Barry Gordon

The colorful and varied career of performer Barry Gordon has traversed the arenas of television, film, stage, music, radio, video games, even politics. Born in Massachusetts in 1948, Gordon first appeared on the small screen at the tender age of three. A handful of television appearances later, MGM Records picked him to record the novelty tune "Nuttin' for Christmas," written for MGM by Bennett & Tepper, the songwriting team behind several of Elvis Presley's early movies. The recording became a Billboard Top 10 hit during the 1955 holiday season and sold more than 2 million copies. Follow-up efforts in the music studio never met with equal success, but Gordon nonetheless was able to parlay his initial fame into scattered film and television appearances, turning up on popular shows of the day such as "Leave It to Beaver" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." He also tried the stage, and in 1963 his work in the Broadway play A Thousand Clowns earned the 15-year-old Gordon a Tony Award nomination as best dramatic actor. Barry continued his small screen work over the next few decades, and throughout the 1970s and '80s he racked up a string of guest appearances on numerous tv-films and series. He also gained prominent vocal recognition in children's circles, first for his voice work in commercial campaigns (both as Nestlé Quik's Rabbit and as Honey Nut Cheerios breakfast cereal’s Bumblebee) and then for cartoon shows like “The Snorks,” “Darkwing Duck,” and “Batman: The Animated Series.” Perhaps his best known among these is Bebop/Donatello in the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. He has lent his vocal talents to Donatello in multiple video-game and tv-movie spinoffs. Coinciding roughly with his TMNT stint, Gordon had succeeded actress Patty Duke as president of the Screen Actors Guild, a post which he held 1988-1995, the longest single tenure by anyone in that position to that time. He resigned the post in 1995 to pursue even bigger aspirations in the national political scene. He ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in 1996 and again in 1998, both times on the Democratic ticket. Since then, Gordon has made a limited return to acting, appearing occasionally on television programs such as “Becker” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” As of 2006 he hosts an LA-based radio show of social and political commentary called "Barry Gordon: From the Left Field."