing her in the studio, suggested that she wear her glasses on the air. He assured him that he would persuade the sponsor to accept what would constitute a radical departure from the agreement.
“Little by little, I realized where he was coming from,” she recalls. “Glasses give me identity and authority.”
Also, she said, “people tend to think I’m natural.”
It was then profiled in Broadcasting magazine in 1960 under the title “The TV Girl Who Wears Glasses”. TV Guide put her on the cover as the first woman to wear glasses while appearing under her own name as a “TV hostess”. (“I like to be myself instead of playing a role,” she said.)
Ms. Gordon said that she felt uncomfortable at dinner dates because she had trouble reading the menus, but added, “Now I wear my glasses, and it doesn’t seem make a difference for fellows. “
Joyce Gordon was born on March 25, 1929 in Des Moines, Iowa, to Jule and Diana (Cohn) Gordon. Her father, a leader in the cosmetics and hair care industry, founded the National Barber and Beauty Manufacturers Association.
Raised in Chicago, Ms. Gordon attended the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin. She moved to New York at the age of 19 to pursue a career in entertainment. She landed roles on radio and live television, including “Studio One” and “Robert Montgomery Presents”. She mainly started advertising in the mid-1950s.
In addition to her decades of union involvement, she was also active in civic affairs in Westchester County, New York, where she lived, as a member of the White Plains city council.
A boom in the dubbing of foreign language films for an English-speaking audience has revitalized Ms. Gordon’s career. She became the voice of Annie Girardot, Jeanne Moreau and other stars in the films of Ingmar Bergman, Jean Renoir and Luchino Visconti, filling a professional niche that requires an actress to abandon her own character.
“You have to try to crawl into the other actor’s body, to understand how a shrug, a raised eyebrow, a way of breathing can affect performance,” said Gordon to The New York Times in 1982.
To be interpreted as a disembodied voice on the screen seemed to be a variation of the adage that he was heard but not seen. After the release of “Once Upon a Time in the West”, a review attributed to Ms. Cardinale, born in Tunisia and speaking Italian with a pronounced French accent, her mastery of English. Mrs. Gordon was unfazed.
“It is a form of anonymous gratification,” she said.