David Bryant

David John Bryant is a former three-time World (outdoors) singles bowls champion in 1966, 1980 and 1988 and also a three-time World indoors singles champion in 1979, 1980 and 1981. He also won the Commonwealth Games singles bowls championship on 4 occasions in 1962, 1970, 1974 and 1978. No bowls competition was held in the 1966 Commonwealth Games.

In 1969 he was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "services to bowls", and in 1980 he was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for again for "services to bowls".

Bryant also won the Middleton Cup on numerous occasions where among his Somerset team mates was former Scottish League internationalist footballer, Bobby Black.

'Jimmy' Greaves

James Peter 'Jimmy' Greaves is an English former football player, England's third highest goal scorer, and more recently a television pundit and is considered to be one of the finest goal scorers of his generation.

Greaves was a phenomenal striker, scoring on his debut for Chelsea in 1957. He finished as top League goal scorer twice whilst at Chelsea in 1959 and 1961 and his 41 league goals in the 1960-61 season remains a club record. Despite this, they never won any major trophies while he was playing for them.

In 1960 he became the youngest ever player to score 100 league goals in English football at the age of 20 years 290 days (and at 23 was the same age as Dixie Dean when he scored his 200th).

He briefly joined the Italian side A.C. Milan in 1961, after reportedly turning down a huge offer from Newcastle United and scored 9 goals in 12 games but failure to settle led to a quick departure. Bill Nicholson then signed him for Tottenham Hotspur for £99,999. The unusual fee was intended to relieve Greaves of the pressure of being the first £100,000 player.

Greaves enjoyed a legendary career at Tottenham. He played at Spurs from 1961 to 1970, scoring a club record of 266 goals in 379 matches, including 220 goals in the First Division. Greaves finished as top League goal scorer in four seasons (1963, 1964, 1965 and 1969), an achievement that established Greaves as arguably the most consistent striker in English football history. His record of finishing top goal scorer in six seasons has never been matched.

With Spurs, Greaves won the FA Cup in 1962 and 1967, scoring against Burnley in the former final. He also won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1963 - scoring twice in the famous 5-1 defeat of Atlético Madrid, ensuring that Spurs became the first British club to win a European trophy. Today he is considered one of the best players in the history of Tottenham Hotspur.

Greaves won his first England cap on May 17, 1959 against Peru, scoring England's only goal in a 4-1 defeat. He went on to play 57 times and score 44 goals, five fewer than Bobby Charlton but at a much higher rate. He remains third in the all-time list of England goal scorers, behind Charlton and Gary Lineker. Greaves also holds the record for most hat-tricks for England - six in all. At the 1961 British Home Championship, Greaves achieved the remarkable feat of scoring seven goals in three games as England won the title.

In the 1962 World Cup finals match against Brazil in Chile, a stray dog ran on to the pitch and evaded all of the players' efforts to catch it until Greaves got down on all fours to beckon the animal. Though successful in catching the dog, it proceeded to urinate all over Greaves' England shirt. The Brazilian player Garrincha thought the incident was so amusing that he took the dog home as a pet.

Greaves was the first-choice striker for the England team during the 1966 World Cup but suffered a leg injury during a game against France and had to be replaced. That replacement, Geoff Hurst, scored the winner in the quarter final against Argentina and kept his place all the way to the final, famously scoring a hat-trick as England won the tournament.

One of football's most famous photographs shows the elation on the England bench as the final whistle was blown, except for Greaves, in his suit and tie, looking astonished at what had happened. Greaves has always maintained that he felt nothing but delight at England's win and celebrated as much as the other non-playing members of the squad. He also maintains that he never felt he had a divine right to be in the side once he regained his fitness. However, his reaction at the time of England's success became well-documented - he packed his bags and headed on holiday with his wife while the rest of the squad attended an official banquet.

Greaves played only three more times for England after the 1966 World Cup, scoring a single goal. His final cap came against Austria in May, 1967.

In November 2007 it was announced that Greaves, along with the other 10 reserves from the 1966 squad, will be awarded medals by FIFA.

