List of Mad Men characters
Encyclopedia
This is a list of fictional characters in the television series Mad Men
, all of whom have appeared in multiple episodes.
(né Dick Whitman; Jon Hamm) is the creative director
at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; he eventually rises to become a junior partner. Draper is the series' protagonist
, and more storylines focus on him than on other characters.
(Elisabeth Moss
), upon introduction, is the ostensibly naïve "new girl" at Sterling Cooper. She was originally Draper's secretary, but showed surprising talent and initiative, including a knack for understanding the consumer's mind similar to Draper's own (albeit in a rawer, less focused form).
(Vincent Kartheiser
) is an ambitious young account executive whose father-in-law controls the advertising for Clearasil, a Sterling Cooper account.
(née Hofstadt, formerly Draper; January Jones
) is the wife of Don Draper (who affectionately called her "Bets" or on occasion "Birdy") and mother of their three children, Sally, Bobby and Gene. She is a classic early '60s homemaker, with the added intrigue of a past as a professional model.
(née Holloway; Christina Hendricks
) is an office manager at Sterling Cooper who acts as a professional and social mentor, as well as a rival, to Peggy Olson.
(John Slattery
), was one of the two managing partners of Sterling Cooper, and later a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
) is Pete Campbell's wife. Trudy and Pete marry early in season 1 and purchase an apartment on Park Avenue, with the help of Trudy's parents. Trudy is dutiful to her husband, even when he asks her to visit an old beau to get a short story published. In Season 2, she expresses her desire to have a child, a desire Pete resists as he does not want to have children yet (not knowing he already conceived a child with Peggy). After discovering that she has fertility problems
, Trudy wants to adopt a baby, but Pete balks. In Season 3, Trudy and Pete have a closer relationship than they did before and seem to work together as a team, though Pete rapes a neighbor's au pair when Trudy is away on her summer vacation with her parents. In Season 4, Trudy becomes pregnant, a fact that Pete uses to secure the Vicks Chemical
account for the firm from his father-in-law. Later in the season, Trudy gives birth to a daughter whom they name Tammy (apparently after Trudy's father, Tom).
) is the senior partner of Sterling Cooper, a crafty old gentleman who is treated with considerable deference by Sterling and Draper. He founded the agency in 1923 with Roger Sterling's father and it suggested that he knew Roger Sterling as a child; his late wife introduced Roger and Mona, and he keeps a picture of young Roger and Roger's father in his office. Cooper lectures Sterling about being dependent on smoking, and criticizes Draper for his love life. Cooper is not present in the office's day-to-day wranglings, but he is devoted to the business and quietly manages various challenges from behind the scenes. Cooper's younger sister, Alice, is a silent partner
at Sterling Cooper, and invested in the company when it was just getting started. He has a late period red painting by Mark Rothko
and the erotic illustration The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
hung in his office and is a devotee of Ayn Rand
. He appears to be an aficionado of Japanese art
and culture: his office is decorated in a Japan
ese motif with shoji
dividers among other things (including a photograph of President Coolidge), and he requires visitors to remove their shoes before they enter his office. Roger attributes this to Bert being a germaphobe. Cooper also walks around the rest of Sterling Cooper in his socks. He is a member of the Republican Party
, and gets Sterling Cooper involved with the Nixon
campaign, providing advertising services to the campaign gratis. Cooper is one of the first characters to discover that Don Draper is actually Dick Whitman, after Pete Campbell informs him of the truth, but he reacts with nonchalance, remarking famously "Mr. Campbell, who cares?" He keeps silent about Don's identity but uses his knowledge two years later to coerce Draper into signing a contract. After selling a majority interest in the company to a British firm who begins to exert control, he begins to feel less and less significant but accepts it as part of the terms of the buyout. When he discovers that the firm will be selling their business to a rival agency - and will be forced to retire as a result - Bert goes on to co-found the new agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. During Season 4, it is revealed that Cooper was given an unnecessary orchiectomy during the "height of his sexual prime." Later in Season 4, in the episode "Blowing Smoke", when the agency is forced to radically downsize its staff following the loss of the Lucky Strike account, Bert tells the other partners that he is quitting, partially in response to Don Draper's opinion piece in the New York Times, which he feels is a needlessly reckless career move.
) is an account executive at Sterling Cooper. He is originally from Vermont
and attended Columbia University
. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Ken has literary aspirations and has been published in The Atlantic Monthly
, an accomplishment that elicits jealousy from both Pete and fellow co-worker Paul Kinsey. In Season 2 it is revealed that Ken makes considerably more money than his co-worker Harry Crane. In Season 3, Ken and Pete are promoted, sharing the role of accounts director, which infuriates Pete who wanted the role for himself. While not as outwardly ambitious as Pete, he has proven to be a competent executive and an exceptionally talented creative thinker, eclipsing Campbell as a rising star at Sterling Cooper. Eventually, Cosgrove is promoted above Campbell, to the latter's fury. Because Pete Campbell was approached first and agreed to join SCDP, Cosgrove is not seen in the earlier episodes in Season 4. However, Ken later joins SCDP, bringing Birds Eye
and other clients with him, and agrees to serve under Campbell. Later in the fourth season, Ken is having dinner with his fiancee and prospective in-laws when he learns that Lucky Strike
, SCDP's biggest client, is taking their business to another agency.
) was a media buyer at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more of his time in the office drinking, flirting, and gossiping than actually working. Harry is originally from Wisconsin
and is married to Jennifer, who works at a phone company. They seem to have one of the few equal marriages in the show; Harry is honest with his wife and is shown asking her advice about his problems at work. Harry flirts with women, but is faithful to his wife until he has too much to drink at an office party and has a one night stand with Pete's secretary. He confesses the infidelity to Jennifer, who kicks him out of their home for a time; he and Jennifer appear to have resolved that issue by Season 2, and Jennifer later gives birth to a daughter. Harry is a bit of a pushover, accepting far less in pay in negotiations than he could have asked for, and his non-confrontational attitude causes him to mishandle a situation that leads to the firing of his friend and co-worker, Sal Romano. Despite these flaws, Harry is the only member of the firm to recognize the advertising power of television and subsequently creates and puts himself in charge of Sterling Cooper's television department. Later, when Sterling Cooper was in the process of being sold, Harry mistakenly thinks they are considering opening a West Coast office and believes that he would be the person to move to California (in the early 1960s production of most television programs had essentially moved from New York to Los Angeles
). In Season 3, he is the only Sterling Cooper executive who is promoted by the firm's British owner as part of a short-lived company reorganization. Harry later accepts an offer to join Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as head of media. During Season 4, a more confident, if smarmy Harry shows great progress, as he is often seen making deals with television networks on the new agency's behalf.
) is the oldest child of Don and Betty Draper. She becomes a more central character in the third and fourth seasons (according to the time line of the series, she would be 8 years old in Season 3 and 10 years old in Season 4); as of the fourth season, she has been promoted to a starring role. The death of her grandfather, Gene Hofstadt, affected Sally significantly, and deepened the rift between her and her mother, Betty. When her youngest brother is named after their dead grandfather and given his room, Sally becomes convinced that the baby is the ghost of her grandfather and becomes terrified of him. Sally is adventurous, and she has been seen throughout the series making cocktails for her father, smoking one of her mother's cigarettes, and being taught how to drive by her grandfather. Her behavioral problems lead Betty to have her see a child psychiatrist in Season 4. Sally appears to be closer to her father than her mother, and in one episode ("The Beautiful Girls"), she unexpectedly shows up at Don's office, ostensibly because she wants to live with him instead of Betty and Henry Francis. Don sometimes calls Sally by the nickname "Salamander".
and the Republican Party. He is instantly infatuated with Betty Draper when he meets her at the Sterling's Kentucky Derby party. After some time passes, he is called upon by Betty Draper and some of her friends to use his influence to save a local reservoir. He develops a personal connection with Betty, which she reciprocates because she feels no such connection with Don. Sensing Betty's unhappiness with her marriage, he tells Betty that he is willing to marry her. At the end of Season 3, he and Betty are seen flying to Reno, Nevada, so that Betty can complete divorce proceedings against Don. When Season 4 begins, Henry and Betty are married and still living with the Draper children in the Drapers' house, but by the end of the season they move to Rye, NY. His mother disapproves of Betty, aware of why Henry was interested in marrying her. Henry's marriage to Betty becomes strained due to her issues with Don and Sally.
) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Paul has been involved with Joan in the past, and dates an African American woman, who dumps him while they are registering black voters in the South. He lives in a beatnik neighborhood in New Jersey and espouses more Bohemian ideas and attitudes than his fellow young copywriters, listening to jazz and smoking marijuana. He is originally from New Jersey and attended Princeton on a scholarship, two facts he is eager to hide. A fan of science fiction and The Twilight Zone
, he has a notably Kennedy-era fascination with space. In season two he grows an Orson Welles beard. He initially encourages Peggy to pursue copy writing, noting that "There are female copywriters" but becomes jealous and pettily competitive when her skill becomes clear. He expresses considerable anger when it is clear she was selected to leave the company and join Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
) was director of account services for a time at Sterling Cooper. In "Indian Summer" when Draper is made partner in the wake of Sterling's heart attack, Cooper gives Draper the authority to appoint a new head of account services. At the end of the first season, Draper brings in Phillips, who is looking for a job after alcoholism and an extramarital affair ended his career at Y&R
's London
office. Phillips appears to be a recovering alcoholic whose ex-wife and children are moving on with their lives. Phillips immediately challenges Sterling Cooper to broaden their clientele, seeking to attract airlines, automobile manufacturers, pharmaceuticals. At the beginning of season 2, in February 1962, Phillips wants the agency to hire younger creative talent, a move Draper resists. He also pushes Cooper to pursue American Airlines
in the wake of a very public plane crash
, forcing Don Draper to break his word and cut loose a client, Mohawk Airlines
, in order to pursue American Airlines
, a larger client. At the end of season 2, frustrated at his failure to make partner, Phillips goes to some of his former London colleagues to arrange a merger of Sterling Cooper with the British firm Putnam, Powell & Lowe, which wants to establish a New York office. After the successful merger, Phillips is named president of Sterling Cooper, but he embarrasses himself in a drunken rant when Draper announces his intent to leave the firm. During season 3, it was revealed Duck is now working at Grey
, another New York agency. He tries to poach Pete and Peggy from Sterling Cooper, and is unsuccessful, but he and Peggy begin having a sexual relationship. He later resurfaces in season 4 ("Waldorf Stories", episode 45) at the Clio Awards
Show and drunkenly humiliates the man giving the introductory speech at the show, prompting security to remove him. Upon witnessing this, Sterling jokes "I miss working with that guy." During "The Suitcase" (episode 46), Duck unsuccessfully tries to strike out on his own after leaving Grey and creating his own female consumer product-based ad agency. He goes so far as to try to hire Peggy as a Creative Director, a move only fueled by his desire to be with her. During a late night at the agency, Peggy catches Duck trying to defecate on Roger Sterling's sofa chair, mistaking it to be Don's out of spite. Duck gets into a physical brawl with Don and gets the upper hand, while Don concedes. Duck is a former United States Marine officer and served in the Pacific Theater
during World War II
. He claimed to have killed 17 men at the Battle of Okinawa
.
) appears at the beginning of the third season as financial officer of Sterling Cooper and PP&L's man in New York. His job is to trim operating expenses at the company, most noticeably accomplished by firing long-time employee Burt Peterson, who is the head of accounts, and naming Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove as his joint successors. He becomes isolated from Cooper, Sterling, and Draper when he expresses PPL's disinterest in a potentially lucrative account with Madison Square Garden
. Although he is initially unaware of PPL's plans for Sterling Cooper, Pryce later learns that he has been instructed to cut overhead so that SC can be sold to another advertising agency for a profit. Pryce does not seem to be highly regarded by his superiors in London, who decide to transfer him to the firm's office in India—a plan that is aborted after Pryce's would-be replacement is injured in a freak accident. Sterling, Cooper, and Draper convince him to join them in starting a new agency, making him a named partner in exchange for "firing" the three of them in order to void their contracts. Although unspoken, it becomes apparent that Lane has a knack for managing company revenues and controlling costs, a talent that is needed at the new firm. Lane is married to Rebecca (Embeth Davidtz
) and they are parents of an (as yet) unseen son named Nigel. During Season 4, Lane's marriage falls apart, as Rebecca, although genuinely loving him, finds the strain of America too much for her and returns to London indefinitely. Lane and Don end up meeting at work, where they get drunk and go for a night out on the town. Lane ends up sleeping with a friend of a girl that Don sees, who was previously revealed to be a hooker/call-girl. Lane pays Don for her services the following morning, and thanks him for the "welcome distraction." When his family is supposed to go to New York to see Lane, he is instead visited by his elderly father who intends to take Lane home to England
to sort out his affairs. Around the same time, Lane begins an interracial relationship with a young African-American Playboy Bunny named Toni, and later introduces her to his father. However, his father intends for Lane to sort out his marriage and assaults his son with his cane, ordering him to return to England to reunite with his family. Lane later takes a short leave-of-absence from the agency, and returns to New York with his family.
) is the Italian-American head art director
at Sterling Cooper. He is originally from Baltimore
. Sal is gay
and in the closet
. Sal turned down a proposition from a male employee of Belle Jolie Lipstick midway through the first season, admitting that though he has thought about having relationships with men, he has never acted on this impulse, implying it was out of fear of discovery. He joins the other men of Sterling Cooper in their flirtations with the women in the workplace, in order to keep up the appearance that he is as interested in the opposite sex as they are. He speaks to his mother in Italian. In between Seasons One and Two, Sal marries a childhood friend, Kitty (Sarah Drew
), who is unaware of his true orientation, but over time becomes suspicious. The two entertain Ken for dinner during the second season, during which Sal seems taken with his male guest. In the third season premiere, Don Draper becomes aware of Sal's orientation after catching him with a bellhop in a hotel room by accident, but subtly assures him that he'll keep silent by bringing up an ad campaign with the slogan "limit your exposure." Later in the third season, and with Don's encouragement, Sal branches out into directing commercials for the company, while his wife becomes increasingly suspicious of him. Sal is fired from Sterling Cooper when he rejects the advances of Lee Garner Jr of Lucky Strike.
) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He is the first in the office to notice Peggy Olsen's talent for copywriting while working on an ad campaign for Belle Jolie. Since that time, he has been quite supportive of Olsen's copywriting talents. He likes to seem lighthearted and open despite his age (his eldest daughter turns thirty in Season 2, and he served in World War II
), playing Mozart
pieces on his pants zipper. However, he has serious problems with alcohol, and drinks unusually heavily at work even by Sterling Cooper standards. This ends up costing him his job when, after having too much to drink, he wets his pants and falls asleep shortly before he is supposed to deliver a pitch to Samsonite
. Peggy delivers the pitch instead, and Pete reports the episode to Duck Phillips, who proceeds to report this to Sterling; Rumsen is shortly fired, to Peggy's frustration (she felt some loyalty to Freddy on account of his earlier assistance to her) despite the fact that his departure secured a promotion to senior copywriter for her ("Six Months' Leave"). Don and Roger take Freddy out for a night on the town in wake of his departure from the agency. In Season 4's second episode, a sober Rumsen returns to work for SCDP, having brought a $2 million account for Pond's Cold Cream. His only condition on coming back was that Pete not be allowed near the account.
) was Don Draper's secretary, first at Sterling Cooper and later at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Allison was first seen as Sterling Cooper's receptionist. By Season 3, she had become Don Draper's secretary. Though little developed during the first three seasons, she was depicted as being competent and friendly. She was also shown to have something of an on-again, off-again relationship with Ken Cosgrove. In Season 1, Allison had a one-night stand with Ken on the night of the 1960 presidential election. In Season 2, she occasionally flirted with Ken and during Joan's going-away party she was seen sitting on Ken's lap. After Don asked that Jane Siegel be removed as his secretary, Allison was installed as her replacement. Although the sudden formation of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was done without her knowledge, Allison was hired by SCDP sometime during 1964 and continued as Draper's secretary. On the night of the Office Christmas Party in 1964, Allison was asked to bring Draper his apartment keys which he had forgotten at work. Upon entering his apartment, the drunken Draper seduced Allison and they had an impulsive sexual encounter. Draper attempted to forget about the affair, but ended hurting Allison when she realized he was going to pretend like nothing had happened. She continued to work for Draper for several months, but in the fourth episode of Season 4, Draper's continual avoidance of the topic finally led her to resign after bursting into tears at a focus group. An insensitive comment made by Draper during her resignation caused her to snap, throw a brass cigarette dispenser at him and leave the office in tears. Allison's last name was never mentioned in the show, and remains unknown.
) is a freelance artist for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce who is first seen at the start of the fourth season. Joey and Peggy seem to enjoy working together, doing the "John and Marcia" skit in a workroom and laughing. Later, several of his comments become insensitive. When Peggy gets a "Congratulations" card to sign (on Trudy and Pete's surprise but much-welcomed pregnancy), Peggy is internally very hurt because she had given up her son with Pete five years previously. Joey says, "I would get her (Trudy) SO pregnant." The comment hurts Peggy and also makes her feel bad that Joey seems to find Pete's wife very attractive yet pays Peggy no mind regarding her appearance. Joey verbally abuses Joan. That same episode, Joey draws a pornographic drawing of Joan and Lane Pryce engaged in oral sex. Peggy fires a disbelieving Joey. In the end, Joan becomes angry at Peggy, because Peggy took charge of the situation and made Joan look weak.
) is the wife of comedian Jimmy Barrett (born Jimmy Bernstein) (Patrick Fischler
), a harsh and deprecating man the firm uses to advertise for their Utz
Potato Chips account. After her husband insults the owner's wife Mrs. Schilling about her weight, Don has to intercede and ends up meeting Bobbie, also Jimmy's manager, who shrugs off her husband's behavior. On the way to get Jimmy to apologize to the Schillings, Don and Bobbie end up having sex, despite Don's initial protest. When Bobbie later tries to get more money from Don (in a bathroom of the restaurant they and Schillings are at for the apology) in exchange for the pay-or-play contract of her husband's, Don grabs her hair with one hand and puts the other up her skirt, then threatens to ruin Jimmy. Bobbie appears to enjoy the attention, and then quickly makes her husband apologize. Later she comes to Don with a TV pitch called, "Grin and Barrett," a sort of Candid Camera
-type show, except with her husband using his insult comic
skills as the host. Don helps her arrange things and they continue to see each other on the side until the two are in a car accident that requires a cover up story. The two resume their affair after a brief hiatus following the accident but the affair ends when Bobbie reveals to Don that she and other women with whom Don has had affairs have been talking about his prowess as a lover. Upset to learn that he has a "reputation" Don leaves Bobbie during the middle of a sexual encounter. Later, during a business dinner, where Don and Bobbie and their spouses are in attendance, Jimmy reveals to Betty, Don's wife, that Don and Bobbie have had an affair. Betty is humiliated and kicks Don out of the home for a time. Though Betty may have suspected affairs in the past, Don's affair with Bobbie appears to be the only affair Betty actually knows about. Don later encounters Jimmy in an underground casino where he delivers a solid punch to Jimmy's face and knocks him off his feet, which Jimmy later rebukes as nothing.
