Bobby Jordan


Robert G. Jordan was an American actor, most notable for being a member of the Dead End Kids, the East Side Kids, the Little Tough Guys, and the Bowery Boys.

Early life and career

Jordan was born in Harrison, New York. At the age of four, he worked in an early movie version of A Christmas Carol. His mother took him to talent shows in and around Harrison, New York. He also modeled for newspaper and magazine advertisements and appeared in short films and radio programs. In the late 1920s, his family moved to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In 1929, he was cast as Charles Hildebrand in the 1929 Broadway play Street Scene.

Dead End Kids and offshoots

The youngest of the Dead End Kids, Jordan was the first of the group to work in films. In 1935, he won the role of Angel in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway drama Dead End about life in the slums of the east side of New York City. The play was performed at the Belasco Theatre and ran for three years and more than 600 performances. He appeared for the first season and the beginning of the second but left in mid-November 1936. He returned in time to join the others in 1937 in Hollywood, California to make the movie version of the play, starring Humphrey Bogart, Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, and Claire Trevor.
Following the making of Dead End, the young actors, were released from their contract with Goldwyn, and subsequently they were signed by Warner Bros. After one year, Warners released most of them, but kept Leo Gorcey and Jordan as solo performers. Jordan appeared in Warner's Damon Runyon comedy A Slight Case of Murder and at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Young Tom Edison.
In 1940, Jordan appeared in the movie Military Academy and accepted an offer from producer Sam Katzman to star in a new tough-kid series titled The East Side Kids. Leo Gorcey soon joined him, then Huntz Hall, and the trio continued to lead the series until 1943. Meanwhile, Universal Pictures had launched a competing series, The Little Tough Guys, which gradually recruited most of the original Dead End Kids; Bobby Jordan joined in 1940. When gang leader Billy Halop left the series to join the armed forces, Bobby Jordan replaced him in Keep 'Em Slugging.
Jordan entered the United States Army during World War II as a foot soldier in the 97th Infantry Division. While on furlough he made some fast cash by appearing as himself, in uniform, in the East Side Kids comedy Bowery Champs. He was subsequently involved in an elevator accident that forced him to have surgery to remove his right kneecap.

Later career and personal life

Leo Gorcey abruptly quit the East Side Kids in 1945. Bobby Jordan arranged a meeting with his agent, Jan Grippo, who in turn set up a new production company with Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and Jordan featured in the new Bowery Boys series. After the series began filming, Jordan soon found that Gorcey and Hall were getting the lion's share of both the films' content and salary. Dissatisfied with his background status, Jordan left the series after eight entries, and made only a few films thereafter.
He returned to films in 1949, playing a character role in the low-budget drama Treasure of Monte Cristo. Future assignments were few and far between, and the discouraged actor began drinking heavily. In subsequent years, Jordan worked as a bartender, a bad choice considering his alcoholism. He worked to support his family as a door-to-door photograph salesman and as a roughneck for an oil driller.
He did manage a few roles on television. On July 1, 1957, Jordan played Bob Ford, the assailant of Jesse James, in the television series Tales of Wells Fargo. One of his later performances was in an episode of Bonanza titled "The Many Faces of Gideon Flinch", where he played one of Bullet Head Burke's men.
In 1957, Jordan and his wife divorced; they had one son, Robert Jr.

Death

On August 25, 1965, Jordan entered the Veterans Hospital in Sawtelle, California, for treatment of cirrhosis of the liver. He died on September 10, 1965 at the age of 42. His former Dead End Kids and East Side Kids co-star Leo Gorcey observed in his memoir, "Bobby Jordan must not have had a guardian angel." He was buried at Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Filmography

Film (partial)

  • Kid Millions as Tourist
  • Dead End as Angel
  • A Slight Case of Murder as Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom
  • Crime School as Lester "Squirt" Smith
  • Reformatory as Pinky Leonard
  • My Bill as Reginald Colbrook Jr.
  • Angels with Dirty Faces as Swing
  • They Made Me a Criminal as Angel
  • Off the Record as Mickey Fallon
  • Hell's Kitchen as Joey Richards
  • The Angels Wash Their Faces as Bernie Smith
  • Dust Be My Destiny as Jimmy Glenn
  • On Dress Parade as Cadet Ronny Morgan
  • Young Tom Edison as Joe "Joey" Doyle
  • You're Not So Tough as Rap
  • Boys of the City as Danny Dolan
  • Military Academy as Dick Hill
  • That Gang of Mine as Danny Dolan
  • Give Us Wings as Rap
  • Pride of the Bowery as Danny
  • Flying Wild as Danny Dolan
  • Bowery Blitzkrieg as Danny Breslin
  • Spooks Run Wild as Danny
  • Mr. Wise Guy as Danny Collins
  • Let's Get Tough! as Danny Connors
  • Smart Alecks as Danny Stevens
  • Neath Brooklyn Bridge as Danny Lyons
  • Junior Army as Jockey
  • Kid Dynamite as Danny Lyons
  • Keep 'Em Slugging as Tommy Banning
  • Clancy Street Boys as Danny
  • Ghosts on the Loose as Danny
  • Destroyer as Sobbing Sailor
  • Adventures of the Flying Cadets as Cadet "Jinx" Roberts
  • Bowery Champs as Bobby Jordan
  • Live Wires as Bobby
  • In Fast Company as Bobby
  • Bowery Bombshell as Bobby
  • Spook Busters as Bobby
  • Mr. Hex as Bobby
  • The Beginning or the End as Radioman on Tinian Receiving A-Bomb Message
  • Hard Boiled Mahoney as Bobby
  • News Hounds as Bobby
  • Bowery Buckaroos as Bobby
  • Treasure of Monte Cristo as Tony Torecelli
  • The Fat Man as Ted - Bellhop
  • The Eddie Cantor Story as Customer
  • The Man Is Armed as Thorne

    Television