In 1970, Greaves joined West Ham United. He scored on his debut, (as he had for every team he played for, including England at full and under 21 level), with two goals against Manchester City on March 21. Two months later, on May 28, he finished sixth in the 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally with co-driver Tony Fall. He retired in 1971 having played 516 Football League games and netted 357 goals, an all-time record for the top flight.

Greaves made a comeback at the age of 38, playing for Barnet in the then Southern League, playing from midfield he netted 25 goals and was their player of the season. He then went on to make several appearances for semi-professional side Woodford Town before retiring.

In the mid-1970s Greaves battled a well-documented alcohol problem, finally quitting drinking in February 1978. He became a popular television presenter and football pundit, striking up a memorable partnership with Ian St. John. Together they hosted a popular Saturday lunchtime football show called Saint and Greavsie from 1985 until the programme was axed in 1992.

Greaves also worked frequently for TV-am as a TV critic and was resident team captain on ITV sports quiz Sporting Triangles as well as co-hosting the popular Saturday morning kids TV show, The Saturday Show. He briefly had his own talk show and has been a columnist for The Sun newspaper for many years. He also answered readers letters in Shoot magazine in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2002 Greaves was made an Inaugural Inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame. He released his autobiography, Greavsie, in 2003 and is in demand as an after-dinner speaker. Greavsie has written 18 books in partnership with his life-long friend, the journalist and author Norman Giller.

Sir James Galway

Sir James Galway is a Northern Ireland–born virtuoso flutist from Belfast, nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Flute". Following in the footsteps of Jean-Pierre Rampal, he became one of the first flute players to establish an international career as a soloist.

James Galway studied at the Royal College of Music under John Francis and then at the Guildhall School of Music under Geoffrey Gilbert. He then studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Gaston Crunelle and Jean-Pierre Rampal and also privately with Marcel Moyse.

After his education time he spent 15 years as an orchestral player. He played with Sadler's Wells Opera, Covent Garden Opera, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He auditioned for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan, and was principal flute of that orchestra from 1969 to 1975.

In addition to his performances of the standard classical repertoire, he features contemporary music in his programs, including new flute works commissioned by and for him by composers including David Amram, Malcolm Arnold, William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Dave Heath, Lowell Liebermann and Joaquín Rodrigo. The album "In Ireland" by "James Galway and the Chieftains" reached number 32 in the UK album charts in 1987.

He is Principal Guest Conductor of the London Mozart Players, based at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, South London.

Most recently, Galway has performed for the Academy Award-winning ensemble recording the soundtracks of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, composed by Howard Shore.

In June 2008, Galway was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame along with Liza Minnelli and B. B. King.

He currently performs on Nagahara flutes, as well as some Muramatsu Flutes.

Magnús Magnússon

Magnús Magnússon was an Icelandic television presenter, journalist, translator and writer. He was born in Iceland but lived in Scotland for nearly all of his life, although he never took British citizenship. He came to fame as presenter of the BBC television quiz programme Mastermind, which he hosted for 25 years.

Magnússon was born in Reykjavík but grew up in Edinburgh, where his father, Sigursteinn Magnússon, was the Icelandic consul. Under Icelandic naming conventions, his name would have been Magnús Sigursteinsson (Magnús, son of Sigursteinn), but his family adopted British naming conventions and used his father's patronymic. He was schooled at the Edinburgh Academy.

After graduating from Jesus College, Oxford, Magnússon became a reporter with the Scottish Daily Express and The Scotsman. He went freelance in 1967, then joined the BBC, presenting programmes on history and archeology as well as appearing in news programmes. He was Lord Rector of Edinburgh University from 1975 to 1978, and later became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University.

Magnússon presented the long-running quiz show Mastermind from 1972 to 1997. The popularity of the show made him one of the best-known faces of the BBC. His famous catchphrase, which the current presenter John Humphrys has continued to use, was "I've started so I'll finish".

Magnússon made a one-off cameo appearance as himself, hosting Mastermind in the children's series Dizzy Heights.