) is Ken Cosgrove's fiancée, the daughter of Ed (Ray Wise
), who is the CEO of Corning. A New York society girl, she moves in the same Manhattan circles as Trudy Campbell, even though she is somewhat younger than her. In Season 4, Cosgrove refuses to use Ed's connections to get new clients for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, claiming that he doesn't want to be like Pete Campbell.
) is the son of Betty's neighbor Helen Bishop. Aged 9 in Season 1 (1960), he develops a crush on Betty. One evening, when she is babysitting him, he walks in on her while she is using the bathroom, and later asks for a lock of her hair. She acquiesces, and when Helen discovers it, she forbids Glen from seeing the Drapers. Late in Season two, Glen is shown to have run away from home and is discovered to have been staying in the Draper's playhouse. He proposes that Betty elope with him, but she instead calls his mother, which seems to kill his love for her. He returns in Season 4, working at a Christmas Tree lot, where he encounters Sally Draper and bonds with her over their now-shared experienced as children in divorced families. After discovering that she hates living in her house, he breaks in with a friend and vandalizes it, but leaves her room untouched. Betty finds out about his friendship with Sally and forbids him to see her, even going so far as to fire her housekeeper Carla when she allows Glen to see Sally one last time before they move to Rye.
) is one of the Drapers' neighbors. She is a liberal divorcée and a Mount Holyoke College
graduate. As a single mother of two children, Helen works in a jewelry store and volunteered for John F. Kennedy
's presidential campaign. Her divorce as well as her habit of taking long walks has made her the subject of gossip for women in the neighborhood. A further rift develops between Helen and Betty Draper when the former discovered that Betty had given Helen’s son Glen a lock of hair while babysitting him one evening. When Helen confronts Betty at the grocery store, Betty slaps her in the face. It is later discovered that Glen ran away from his home to stay in the Drapers' playhouse in the hopes of eloping with Betty; however, Betty calls Helen to retrieve her son, much to Glen's dismay. Betty later confides in Helen about her brief separation from Don, and the two seem to reach some kind of understanding.
) is Bert Cooper's long serving secretary, who remains an unseen character until the fourth season when she is assigned as Don's secretary after his prior secretary abruptly leaves following a one-night stand with Don. An older woman, Miss Blankenship had a tendency to annoy Don and his co-workers with her attitude and work performance, though she is quite experienced having been a secretary for over forty years. Her blunt and cantankerous demeanor starkly contrasts with that of her predecessors and the other secretaries in the firm. Don, however, decides to keep her as she is exactly the type of secretary he needed and why she was assigned to him - one that he would not have a sexual liaison with. In his tape recordings for his autobiography, Roger reveals that he had a tryst with her early in his career, causing a rift between him and Cooper. Roger implies that she was sexually adventurous and aggressive, referring to her as the "Queen of Perversions". In one episode she is seen adjusting her wig during conversation. She suddenly died in the office of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in the ninth episode of Season 4. Cooper mentioned she was born in 1898, making her 67 years old at the time of her death. Heartbroken over her death, Bert goes out of his way to make sure she has a nicely written obituary.
) is Don's fiancée and secretary at SCDP. Following the death of Miss Blankenship, she takes over as Don Draper's secretary. She indicates to Don an interest in advertising, and one night while discussing work she and Don have a brief sexual encounter. She commented to him that she would not run out crying if they slept together, presumably a reference to Don's previous secretary Allison, who left SCDP in tears following her one-night stand with Don. In the season 4 finale, Don takes Megan on a trip to California to take care of his kids. Shortly after returning from California, he proposes marriage to her and she accepts.
) is the father of Pete Campbell. He disapproves of Pete's profession and treats him with contempt. In Season 2, Andrew dies in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1
and it is revealed that he has squandered his wife's fortune and family's inheritance on a lavish lifestyle. Dorothy "Dot" Dyckman Campbell (Channing Chase) is Pete's somewhat detached mother, who communicates her disapproval of Pete and Trudy's exploration into adoption by referring to orphans as "someone else's discards". Insulted, Pete reveals the truth about the family's fortunes to his mother, leaving her stunned.
) is a black woman who has worked as housekeeper for the Draper household since Sally's birth. She continues to work for Betty after her divorce from Don and marriage to Henry Francis until fired by Betty after allowing Glen Bishop to visit Sally.
) is a rival of Don Draper's in the advertising world. His agency, Cutler Gleason and Chaough (CGC), was in competition with SCDP for an account with Honda. Though the two agencies are comparable in size he seems obsessed with competing against Don. He also tried to woo Pete Campbell over to his agency. After Don writes his New York Times ad about dropping business with cigarette companies, Ted makes a prank call to Don pretending to be Robert F. Kennedy
.
) is an African-American Playboy Bunny with whom Lane Pryce engages in an extra-marital sexual liaison. Their relationship comes to an abrupt end when Lane is forced by his father to return to England and reconcile with Rebecca, his wife.
) is the wife of Harry Crane. Blonde and charismatic, Jennifer has the peculiarity of being a "working wife" at least until Season 3, holding a position as a supervisor at American Telephone & Telegraph. She's from a working-class environment and that has helped her to keep her husband grounded. Solidary and generous, Jennifer has often tried to "fit in" with the more sophisticated circle of people surrounding Harry's workplace. She has an unspoken "rivalry" of sorts with Trudy Campbell. She threw Harry out of the house when he had a one-night stand with one of the secretaries, but the two eventually reconciled. She and Harry are parents to an (as yet unseen) little girl named Beatrice Grace, born in 1962.
) is an art illustrator engaged in an affair with Draper in season 1. She is involved with the Beats
and several proto-hippie
s, smoking marijuana
as well as making several references to Jack Kerouac
and Allen Ginsberg
. It appears Midge has other lovers besides Don, including one she may be in love with. Aware of her love for one upon seeing a photo of them, Draper ends their affair at the end of Season 1 and gives her a bonus he earned. She reappears in the fourth season after tracking Don down in his office building. After leading him back to her apartment to meet her husband, her ruse to get Don to buy one of her paintings becomes clear, as does her addiction to heroin, and Don gives her $120 cash and leaves.
) is the widow of the real Don Draper, the man whose identity Dick Whitman stole after his death during the Korean War. Anna tracks Dick/Don down while he is working as a used car salesman and confronts him about her husband. Don tells her that he died, and she is heartbroken. Despite the circumstances of their meeting, Don and Anna become close friends, and he buys her a house in California. Anna often serves as an understanding confidante to Don and he stays with her whenever he's in Los Angeles
. When Don meets Betty and wants to marry her, he must get a "divorce" from Anna, which she grants him. He pays her another visit during his trip to California during the second season. Anna has a noticeable limp as a result of polio, and has a sister named Patty whom the true Don Draper was interested in before he married Anna. In the fourth season, Anna's niece Stephanie informs Don that Anna has terminal cancer, devastating him. Patty has kept the news from Anna, and Don eventually agrees to do the same. Several months later, Anna succumbs to her illness, and her death prompts Don to pull himself out of the alcoholic downward spiral he has been mired in since the end of his marriage.
) is Sally Draper's home room teacher. She engages in an extended period of flirtation with Don, and eventually enters into a sexual relationship with him. Suzanne is depicted as having a degree of idealism and shows hints of the "flower child" culture that will bloom in the late 1960s. Farrell lives in an apartment above the garage of a single-family, detached house. Her younger brother, Danny (Marshall Allman
), suffers from epileptic seizures and as a result has become somewhat of a drifter, unable to keep a job for very long. At the end of Season 3, Don signals a desire to strengthen their relationship, but his plans are scuttled when Betty unexpectedly returns home from a vacation and confronts Don about his past.
Season 3 reveals that Lee Garner Jr. has homosexual tendencies, as he brusquely propositions Sal Romano, only to be rebuffed by the still closeted man. Not taking the rejection lightly, Garner Jr. uses his clout to have Sal fired from Sterling Cooper.
In Season 4, Garner invites himself to the SCDP's 1964 Christmas party, forcing the company to go against its tight budget in order to make the party a grander affair for their most important client. At the party, Garner humiliates Roger by forcing him to dress up in a Santa suit. Several months later, Garner abruptly informs Roger Sterling that Lucky Strike will be ending their business with SCDP, sending the agency into crisis.
) is a young Catholic
priest
in a visiting ministry at the church attended by Peggy's family in Brooklyn
, first appearing in the second-season episode "Three Sundays." The fact that he is a Jesuit priest
is indicated by the "S.J." after his name on church bulletins in the same episode. A rather progressive priest, he asks Peggy for advice about public speaking and advertising church events (such as a youth dance) after learning about her employment in advertising. He changes the style of a Sunday sermon to include more colloquialisms and to be more accessible to his congregation after listening to Peggy's criticisms, later giving her a copy of the sermon. Father Gill hears about Peggy's pregnancy during Peggy's sister Anita's confession; he appears to have taken an interest in bringing Peggy into the church community more completely. His progressiveness manifests itself at the end of "A Night to Remember," when he pulls out a guitar and begins to sing a folk
-Gospel
song (which would have been associated with Protestantism
and considered rather radical at this time; the Second Vatican Council
had only been called the previous Christmas, and had yet to convene). He conveys subtly to Peggy he would hear her confession if she wished, hinting he wishes their friendship to be one where they treat each other as equals. Additionally, he expresses a desire for her to receive the Eucharist. Peggy, for her part, is uncertain how involved she wishes to become - not only in the Church community but also in terms of her own faith, though she does appreciate Father Gill's friendship. Their relationship is a bit strained by the fact that Anita's narrative about the particulars of Peggy's pregnancy, which she told Father Gill, are based on a mistaken assumption regarding the identity of the child's father (Peggy later confided to Don that her whole family thought he was the father because he'd been the only one to visit her in the hospital). At the end of season 2, after a confrontation with Father Gill over the nature of sin and forgiveness, Peggy decides to define her own spiritual faith and leaves the Church.
