Leo Vincent Gordon

 Leo Vincent Gordon (December 2, 1922 – December 26, 2000)

Gordon started his career on the stage and worked with such stars as Edward G. Robinson and Tyrone Power. He was soon discovered by a Hollywood agent in a Los Angeles production of Darkness at Noon. Over the course of his career Gordon would appear in more than 170 film and television productions from the early 1950s to the mid-1990s. Notable roles included that of John Dillinger in Siegel's Baby Face Nelson. Gordon may be most noted for his recurring character Big Mike McComb on the ABC/Warner Brothers Western television series Maverick, working from 1957 to 1960 alongside James Garner and Jack Kelly. Garner and Gordon reunited in the 1970s when Gordon appeared as a dimwitted bodyguard on four episodes of The Rockford Files. Perhaps Gordon's single most memorable film scene occurred in McLintock! (1963), during which John Wayne knocks him down a long mudslide after uttering the famous line "Somebody oughta belt you but I won't! I won't! The hell I won't." Gordon also appeared as ageing wrestler Milo Stavroupolis on Little House on the Prairie, starring Michael Landon. Gordon's final role was as Wyatt Earp in a 1994 episode of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. In contrast to his screen persona Gordon was a quiet, thoughtful and intelligent man who generally avoided the Hollywood spotlight. He was widely regarded by his fellow actors and his directors as a well-prepared professional. In 1997 he received the Golden Boot Award for his many years of work in westerns. After struggling with a brief illness, Gordon died of cardiac failure in his sleep, aged 78, at his home in Los Angeles, California, on December 26, 2000. Gordon was cremated, and the ashes interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.