Magnússon translated a variety of books from modern Icelandic and Old Norse into English. Among these are several works by Halldór Laxness, the Nobel prize-winning novelist from Iceland, and a number of Norse sagas which he co-translated (with Hermann Pálsson) for the Penguin Classics series: Njal's Saga (1960), The Vinland Sagas (1965), King Harald's Saga (1966) and Laxdaela Saga (1969). Magnússon was also the author of a popular history of the Viking era, called The Vikings (revised edition, 2000).

Magnússon was awarded an honorary knighthood (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1989, and was elected President of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for a five-year period, at their 94th AGM in October 1995, succeeding Max Nicholson. He also became the founder Chairman of Scottish Natural Heritage upon its inception in 1992.

In 2002 he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University.

In the early years of the 21st century, Magnússon also wrote for the New Statesman.

On 12 October 2006, his 77th birthday, Magnússon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Magnússon mordantly noted that "this has to be one of my worst birthdays ever". His condition meant he was forced to cancel a string of public appearances. He died on 7 January 2007.

Sir John Harvey-Jones

Sir John Harvey-Jones was chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries from 1982 to 1987. He may have been best-known for his BBC television show, Troubleshooter, in which he advised struggling businesses.

Harvey-Jones was born in Hackney, London; but spent most of his early childhood in Dhar, India, where his father was a guardian to a teenage Maharajah. He was shipped back to Britain at age 6 to attend a prep school at Deal, Kent, where he suffered bullying and was desperately unhappy. He entered Dartmouth Royal Naval College at age 13.

Harvey-Jones joined Dartmouth Royal Naval College as a cadet in 1937, and in 1940, at the age of 16, he joined HMS Diomede as a midshipman. The next two ships that he served with, HMS Ithuriel and HMS Quentin were both sunk by enemy action. Harvey-Jones went on to join the submarine service in 1942 and received his first command at age 24.

With the end of World War II, Harvey-Jones went to the University of Cambridge to study Russian in six months and joined Naval Intelligence as an interpreter. He married Mary Bignell in 1947, and he commanded the Russian intelligence section under the guise of the "British Baltic Fishery Protection Service," which used two ex-German Schnellboots for gathering clandestine intelligence on the Soviet Baltic Fleet. Rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, Harvey-Jones was awarded a military MBE in 1952 for his work in Naval Intelligence.

Refused permission by the Royal Navy to spend more time with his wife and daughter Gaby, who had contracted polio, he resigned his commission in 1956 and joined Imperial Chemical Industries on Teesside as a junior training manager. In 1973, at age 49, he was promoted to sit on the main board of directors. In April 1982, he became Chairman of ICI reputedly at the odds of 15-1 against, only the second split-career man and non-chemist to reach the top.

Mentored in part by John Adair, Harvey-Jones saw his responsibilities to both stockholders and employees as "making a profit out of the markets where the market is." He maintained a firm belief in "speed rather than direction", on the assumption that "once travelling a company can veer and tack towards the ultimate objective." Thus, at the business level he cut non-profit making and what he saw as non-core businesses, so that at board level he could concentrate on putting more power in fewer hands "to reduce the number of those who can say 'no' and increase the motivation of those who can say 'yes'", maintaining that "there are no bad troops, only bad leaders". After only thirty months in the job, having cut the UK workforce by one third, he had doubled the price of ICI shares and turned a loss into a one billion pound profit.

Despite his public loathing of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he accepted her offer of a knighthood for services to industry in 1985. He was voted Industrialist of the Year in 1988 for the third consecutive year and also became honorary vice-president of the Institute of Marketing. He served as chairman of The Economist from 1989 to 1994.

It was the BBC's Troubleshooter series, first broadcast in 1990, that made Harvey-Jones, according to one newspaper, the most famous industrialist since Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It ran to five series and several specials in the 1990s and also won him a BAFTA award.

Having lived most of his post-retirement period in Hay-on-Wye, he died in his sleep after a long illness, aged 83, at the Hereford County Hospital.

Hilaire Belloc

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalized British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He is most notable for his Roman Catholic faith, which had an impact on most of his writing.

Recent biographies of Belloc have been written by A. N. Wilson and Joseph Pearce.

Belloc was born in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France (next to Versailles and near Paris) to a French father and English mother, and grew up in England. Much of his boyhood was spent in Slindon West Sussex, for which he often felt homesick in later life. This is evidenced in poems such as, "West Sussex Drinking Song", "The South Country", and even the more melancholy, "Ha'nacker Hill".