) is one of Betty Draper's closest friends and neighbors. She spends many afternoons gossiping with Betty about the neighborhood's newest resident, divorcée Helen Bishop. Francine, married to a man named Carlton, in season 1 has just had a baby. Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair. The clues—secret phone calls to Manhattan and the fact Carlton sleeps at the Waldorf two nights a week—make her wish she could just poison him. By Season 2 the couple has reconciled somewhat; Carlton appears to have gained weight, and the insinuation is food has become a substitute for womanizing.
) is Joan's husband. During his engagement with Joan, she brings him with her to Sterling Cooper, at which time he rapes her on the floor of Don's office. After failing to become chief resident, he decides to enlist in the Army in order to be a surgeon. He does not consult Joan prior to enlisting, and before he leaves for basic training he states his desire to start a family. After basic, Greg is sent to Vietnam. He is aware that Joan is going to have a baby, but does not realize that Roger is the father.
) is the fictional portrayal of Conrad Hilton
, the real founder of the Hilton Hotels
chain. He first meets Don Draper, who presumes Conrad is a bartender, at a Kentucky Derby party. He later seeks out Don for help with an advertising campaign with Sterling Cooper. He is known to call Don during the middle of the night, and is the one who reveals to Don that Sterling Cooper will be bought by McCann Erickson during the third season.
) is Betty's elderly father. A veteran of World War I
, he first appeared in the first season when, several months after his wife's death, he began dating another woman, Gloria Massey, upsetting Betty. He remarried sometime between November 1960 and April 1962. In 1962, Gene suffered a series of strokes that left him with slowed facilities and short term memory loss. He has become "confused" repeatedly, believing himself to be back in the army or in the midst of prohibition
, once even fondling his daughter Betty when he mistook her for his late wife. His declining health eventually led to Gloria leaving him in early 1963 and his coming to live with the Drapers. He becomes close with his granddaughter, Sally Draper, before dying in June 1963, shortly before his second grandson is born, whom Betty names "Gene" in honor of him.
) is the younger brother of Betty Draper. He and his wife Judy (Megan Henning
) have two daughters. William and Betty disagree over the disposition of their father's house (Betty does not want William to live there) and over how their father will be cared for as his health deteriorates. Judy seems to be a warm and kind caregiver for Gene.
) is the Jewish head of a department store who becomes romantically involved with Draper after she comes to Sterling Cooper in search of an advertising agency to revamp her business' image. During the course of their affair, Don tells her things he has not shared with Midge Daniels or his wife. When Don is blackmailed by Pete Campbell, he comes to Rachel with the suggestion that they run away together to Los Angeles. She reminds him of his duty to his children, and questions whether he would want to abandon his children after having grown up without a father. When Don persists, Rachel comes to the realization that he didn't want to run away with her, he just wanted to run away. She calls him a coward. Their friendship seems to collapse from that point on. Don encounters her again in season 2 while out to eat with Bobbie Barrett, finding out that Rachel is now Mrs. Katz, having since gotten married to a man named Tilden Katz. Though it appears that Don is only momentarily shaken by the news of her marriage, several episodes later, after drinking heavily with Roger and Freddie Rumsen, he gives his name as "Tilden Katz" to a bouncer outside an underground club Roger is trying to get them into.
) is a free-lance consultant who provides market research for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Don takes an interest in her and eventually the two embark on a secret romantic relationship. Don later reveals his past as Dick Whitman and entrusts Faye with the information. Faye quits working with SCDP after Don submits a full-page ad to The New York Times saying SCDP will no longer work with tobacco companies. After Don proposes to Megan Calvet, he breaks off his relationship with Faye, devastating her.
) and Anita Olson Respola (Audrey Wasilewski
) are Peggy's mother and sister, respectively. Peggy's relationship with her mother is strained, as Katherine does not understand Peggy's focus on her career rather than on finding a husband, and has not forgiven her daughter for having a child out of wedlock. A devout Catholic, Katherine is vocally critical of Father Paul's style of preaching during season two. Anita, who is married with three children, shared her mother's anger at Peggy after her sister's pregnancy, going so far as to reveal Peggy's secret to Father Paul while she was taking confession.
) is the managing director of London-based advertising firm Putnam, Powell, and Lowe. In Season 2, Duck Phillips meets with Powell and Alec Martin to propose that Putnam Powell buy out Sterling Cooper. At that meeting, Powell goads Duck into drinking alcohol, which results in Duck's falling off the wagon. Powell eventually makes an offer that is accepted. At end of Season 2, Powell and Martin witness Duck's drunken rant against Don, which results in Duck's being pushed out of Sterling Cooper. Powell is the architect of PP&L's sale to McCann Erickson, keeping the information from Lane Pryce and the rest of the Sterling Cooper staff. He later fires Pryce for "lack of character," furious that he has conspired with Sterling, Cooper and Draper to break their contracts and steal key clients.
) is Lane Pryce's wife of 18 years. Born to an upper-class British family, she's a stylish, polite and kindly woman, if a bit snooty. She follows Lane to New York in Season 3, but suffers the strain of culture shock
and by Season 4 returns to London, with her son, Nigel, in tow. After a brief separation, and Lane's infidelity with a Playboy Bunny, they smooth over their problems and Rebecca moves back to New York to reconcile.
magazine in the same building as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Peggy meets her in the elevator and the two become friends, and Joyce introduces Peggy to the counter-culture scene of the early sixties. Joyce is a lesbian.
) is the art director at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Before coming to the company, he worked for Lyndon B. Johnson
's 1964 Presidential campaign. He and Peggy are often at odds with each other due to his abrasive attitude, although the two later develop a strong working relationship after Peggy challenges Stan over working in the nude for a campaign, which Stan gruffly concedes to her. Stan is one of the few members of the SCDP creative department who survives the staff cuts.
) starts as a switchboard operator in Season 1. In Season 2, she has become Don's secretary, but is depicted as being incompetent and is eventually sacked by Don for embarrassing him. By the end of Season 2, she is back on the switchboard and gives Harry, Paul, and Ken information about the upcoming merger that she has overheard in telephone conversations. In Season 3, she is Paul's secretary. It is Lois who is driving the tractor that causes the mayhem in "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency." Miraculously, she is not fired after this incident. She has a noticeable crush on Sal in Season 1; whether she realises he's gay or not is not shown.
) is Jane Sterling's cousin who is brought in for an interview at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Don and Peggy find his work laughable and the decision is made not to hire him. However, during a pitch meeting for Life
cereal, Don inadvertently uses one of Danny's ideas, which ends up being a big hit. Peggy calls Don out on what he did and persuades him to make things right, so he brings Danny in to pay for his idea. Unfortunately, Danny is more interested in employment than to be paid for one idea, so he ends up being hired by Don. Danny is one of the first people let go from SCDP after it loses the Lucky Strike account.
) and Kurt Smith (Edin Gali) are a young copy writer/art director team hired by Don at the beginning of the second season. "Smitty" is an American, and often has to explain the complexities of American culture
to the European Kurt. They always work together. Kurt is a fan of Bob Dylan
(whose career was still in its early stages in 1962, when the season is set) and arranges to take Peggy to a concert. Kurt is also openly gay
(which causes quite a stir in the office when he announces as much in the breakroom) and quickly dispels the assumption that he is pursuing a romantic relationship with Peggy. Smitty is known to indulge in smoking marijuana, as does Paul Kinsey. Smitty is seen working for rival advertising company CGC in the fourth season, and it is implied that Kurt is working there as well.
) is the daughter of Roger and Mona Sterling. A bit of a brat, she reacts petulantly to her father's remarriage and refuses to speak to Jane. She is engaged to be married during season three but John Kennedy is assassinated the day before her wedding. The decision is made to hold the wedding anyway, but the guest turn-out is significantly diminished.
, who is the real-life wife of John Slattery) is Roger Sterling's ex-wife. During their marriage he engaged in a number of extramarital affairs, but it wasn't until he met Jane Siegel that he ended their marriage.
) is a woman who Jane Sterling set Don up on a date with following his divorce from Betty. He dates her periodically throughout the fourth season.
. In Season 1, he offers to help Pete and Trudy buy an apartment. Tom offers to give Sterling Cooper the Clearasil
account if Pete agrees to having a baby soon. In Season 2, after Trudy finds out she is unable to conceive, he pressures Pete to agree to adopt a child. When Pete refuses, Tom cancels the Clearasil account. At the end of Season 3, Pete gets the account back with Trudy's help. In Season 4, Clearasil is dropped by the agency because of a conflict with another account, but Pete is able to manipulate Tom into giving him several larger accounts from Tom's company.
) was Betty's psychiatrist during the first season, who she saw because of her problem with her hands shaking uncontrollably. While she was seeing him, Dr. Wayne was secretly in contact with Don to discuss her sessions, which Betty found out about during the first season finale.
) is Dick Whitman's half-brother. In the first season episode "5G," Adam is seen working as a janitor who tries to re-establish a relationship with Don after seeing his picture in a thrown-away newspaper. Initially unwilling to associate with him, Don agrees to meet him at lunch and later visits him at a cheap rooming house where he's staying. Don gives Adam $5,000 and asks him not to try to contact him again. Eventually, Adam mails a package to Don that contains old family photos and soon after hangs himself. Some time later in trying to reach Adam, Don discovers that Adam has committed suicide, which devastates him. The box was later used by Pete Campbell to try and blackmail Don about his true identity. As a boy, Adam saw Dick on the train that brought back "Dick's" body (actually that of Don Draper, whose identity Dick stole) from the Korean War, and tried to tell his mother and "Uncle Mack", but they did not listen to him.