His mother Elizabeth Rayner Parkes (1829–1925) was also a writer, and a great-granddaughter of the English chemist Joseph Priestley. In 1867 she married attorney Louis Belloc, son of the French painter Jean-Hilaire Belloc. In 1872, five years after they wed, Louis died, but not before being wiped out financially in a stock market crash. The young widow then brought her son Hilaire, along with his sister, Marie, back to England where he remained, except for his voluntary enlistment as a young man in the French artillery.

After being educated at John Henry Newman's Oratory School Belloc served his term of military service, as a French citizen, with an artillery regiment near Toul in 1891. He was powerfully built, with great stamina, and walked extensively in Britain and Europe. While courting his future wife Elodie, whom he first met in 1890, the impecunious Belloc walked a good part of the way from the midwest of the United States to her home in northern California, paying for lodging at remote farm houses and ranches by sketching the owners and reciting poetry.

After his military service, Belloc proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford, as a History scholar. He went on to obtain first class honours in History, and never lost his love for Balliol, as is illustrated by his verse, "Balliol made me, Balliol fed me/ Whatever I had she gave me again".

In the early 1930s, he was given an old Jersey pilot cutter called 'Jersey'. He sailed this for some years around the coasts of England, with the help of younger men. One of whom, Dermod MacCarthy, wrote a book about his time on the water with Belloc, called Sailing with Mr Belloc.

An 1895 graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, Belloc was a noted figure within the University, being President of the Oxford Union, the undergraduate debating society. He went into politics after he became a naturalised British citizen. A great disappointment in his life was his failure to gain a fellowship at All Souls College in Oxford. This failure may have been caused in part by his producing a small statue of the Virgin and placing it before him on the table during the interview for the fellowship.

From 1906 to 1910 he was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Salford South, but swiftly became disillusioned with party politics. During one campaign speech he was asked by a heckler if he was a "papist." Retrieving his rosary from his pocket he responded, "Sir, so far as possible I hear Mass each day and I go to my knees and tell these beads each night. If that offends you, then I pray God may spare me the indignity of representing you in Parliament." The crowd cheered and Belloc won the election.

Belloc wrote on myriad subjects, from warfare to poetry and many topics current in his day. He was closely associated with G. K. Chesterton; George Bernard Shaw coined the term Chesterbelloc for their partnership.

His only period of steady employment was from 1914 to 1920 as editor of Land and Water, a journal devoted to the progress of the war. Otherwise he lived by his pen, and often fell short of money.

He was the brother of the novelist Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. In 1896, he married Elodie Hogan, an American. They had five children before her 1914 death from influenza. His son Louis was killed in World War I. He suffered a stroke in 1941, and never recovered from its effects. He lived quietly at home in Guildford, England, until his death on 16 July 1953.

George Butterworth

George Sainton Kaye Butterworth was an English composer best known for his tone poem The Banks of Green Willow and his settings of A. E. Housman's poems.

Although Butterworth was born in London, his family moved to Yorkshire not long after his birth. He received his first music lessons from his mother, who was a singer, and began composing at an early age. However, his father intended for him to be a solicitor, and he attended Eton College, from there continuing on to Trinity College, Oxford. While at Trinity he became more focused on music, for there he met the folk song collector Cecil Sharp and composer and folk song enthusiast Ralph Vaughan Williams. Butterworth and Vaughan Williams made several trips into the English countryside to collect folk songs, and both saw their compositions strongly influenced by what they heard. Butterworth was also an expert folk dancer, being particularly fond of Morris dancing.

Vaughan Williams and Butterworth became close friends. It was Butterworth who suggested to Vaughan Williams that he turn a symphonic poem he was working on into his London Symphony. When the manuscript for that piece was lost (having been sent to Fritz Busch in Germany just before the outbreak of war) Butterworth, together with Geoffrey Toye and the critic Edward J. Dent, helped Vaughan Williams reconstruct the work. Vaughan Williams dedicated the piece to Butterworth's memory after his death. Upon leaving Oxford, Butterworth began a career in music, writing criticism for The Times, composing, and teaching at Radley College, Oxfordshire. He also briefly studied at the Royal College of Music where he worked with Hubert Parry among others.