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
, all of whom have appeared in multiple episodes.
Don Draper
Donald Francis "Don" DraperDon Draper
Donald "Don" Draper is a fictional character and the protagonist of AMC's television series Mad Men. He is portrayed by 2008 Golden Globe winner Jon Hamm. Until the third season finale, Draper was Creative Director of Manhattan advertising firm Sterling Cooper...
(né Dick Whitman; Jon Hamm) is the creative director
Creative Director
A creative director is a position often found within the graphic design, film, music, fashion, advertising, media or entertainment industries, but may be useful in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well....
at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; he eventually rises to become a junior partner. Draper is the series' protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, and more storylines focus on him than on other characters.
Peggy Olson
Margaret "Peggy" OlsonPeggy Olson
Margaret "Peggy" Olson is a fictional character in the AMC television series Mad Men, and is portrayed by actress Elisabeth Moss. Initially, Peggy is secretary to Don Draper , creative director of the advertising agency Sterling Cooper. Later, she is promoted to copywriter, the first female writer...
(Elisabeth Moss
Elisabeth Moss
Elisabeth Singleton Moss is an American actor. Her notable roles include that of Zoey Bartlet, the third and youngest daughter of President Jed Bartlet, on the NBC television series The West Wing , and secretary turned copywriter Peggy Olson on the AMC original series Mad Men .-Early life and...
), upon introduction, is the ostensibly naïve "new girl" at Sterling Cooper. She was originally Draper's secretary, but showed surprising talent and initiative, including a knack for understanding the consumer's mind similar to Draper's own (albeit in a rawer, less focused form).
Pete Campbell
Peter "Pete" CampbellPete Campbell
Peter "Pete" Campbell is a fictional character on AMC's television series Mad Men. He is portrayed by Vincent Kartheiser.-Biography:...
(Vincent Kartheiser
Vincent Kartheiser
Vincent Paul Kartheiser is an American actor known for playing Connor in Angel and Pete Campbell in Mad Men.-Early life:Kartheiser was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Janet Marie and James Ralph Kartheiser...
) is an ambitious young account executive whose father-in-law controls the advertising for Clearasil, a Sterling Cooper account.
Betty Francis (Betty Draper)
Elizabeth "Betty" FrancisBetty Draper
Elizabeth "Betty" Francis is a fictional character on AMC's television series Mad Men, portrayed by January Jones...
(née Hofstadt, formerly Draper; January Jones
January Jones
January Kristen Jones is an American actress. She is best known for playing Betty Draper on Mad Men.-Early life:...
) is the wife of Don Draper (who affectionately called her "Bets" or on occasion "Birdy") and mother of their three children, Sally, Bobby and Gene. She is a classic early '60s homemaker, with the added intrigue of a past as a professional model.
Joan Harris (Joan Holloway)
Joan HarrisJoan Holloway
Joan P. Harris is a fictional character on AMC's television series Mad Men. She is portrayed by Christina Hendricks.-Fictional character biography:Joan was born on February 24, 1931....
(née Holloway; Christina Hendricks
Christina Hendricks
Christina Rene Hendricks is an actress known for her role as Joan Holloway in the AMC cable television series Mad Men, and as Saffron in Fox's short-lived series Firefly. Hendricks was named "the sexiest woman in the world" in 2010 in a poll of female readers taken by Esquire magazine.-Personal...
) is an office manager at Sterling Cooper who acts as a professional and social mentor, as well as a rival, to Peggy Olson.
Roger Sterling
Roger Sterling Jr.Roger Sterling
Roger Sterling, Jr., played by John Slattery, is a fictional character on the AMC TV series Mad Men. He formerly worked for Sterling Cooper, an advertising agency his father co-founded in 1923, before he became a founding partner at the new firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in late...
(John Slattery
John Slattery
John M. Slattery, Jr. is an American actor and director, best known for his role as Roger Sterling on AMC's series Mad Men. He has been nominated for many awards, and has won two SAG Awards with the Mad Men ensemble....
), was one of the two managing partners of Sterling Cooper, and later a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
Trudy Campbell
Gertrude "Trudy" Campbell (née Vogel; Alison BrieAlison Brie
-External links:...
) is Pete Campbell's wife. Trudy and Pete marry early in season 1 and purchase an apartment on Park Avenue, with the help of Trudy's parents. Trudy is dutiful to her husband, even when he asks her to visit an old beau to get a short story published. In Season 2, she expresses her desire to have a child, a desire Pete resists as he does not want to have children yet (not knowing he already conceived a child with Peggy). After discovering that she has fertility problems
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
, Trudy wants to adopt a baby, but Pete balks. In Season 3, Trudy and Pete have a closer relationship than they did before and seem to work together as a team, though Pete rapes a neighbor's au pair when Trudy is away on her summer vacation with her parents. In Season 4, Trudy becomes pregnant, a fact that Pete uses to secure the Vicks Chemical
Vicks
Vicks is a line of over-the-counter medications owned by the American company Procter & Gamble. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil. The Vicks brand also produces Formula 44 cough medicines, cough drops, VapoRub, and a number of inhaled breathing treatments...
account for the firm from his father-in-law. Later in the season, Trudy gives birth to a daughter whom they name Tammy (apparently after Trudy's father, Tom).
Bert Cooper
Bertram "Bert" Cooper (Robert MorseRobert Morse
Robert Morse is an American actor and singer. Morse is best known for his appearances in musicals and plays on Broadway. He has also acted in movies and television shows. His best known role is that of J. Pierrepont Finch in the 1961 Broadway musical, and 1967 film How to Succeed in Business...
) is the senior partner of Sterling Cooper, a crafty old gentleman who is treated with considerable deference by Sterling and Draper. He founded the agency in 1923 with Roger Sterling's father and it suggested that he knew Roger Sterling as a child; his late wife introduced Roger and Mona, and he keeps a picture of young Roger and Roger's father in his office. Cooper lectures Sterling about being dependent on smoking, and criticizes Draper for his love life. Cooper is not present in the office's day-to-day wranglings, but he is devoted to the business and quietly manages various challenges from behind the scenes. Cooper's younger sister, Alice, is a silent partner
Silent partner
Silent partner may refer to:*An anonymous member of a business partnership, or one uninvolved in management*The Silent Partner, the name of several films*Silent partner , a piece of climbing equipment...
at Sterling Cooper, and invested in the company when it was just getting started. He has a late period red painting by Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
and the erotic illustration The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
, also known as Girl Diver and Octopi, Diver and Two Octopi, etc., is an erotic woodcut of the ukiyo-e genre by the Japanese artist Hokusai. It is from the book Kinoe no Komatsu , a three-volume collection of shunga erotic prints first published in 1814, and is the most famous shunga Hokusai ever...
hung in his office and is a devotee of Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
. He appears to be an aficionado of Japanese art
Japanese art
Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper and more recently manga, cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of works of art...
and culture: his office is decorated in a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese motif with shoji
Shoji
In traditional Japanese architecture, a shōji is a door, window or room divider consisting of translucent paper over a frame of wood which holds together a lattice of wood or bamboo...
dividers among other things (including a photograph of President Coolidge), and he requires visitors to remove their shoes before they enter his office. Roger attributes this to Bert being a germaphobe. Cooper also walks around the rest of Sterling Cooper in his socks. He is a member of the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, and gets Sterling Cooper involved with the Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
campaign, providing advertising services to the campaign gratis. Cooper is one of the first characters to discover that Don Draper is actually Dick Whitman, after Pete Campbell informs him of the truth, but he reacts with nonchalance, remarking famously "Mr. Campbell, who cares?" He keeps silent about Don's identity but uses his knowledge two years later to coerce Draper into signing a contract. After selling a majority interest in the company to a British firm who begins to exert control, he begins to feel less and less significant but accepts it as part of the terms of the buyout. When he discovers that the firm will be selling their business to a rival agency - and will be forced to retire as a result - Bert goes on to co-found the new agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. During Season 4, it is revealed that Cooper was given an unnecessary orchiectomy during the "height of his sexual prime." Later in Season 4, in the episode "Blowing Smoke", when the agency is forced to radically downsize its staff following the loss of the Lucky Strike account, Bert tells the other partners that he is quitting, partially in response to Don Draper's opinion piece in the New York Times, which he feels is a needlessly reckless career move.
Ken Cosgrove
Kenneth "Ken" Cosgrove (Aaron StatonAaron Staton
Aaron Staton is an American actor. He is known for his role as Ken Cosgrove in Mad Men and his role as Cole Phelps in the video game L.A. Noire.-Personal life:...
) is an account executive at Sterling Cooper. He is originally from Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
and attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Ken has literary aspirations and has been published in The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, an accomplishment that elicits jealousy from both Pete and fellow co-worker Paul Kinsey. In Season 2 it is revealed that Ken makes considerably more money than his co-worker Harry Crane. In Season 3, Ken and Pete are promoted, sharing the role of accounts director, which infuriates Pete who wanted the role for himself. While not as outwardly ambitious as Pete, he has proven to be a competent executive and an exceptionally talented creative thinker, eclipsing Campbell as a rising star at Sterling Cooper. Eventually, Cosgrove is promoted above Campbell, to the latter's fury. Because Pete Campbell was approached first and agreed to join SCDP, Cosgrove is not seen in the earlier episodes in Season 4. However, Ken later joins SCDP, bringing Birds Eye
Birds Eye
__FORCETOC__Birds Eye is an international brand of frozen foods owned by Pinnacle Foods in North America and by private equity group Permira in Europe....
and other clients with him, and agrees to serve under Campbell. Later in the fourth season, Ken is having dinner with his fiancee and prospective in-laws when he learns that Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike is a brand of cigarette owned by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and British American Tobacco groups. Often referred to as "Luckies", Lucky Strike was the top selling cigarette in the United States during the 1930s.- History :...