At the outbreak of World War I, Butterworth signed up for service in the British Army. He served in the Durham Light Infantry as a lieutenant in the 13th Battalion. Butterworth's letters are full of admiration for the ordinary miners of County Durham who served in his platoon. As part of 23rd Division the 13th DLI was sent into action to capture the western approaches of the village of Contalmaison on the Somme. Butterworth and his men succeeded in capturing a series of trenches, the traces of which can still be found within a small wood. For this action Lt George Butterworth, 31, was recommended for the Military Cross by Brigadier Page-Croft, who described him as: A brilliant musician in times of war and an equally brilliant soldier in times of stress. It is interesting to note that Ralph Vaughan Williams was serving as an ambulanceman nearby during this time.

The Somme Battle was now entering its most intense phase and on 4 August 23rd Division was ordered to attack a communication trench known as Munster Alley. The soldiers named the assault trench 'Butterworth Trench' in their Officer's honour. In desperate fighting 4/5 August Butterworth and his miners captured and held on to Munster Alley albeit with heavy loss. That night amid the frantic German attempts to recapture the position, George Butterworth, the most promising British musician of his generation, was sniped through the head and killed.

Eyvind Johnson

Eyvind Johnson was a Swedish author. He became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1957 and shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with Harry Martinson in 1974 with the citation: for a narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom.

The choice for Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson in 1974 was controversial as both were on the Nobel panel themselves and Graham Greene, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov were the favoured candidates that year.

Johnson was born in Näsberg village, Edefors parish Boden, Norrbotten. In Boden they show the small house where he grew up.

His most noted works include Här har du ditt liv! (Here is Your Life!) (1935), Strändernas Svall (Return to Ithaca) (1946) and Hans Nådes Tid (The Days of his Grace) (1960).

Gaylord P. Harnwell

Gaylord Probasco Harnwell was an American educator and physicist, who was president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1953 to 1970. He also held a great number of positions in a wide variety of national political and educational boards and committees, as well as senior positions in both the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania and the United States Navy. In the later part of his life he also toured both the Soviet Union and Iran as a promoter of higher education.

Harnwell was born in Evanston, Illinois to Chicago born lawyer Frederick William and Anna Jane Wilcox Harnwell. After attending Evanston Township High School and Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania in 1924, Harnwell attended both Cambridge University and then Princeton University, gaining an M.A. and Ph.D. in physics in 1926 and 1927 respectively. From 1927 until 1928 Harwell taught physics at the California Institute of Technology and then from 1928 to 1938 he taught at Princeton, becoming associate professor by 1936. Then in 1938 Harnwell took over the physics department at the University of Pennsylvania.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Harnwell was given a leave of absence to serve as director of the University of California Division of War Research for the U.S. Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory in San Diego, California from 1942 until 1946, earning the Medal for Merit the following year.

Harnwell returned to the university's physics department until 1953 when he was elected as the university’s president, a position he held until 1970. During his term he oversaw rapid expansion of the university during a period that is cited as "a new milestone in the history of the development of the University."

During his time as president, Harnwell also served in a number of positions within the United States Navy, including chairman of the Ordnance Committee of the Research and Development Board of the Department of Defense and chairman of the Committee on Undersea Warfare of the National Research Council. He was also a member of the Advisory Panel on Ordnance, Transport and Supply of the Department of Defense, Advisory Board of the U. S. Navy Ordnance Laboratory, Science Information Council of the National Science Foundation and congressional Subcommittee on Military Applications of Atomic Energy. In 1958 Harnwell was awarded the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award.

Harnwell also toured educational facilities in the Soviet Union and Iran in 1958 and then 1960 and 1961, discussing the proposal to found an American-style university in Shiraz. These tours gave Harnwell material for a number of published works, and fostered relationships between University of Pennsylvania and Pahlavi University in Iran. From 1958 until 1970 he was also a member of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company board, and in 1971 became president of the Penn Central Company. He also held a number of other influential positions, including Public Governor of the New York Stock Exchange, director of the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia, First Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Company, Philadelphia CARE Committee, Rore-Amchem, Inc., the United Fund of the Philadelphia Area, the Food Distribution Center Corporation, the National Society of Scabbard and Blade, and the Institute for Educational Management in Boston.