, SCDP's biggest client, is taking their business to another agency.
Harry Crane
Harold "Harry" Crane (Rich SommerRich Sommer
Richard Olen Sommer II is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Harry Crane on the AMC series Mad Men.-Career:...
) was a media buyer at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more of his time in the office drinking, flirting, and gossiping than actually working. Harry is originally from Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and is married to Jennifer, who works at a phone company. They seem to have one of the few equal marriages in the show; Harry is honest with his wife and is shown asking her advice about his problems at work. Harry flirts with women, but is faithful to his wife until he has too much to drink at an office party and has a one night stand with Pete's secretary. He confesses the infidelity to Jennifer, who kicks him out of their home for a time; he and Jennifer appear to have resolved that issue by Season 2, and Jennifer later gives birth to a daughter. Harry is a bit of a pushover, accepting far less in pay in negotiations than he could have asked for, and his non-confrontational attitude causes him to mishandle a situation that leads to the firing of his friend and co-worker, Sal Romano. Despite these flaws, Harry is the only member of the firm to recognize the advertising power of television and subsequently creates and puts himself in charge of Sterling Cooper's television department. Later, when Sterling Cooper was in the process of being sold, Harry mistakenly thinks they are considering opening a West Coast office and believes that he would be the person to move to California (in the early 1960s production of most television programs had essentially moved from New York to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
). In Season 3, he is the only Sterling Cooper executive who is promoted by the firm's British owner as part of a short-lived company reorganization. Harry later accepts an offer to join Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as head of media. During Season 4, a more confident, if smarmy Harry shows great progress, as he is often seen making deals with television networks on the new agency's behalf.
Bobby Draper
Robert "Bobby" Draper (Maxwell Huckabee, Aaron Hart, and Jared Gilmore) is the middle child of Don and Betty Draper. He was referred to by his mother Betty as a "little liar."Gene Draper
Eugene Scott "Gene" Draper is the youngest child of Don and Betty Draper. He was born during the third season, on June 21, 1963, and is named after Betty's late father.Sally Draper
Sally Beth Draper (Kiernan ShipkaKiernan Shipka
Kiernan Brennan "Kiki" Shipka is an American child actress noted for playing Don and Betty Draper's daughter Sally on the AMC series Mad Men.-Career:...
) is the oldest child of Don and Betty Draper. She becomes a more central character in the third and fourth seasons (according to the time line of the series, she would be 8 years old in Season 3 and 10 years old in Season 4); as of the fourth season, she has been promoted to a starring role. The death of her grandfather, Gene Hofstadt, affected Sally significantly, and deepened the rift between her and her mother, Betty. When her youngest brother is named after their dead grandfather and given his room, Sally becomes convinced that the baby is the ghost of her grandfather and becomes terrified of him. Sally is adventurous, and she has been seen throughout the series making cocktails for her father, smoking one of her mother's cigarettes, and being taught how to drive by her grandfather. Her behavioral problems lead Betty to have her see a child psychiatrist in Season 4. Sally appears to be closer to her father than her mother, and in one episode ("The Beautiful Girls"), she unexpectedly shows up at Don's office, ostensibly because she wants to live with him instead of Betty and Henry Francis. Don sometimes calls Sally by the nickname "Salamander".
Henry Francis
Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) is a political advisor with close connections to New York Governor Nelson RockefellerNelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
and the Republican Party. He is instantly infatuated with Betty Draper when he meets her at the Sterling's Kentucky Derby party. After some time passes, he is called upon by Betty Draper and some of her friends to use his influence to save a local reservoir. He develops a personal connection with Betty, which she reciprocates because she feels no such connection with Don. Sensing Betty's unhappiness with her marriage, he tells Betty that he is willing to marry her. At the end of Season 3, he and Betty are seen flying to Reno, Nevada, so that Betty can complete divorce proceedings against Don. When Season 4 begins, Henry and Betty are married and still living with the Draper children in the Drapers' house, but by the end of the season they move to Rye, NY. His mother disapproves of Betty, aware of why Henry was interested in marrying her. Henry's marriage to Betty becomes strained due to her issues with Don and Sally.
Paul Kinsey
Paul Kinsey (Michael GladisMichael Gladis
Michael Gladis is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Paul Kinsey on the television series Mad Men, where he appeared in the series' first three seasons. Prior to Mad Men, he played Eugene Rossi in four episodes of Third Watch...
) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Paul has been involved with Joan in the past, and dates an African American woman, who dumps him while they are registering black voters in the South. He lives in a beatnik neighborhood in New Jersey and espouses more Bohemian ideas and attitudes than his fellow young copywriters, listening to jazz and smoking marijuana. He is originally from New Jersey and attended Princeton on a scholarship, two facts he is eager to hide. A fan of science fiction and The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...
, he has a notably Kennedy-era fascination with space. In season two he grows an Orson Welles beard. He initially encourages Peggy to pursue copy writing, noting that "There are female copywriters" but becomes jealous and pettily competitive when her skill becomes clear. He expresses considerable anger when it is clear she was selected to leave the company and join Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
Duck Phillips
Herman "Duck" Phillips (Mark MosesMark Moses
Mark W. Moses is an American actor, known for his roles of Paul Young on Desperate Housewives and Herman "Duck" Phillips on the AMC series Mad Men.-Life and career:...
) was director of account services for a time at Sterling Cooper. In "Indian Summer" when Draper is made partner in the wake of Sterling's heart attack, Cooper gives Draper the authority to appoint a new head of account services. At the end of the first season, Draper brings in Phillips, who is looking for a job after alcoholism and an extramarital affair ended his career at Y&R
Young & Rubicam
Y&R is a marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting.-History:...
's London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
office. Phillips appears to be a recovering alcoholic whose ex-wife and children are moving on with their lives. Phillips immediately challenges Sterling Cooper to broaden their clientele, seeking to attract airlines, automobile manufacturers, pharmaceuticals. At the beginning of season 2, in February 1962, Phillips wants the agency to hire younger creative talent, a move Draper resists. He also pushes Cooper to pursue American Airlines
American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...
in the wake of a very public plane crash
American Airlines Flight 1
American Airlines Flight 1 was a domestic, scheduled passenger flight from New York International Airport , New York to Los Angeles International Airport, California that crashed shortly after take-off on 1 March 1962. All 87 passengers and eight crew died in the crash...
, forcing Don Draper to break his word and cut loose a client, Mohawk Airlines
Mohawk Airlines
Mohawk Airlines was an airline that operated in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, primarily the states of New York and Pennsylvania from the mid-1940s until its acquisition by Allegheny Airlines in 1972...
, in order to pursue American Airlines
American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...
, a larger client. At the end of season 2, frustrated at his failure to make partner, Phillips goes to some of his former London colleagues to arrange a merger of Sterling Cooper with the British firm Putnam, Powell & Lowe, which wants to establish a New York office. After the successful merger, Phillips is named president of Sterling Cooper, but he embarrasses himself in a drunken rant when Draper announces his intent to leave the firm. During season 3, it was revealed Duck is now working at Grey
Grey Global Group
Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency, whose slogan is providing solutions - with headquarters in New York City, and 432 offices in 96 countries, operating in 154 cities — organized into four geographical units: North America; Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin...
, another New York agency. He tries to poach Pete and Peggy from Sterling Cooper, and is unsuccessful, but he and Peggy begin having a sexual relationship. He later resurfaces in season 4 ("Waldorf Stories", episode 45) at the Clio Awards
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
Show and drunkenly humiliates the man giving the introductory speech at the show, prompting security to remove him. Upon witnessing this, Sterling jokes "I miss working with that guy." During "The Suitcase" (episode 46), Duck unsuccessfully tries to strike out on his own after leaving Grey and creating his own female consumer product-based ad agency. He goes so far as to try to hire Peggy as a Creative Director, a move only fueled by his desire to be with her. During a late night at the agency, Peggy catches Duck trying to defecate on Roger Sterling's sofa chair, mistaking it to be Don's out of spite. Duck gets into a physical brawl with Don and gets the upper hand, while Don concedes. Duck is a former United States Marine officer and served in the Pacific Theater
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He claimed to have killed 17 men at the Battle of Okinawa
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...
.
Lane Pryce
Lane Pryce (Jared HarrisJared Harris
Jared Francis Harris is a British character actor, well known for playing the obnoxious Mac McGrath in the Adam Sandler film Mr. Deeds, and for his portrayal of Lane Pryce on the AMC series Mad Men.- Personal life :...
) appears at the beginning of the third season as financial officer of Sterling Cooper and PP&L's man in New York. His job is to trim operating expenses at the company, most noticeably accomplished by firing long-time employee Burt Peterson, who is the head of accounts, and naming Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove as his joint successors. He becomes isolated from Cooper, Sterling, and Draper when he expresses PPL's disinterest in a potentially lucrative account with Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
. Although he is initially unaware of PPL's plans for Sterling Cooper, Pryce later learns that he has been instructed to cut overhead so that SC can be sold to another advertising agency for a profit. Pryce does not seem to be highly regarded by his superiors in London, who decide to transfer him to the firm's office in India—a plan that is aborted after Pryce's would-be replacement is injured in a freak accident. Sterling, Cooper, and Draper convince him to join them in starting a new agency, making him a named partner in exchange for "firing" the three of them in order to void their contracts. Although unspoken, it becomes apparent that Lane has a knack for managing company revenues and controlling costs, a talent that is needed at the new firm. Lane is married to Rebecca (Embeth Davidtz
Embeth Davidtz
Embeth Jean Davidtz is an American-born actress who spent much of her early life in South Africa.-Early life:Davidtz was born in Lafayette, Indiana, while her father was studying chemical engineering at Purdue University. Her parents, John and Jean, later moved to Trenton, New Jersey, and then...
) and they are parents of an (as yet) unseen son named Nigel. During Season 4, Lane's marriage falls apart, as Rebecca, although genuinely loving him, finds the strain of America too much for her and returns to London indefinitely. Lane and Don end up meeting at work, where they get drunk and go for a night out on the town. Lane ends up sleeping with a friend of a girl that Don sees, who was previously revealed to be a hooker/call-girl. Lane pays Don for her services the following morning, and thanks him for the "welcome distraction." When his family is supposed to go to New York to see Lane, he is instead visited by his elderly father who intends to take Lane home to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to sort out his affairs. Around the same time, Lane begins an interracial relationship with a young African-American Playboy Bunny named Toni, and later introduces her to his father. However, his father intends for Lane to sort out his marriage and assaults his son with his cane, ordering him to return to England to reunite with his family. Lane later takes a short leave-of-absence from the agency, and returns to New York with his family.
Sal Romano
Salvatore "Sal" Romano (Bryan BattBryan Batt
Bryan Batt is an American actor best known for his role in the AMC series Mad Men as Salvatore Romano, an art director for the Sterling Cooper agency. Primarily a theater actor, he has had a number of starring roles in movies and television as well...
) is the Italian-American head art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
at Sterling Cooper. He is originally from Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. Sal is gay
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and in the closet
The Closet
The Closet may refer to:* The Closet , Chinese film* The Closet , French film* The closet, referring to undisclosed homosexuality- See also :* Closet* Closet * In the closet...
. Sal turned down a proposition from a male employee of Belle Jolie Lipstick midway through the first season, admitting that though he has thought about having relationships with men, he has never acted on this impulse, implying it was out of fear of discovery. He joins the other men of Sterling Cooper in their flirtations with the women in the workplace, in order to keep up the appearance that he is as interested in the opposite sex as they are. He speaks to his mother in Italian. In between Seasons One and Two, Sal marries a childhood friend, Kitty (Sarah Drew
Sarah Drew
Sarah Drew is an American actress. She is known for her role as Hannah Rogers in Everwood and for her role as Dr. April Kepner on Grey's Anatomy .-Personal life:...
), who is unaware of his true orientation, but over time becomes suspicious. The two entertain Ken for dinner during the second season, during which Sal seems taken with his male guest. In the third season premiere, Don Draper becomes aware of Sal's orientation after catching him with a bellhop in a hotel room by accident, but subtly assures him that he'll keep silent by bringing up an ad campaign with the slogan "limit your exposure." Later in the third season, and with Don's encouragement, Sal branches out into directing commercials for the company, while his wife becomes increasingly suspicious of him. Sal is fired from Sterling Cooper when he rejects the advances of Lee Garner Jr of Lucky Strike.
Freddy Rumsen
Frederick C. "Freddy" Rumsen (Joel MurrayJoel Murray
Joel Murray is an American actor who has starred in film and on television.-Early life:Murray, one of nine children, was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois , the son of Lucille , a mail room clerk, and Edward J. Murray II, a lumber salesman. Murray, along with his siblings, grew up in an Irish...
) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He is the first in the office to notice Peggy Olsen's talent for copywriting while working on an ad campaign for Belle Jolie. Since that time, he has been quite supportive of Olsen's copywriting talents. He likes to seem lighthearted and open despite his age (his eldest daughter turns thirty in Season 2, and he served in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
), playing Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
pieces on his pants zipper. However, he has serious problems with alcohol, and drinks unusually heavily at work even by Sterling Cooper standards. This ends up costing him his job when, after having too much to drink, he wets his pants and falls asleep shortly before he is supposed to deliver a pitch to Samsonite
Samsonite
The Samsonite Corporation makes luggage with its products ranging from large suitcases to small toiletries bags and briefcases. It was started in Denver, Colorado, USA in 1910 byJesse Shwayder, as the Shwayder Trunk Manufacturing Company. Shwayder named one of his initial cases "Samson", after the...
. Peggy delivers the pitch instead, and Pete reports the episode to Duck Phillips, who proceeds to report this to Sterling; Rumsen is shortly fired, to Peggy's frustration (she felt some loyalty to Freddy on account of his earlier assistance to her) despite the fact that his departure secured a promotion to senior copywriter for her ("Six Months' Leave"). Don and Roger take Freddy out for a night on the town in wake of his departure from the agency. In Season 4's second episode, a sober Rumsen returns to work for SCDP, having brought a $2 million account for Pond's Cold Cream. His only condition on coming back was that Pete not be allowed near the account.
Allison
Allison (Alexa AlemanniAlexa Alemanni
Alexa Alemanni is an American actress. She recently appeared as Allison, secretary to Don Draper on the AMC original series Mad Men .- Life and career :...
) was Don Draper's secretary, first at Sterling Cooper and later at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Allison was first seen as Sterling Cooper's receptionist. By Season 3, she had become Don Draper's secretary. Though little developed during the first three seasons, she was depicted as being competent and friendly. She was also shown to have something of an on-again, off-again relationship with Ken Cosgrove. In Season 1, Allison had a one-night stand with Ken on the night of the 1960 presidential election. In Season 2, she occasionally flirted with Ken and during Joan's going-away party she was seen sitting on Ken's lap. After Don asked that Jane Siegel be removed as his secretary, Allison was installed as her replacement. Although the sudden formation of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was done without her knowledge, Allison was hired by SCDP sometime during 1964 and continued as Draper's secretary. On the night of the Office Christmas Party in 1964, Allison was asked to bring Draper his apartment keys which he had forgotten at work. Upon entering his apartment, the drunken Draper seduced Allison and they had an impulsive sexual encounter. Draper attempted to forget about the affair, but ended hurting Allison when she realized he was going to pretend like nothing had happened. She continued to work for Draper for several months, but in the fourth episode of Season 4, Draper's continual avoidance of the topic finally led her to resign after bursting into tears at a focus group. An insensitive comment made by Draper during her resignation caused her to snap, throw a brass cigarette dispenser at him and leave the office in tears. Allison's last name was never mentioned in the show, and remains unknown.
Joey Baird
Joey Baird (Matt LongMatt Long
Matthew Clayton "Matt" Long is an American actor. He played the teenaged Jack McCallister on Jack & Bobby, the younger Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider, and Tyler Prince in Sydney White....
) is a freelance artist for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce who is first seen at the start of the fourth season. Joey and Peggy seem to enjoy working together, doing the "John and Marcia" skit in a workroom and laughing. Later, several of his comments become insensitive. When Peggy gets a "Congratulations" card to sign (on Trudy and Pete's surprise but much-welcomed pregnancy), Peggy is internally very hurt because she had given up her son with Pete five years previously. Joey says, "I would get her (Trudy) SO pregnant." The comment hurts Peggy and also makes her feel bad that Joey seems to find Pete's wife very attractive yet pays Peggy no mind regarding her appearance. Joey verbally abuses Joan. That same episode, Joey draws a pornographic drawing of Joan and Lane Pryce engaged in oral sex. Peggy fires a disbelieving Joey. In the end, Joan becomes angry at Peggy, because Peggy took charge of the situation and made Joan look weak.
Jimmy and Bobbie Barrett
Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGrawMelinda McGraw
Melinda Leigh McGraw is an American actress. She has starred in movies such as Albino Alligator , Wrongfully Accused , and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps , and is also known for her television performances on The Commish, The X-Files and Mad Men.-Early life:McGraw was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to...
) is the wife of comedian Jimmy Barrett (born Jimmy Bernstein) (Patrick Fischler
Patrick Fischler
Patrick Fischler is an American actor best known for his roles as Jimmy Barrett on the drama series Mad Men, Dharma Initiative worker Phil on the drama series Lost and Detective Kenny No-Gun on the police drama Southland...
), a harsh and deprecating man the firm uses to advertise for their Utz
Utz
Utz may refer to:*UTZ Certified, worldwide certification program for responsible coffee production and sourcing*Utz , one of the two sons born to Milkah and Nachor, the brother of Abraham*Utz , Bruce Chatwin's 1988 novel, his last...
Potato Chips account. After her husband insults the owner's wife Mrs. Schilling about her weight, Don has to intercede and ends up meeting Bobbie, also Jimmy's manager, who shrugs off her husband's behavior. On the way to get Jimmy to apologize to the Schillings, Don and Bobbie end up having sex, despite Don's initial protest. When Bobbie later tries to get more money from Don (in a bathroom of the restaurant they and Schillings are at for the apology) in exchange for the pay-or-play contract of her husband's, Don grabs her hair with one hand and puts the other up her skirt, then threatens to ruin Jimmy. Bobbie appears to enjoy the attention, and then quickly makes her husband apologize. Later she comes to Don with a TV pitch called, "Grin and Barrett," a sort of Candid Camera
Candid Camera
Candid Camera is a hidden camera/practical joke reality television series created and produced by Allen Funt, which initially began on radio as Candid Microphone June 28, 1947...
-type show, except with her husband using his insult comic
Insult comedy
Insult comedy is a comedy genre in which the act consists mainly of offensive insults directed at the performer's audience and/or other performers....
skills as the host. Don helps her arrange things and they continue to see each other on the side until the two are in a car accident that requires a cover up story. The two resume their affair after a brief hiatus following the accident but the affair ends when Bobbie reveals to Don that she and other women with whom Don has had affairs have been talking about his prowess as a lover. Upset to learn that he has a "reputation" Don leaves Bobbie during the middle of a sexual encounter. Later, during a business dinner, where Don and Bobbie and their spouses are in attendance, Jimmy reveals to Betty, Don's wife, that Don and Bobbie have had an affair. Betty is humiliated and kicks Don out of the home for a time. Though Betty may have suspected affairs in the past, Don's affair with Bobbie appears to be the only affair Betty actually knows about. Don later encounters Jimmy in an underground casino where he delivers a solid punch to Jimmy's face and knocks him off his feet, which Jimmy later rebukes as nothing.