Harnwell was also involved in the office of the state governor, as chairman of the Council of Science and Technology, Committee on Tax Administration, Tax Study and Revision Commission and Commonwealth Priorities Commission at various times in the last decade of his time as president of the University of Pennsylvania. His influence in the university and governors office continued after his retirement, until his death in April, 1982.

Gale Gordon

Gale Gordon was an American character actor. Remembered best as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil — and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television situation comedy, The Lucy Show — Gordon was just as respected for his earlier career in classic American radio, where he was once the highest-paid actor in the medium, even though he was never a top-billed radio star.

Born Charles T. Aldrich, Jr. in New York City, the son of British actress Gloria Gordon and her vaudevillian husband Charles Aldrich, Gordon's first big radio break came was the recurring role of Mayor La Trivia on Fibber McGee and Molly, before playing Rumson Bullard on the show's successful spinoff, The Great Gildersleeve. Gordon and his character of Mayor La Trivia briefly left the show in December of 1942, both had enlisted in World War 2.

Gordon was the first actor to play the role of Flash Gordon, in the 1935 radio serial The Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon. In 1950, Gordon played John Granby in the radio series Granby's Green Acres, which became the basis for the 1960s television series, Green Acres. Gordon went on to create the role of pompous principal Osgood Conklin on Our Miss Brooks, carrying the role to television when the show moved there in 1952.

In the interim, Gordon turned up as Rudolph Atterbury on My Favorite Husband, which starred Lucille Ball in a precursor to I Love Lucy. Gordon and Ball previously worked together on The Wonder Show, starring Jack Haley, from 1938 to 1939. The two had a long-term friendship as well as recurring professional partnership. Gordon also had a recurring role as fictitious Rexall Drugs sponsor representative Mr. Scott on yet another radio hit, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, staying with the role as long as Rexall sponsored the show.

The widely acknowledged master of the "slow-burn" temper explosion in character, Gordon was actually the first pick to play Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy, but he was committed to Our Miss Brooks and had to decline the offer in favor of William Frawley. But he did make two guest shots on the show as Ricky Ricardo's boss, Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana Club where Ricky's band played, and he later played a judge on a The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episode. Gordon also had a co-starring role in the television comedy Pete and Gladys. At this time, he guest starred with Pat O'Brien in the ABC sitcom Harrigan and Son, the story of a fictitious father-and-son pair of lawyers.

In 1962, Ball created The Lucy Show and planned to hire Gordon to play Theodore J. Mooney, the banker who was first Lucy Carmichael's executor and subsequently her employer, when she went to work in his bank. Gordon, however, was still under contract to play the second George Wilson neighbor, (after the death of Joseph Kearns) on Dennis the Menace. When that show ended in spring 1963, Gordon joined The Lucy Show as Mr. Mooney for the 1963-64 season. In the interim, Charles Lane played the similar Mr. Barnsdahl character for the 1962-63 season. The somewhat portly Gordon was not only adept at physical comedy but could do a perfect cartwheel. He did this once on The Lucy Show and again as a guest on The Dean Martin Show.

After the sale of Desilu studios, Ball shut down The Lucy Show in 1968 and retooled it into Here's Lucy. She used Gordon yet again--this time as her irascible boss (and brother-in-law) Harry Carter at an employment agency that specialized in unusual jobs. It was really the Lucy Carmichael/Mr. Mooney relationship continued with new names and a new setting.

Gordon all but retired when Here's Lucy ended (although he did reprise his role of Mr. Mooney in the first aired episode of Hi Honey, I'm Home!), but in the 1980s he came out of retirement to join Ball one last time, for the short-lived Life With Lucy. When Lucille Ball finally brought an end to her career, Gordon turned out to be the only actor to have co-starred or guest-starred in every weekly series, radio or television, she had done since the 1940s.

Gordon died of lung cancer at age 89 in Escondido, California