Cynthia Baxter
Cynthia Baxter (Larisa OleynikLarisa Oleynik
Larisa Romanovna Oleynik is an American actress. She came to fame in the mid-1990s, after starring in the title role of the popular television series, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and has also appeared in theatrical films, including The Baby-Sitters Club and 10 Things I Hate About You...
) is Ken Cosgrove's fiancée, the daughter of Ed (Ray Wise
Ray Wise
Raymond Nicolas "Ray" Wise is an American actor, known for his roles as Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks, as Leon C. Nash, right-hand henchman to villain Clarence Boddicker in the science fiction classic RoboCop, and recently as the Devil in the CW television series Reaper.-Life and career:Wise was...
), who is the CEO of Corning. A New York society girl, she moves in the same Manhattan circles as Trudy Campbell, even though she is somewhat younger than her. In Season 4, Cosgrove refuses to use Ed's connections to get new clients for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, claiming that he doesn't want to be like Pete Campbell.
Glen Bishop
Glen Bishop (Marten Weiner, son of series creator Matthew WeinerMatthew Weiner
Matthew Weiner is an American writer, director and producer of television drama. He is the creator, executive producer, head writer, and show runner of the AMC television series Mad Men. He is also noted for his work on the HBO series The Sopranos, on which he served as a writer and producer...
) is the son of Betty's neighbor Helen Bishop. Aged 9 in Season 1 (1960), he develops a crush on Betty. One evening, when she is babysitting him, he walks in on her while she is using the bathroom, and later asks for a lock of her hair. She acquiesces, and when Helen discovers it, she forbids Glen from seeing the Drapers. Late in Season two, Glen is shown to have run away from home and is discovered to have been staying in the Draper's playhouse. He proposes that Betty elope with him, but she instead calls his mother, which seems to kill his love for her. He returns in Season 4, working at a Christmas Tree lot, where he encounters Sally Draper and bonds with her over their now-shared experienced as children in divorced families. After discovering that she hates living in her house, he breaks in with a friend and vandalizes it, but leaves her room untouched. Betty finds out about his friendship with Sally and forbids him to see her, even going so far as to fire her housekeeper Carla when she allows Glen to see Sally one last time before they move to Rye.
Helen Bishop
Helen Bishop (Darby StanchfieldDarby Stanchfield
Darby Stanchfield is a film and television actress best known for her recurring roles as April Green on Jericho and as Helen Bishop on the period drama Mad Men....
) is one of the Drapers' neighbors. She is a liberal divorcée and a Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
graduate. As a single mother of two children, Helen works in a jewelry store and volunteered for John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's presidential campaign. Her divorce as well as her habit of taking long walks has made her the subject of gossip for women in the neighborhood. A further rift develops between Helen and Betty Draper when the former discovered that Betty had given Helen’s son Glen a lock of hair while babysitting him one evening. When Helen confronts Betty at the grocery store, Betty slaps her in the face. It is later discovered that Glen ran away from his home to stay in the Drapers' playhouse in the hopes of eloping with Betty; however, Betty calls Helen to retrieve her son, much to Glen's dismay. Betty later confides in Helen about her brief separation from Don, and the two seem to reach some kind of understanding.
Ida Blankenship
Ida Blankenship (Randee HellerRandee Heller
Randy M. "Randee" Heller is an American television and film actress. Her most notable roles were in the film The Karate Kid and one of its sequels, as Daniel Larusso's mother, and on the 1970s serial sitcom Soap as Jodie Dallas's roommate Alice, one of the first recurring lesbian characters in...
) is Bert Cooper's long serving secretary, who remains an unseen character until the fourth season when she is assigned as Don's secretary after his prior secretary abruptly leaves following a one-night stand with Don. An older woman, Miss Blankenship had a tendency to annoy Don and his co-workers with her attitude and work performance, though she is quite experienced having been a secretary for over forty years. Her blunt and cantankerous demeanor starkly contrasts with that of her predecessors and the other secretaries in the firm. Don, however, decides to keep her as she is exactly the type of secretary he needed and why she was assigned to him - one that he would not have a sexual liaison with. In his tape recordings for his autobiography, Roger reveals that he had a tryst with her early in his career, causing a rift between him and Cooper. Roger implies that she was sexually adventurous and aggressive, referring to her as the "Queen of Perversions". In one episode she is seen adjusting her wig during conversation. She suddenly died in the office of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in the ninth episode of Season 4. Cooper mentioned she was born in 1898, making her 67 years old at the time of her death. Heartbroken over her death, Bert goes out of his way to make sure she has a nicely written obituary.
Megan Calvet
Megan Calvet (Jessica ParéJessica Paré
Jessica Paré is a Canadian film and television actress. She has appeared in the films Stardom , Lost and Delirious , Wicker Park , Hot Tub Time Machine , and co-starred in the vampire horror-comedy Suck...
) is Don's fiancée and secretary at SCDP. Following the death of Miss Blankenship, she takes over as Don Draper's secretary. She indicates to Don an interest in advertising, and one night while discussing work she and Don have a brief sexual encounter. She commented to him that she would not run out crying if they slept together, presumably a reference to Don's previous secretary Allison, who left SCDP in tears following her one-night stand with Don. In the season 4 finale, Don takes Megan on a trip to California to take care of his kids. Shortly after returning from California, he proposes marriage to her and she accepts.
Andrew and Dorothy Campbell
Andrew Campbell (Christopher AllportChristopher Allport
Christopher Allport was an American actor.-Biography:Allport was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His acting life began at the age of nine in New Canaan, Connecticut at the Children's Theatre. While at Northwestern University, he worked with Paul Sills and Story Theatre...
) is the father of Pete Campbell. He disapproves of Pete's profession and treats him with contempt. In Season 2, Andrew dies in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1
American Airlines Flight 1
American Airlines Flight 1 was a domestic, scheduled passenger flight from New York International Airport , New York to Los Angeles International Airport, California that crashed shortly after take-off on 1 March 1962. All 87 passengers and eight crew died in the crash...
and it is revealed that he has squandered his wife's fortune and family's inheritance on a lavish lifestyle. Dorothy "Dot" Dyckman Campbell (Channing Chase) is Pete's somewhat detached mother, who communicates her disapproval of Pete and Trudy's exploration into adoption by referring to orphans as "someone else's discards". Insulted, Pete reveals the truth about the family's fortunes to his mother, leaving her stunned.
Bud and Judy Campbell
Andrew "Bud" Campbell Jr. (Rich Hutchman) is Pete's elder brother, an accountant. Bud reveals to Pete the precarious financial state that their father has left and arranges for the liquidation of their mother's assets so that she can live comfortably. Judy (Miranda Lilley) is Bud's wife. Bud tells Pete that he and Judy have no plans for children and he lets slip to their mother Pete and Trudy's exploration of adoption.Tammy Campbell
Tamsin "Tammy" Vogel Campbell is the first-born daughter of Pete and Trudy, born after a long and difficult labor (that took over two days). She is named in a feminine variation of Thomas, her maternal grandfather's name, quite possibly as a way to assuage the thorny relationship between Pete and his in-laws. However, she's not Pete's only child, as he had a baby boy in late 1960 with Peggy Olson, unbeknownst to him, which she gave away for adoption. Tammy is born sometime between September 7 and 10th, 1965, right after Labor Day Weekend.Carla
Carla (Deborah LaceyDeborah Lacey
Deborah Lacey is an American actress.Lacey had a recurring role in the final season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Sarah Sisko, the mother of Benjamin Sisko. More recently, Lacey has the recurring role of Carla in Mad Men...
) is a black woman who has worked as housekeeper for the Draper household since Sally's birth. She continues to work for Betty after her divorce from Don and marriage to Henry Francis until fired by Betty after allowing Glen Bishop to visit Sally.
Ted Chaough
Ted Chaough (Kevin RahmKevin Rahm
Kevin Rahm is an American actor known for his role as Kyle McCarty on the CBS series Judging Amy. He portrayed Lee McDermott on Desperate Housewives from 2007 to 2012.-Early life:Rahm was born in Mineral Wells, Texas...
) is a rival of Don Draper's in the advertising world. His agency, Cutler Gleason and Chaough (CGC), was in competition with SCDP for an account with Honda. Though the two agencies are comparable in size he seems obsessed with competing against Don. He also tried to woo Pete Campbell over to his agency. After Don writes his New York Times ad about dropping business with cigarette companies, Ted makes a prank call to Don pretending to be Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
.
Toni Charles
Toni Charles (Naturi NaughtonNaturi Naughton
Naturi Cora Maria Naughton is an American singer, rapper and actress best known for formerly being one-third of the R&B trio 3LW, and the starring role of Denise in the remake of Fame.- Early life :...
) is an African-American Playboy Bunny with whom Lane Pryce engages in an extra-marital sexual liaison. Their relationship comes to an abrupt end when Lane is forced by his father to return to England and reconcile with Rebecca, his wife.
Jennifer Crane
Jennifer Crane (Laura ReganLaura Regan
Laura Regan is a Canadian actress, best known for her role as Jessica Lynch in the TV movie Saving Jessica Lynch.-Private life:...
) is the wife of Harry Crane. Blonde and charismatic, Jennifer has the peculiarity of being a "working wife" at least until Season 3, holding a position as a supervisor at American Telephone & Telegraph. She's from a working-class environment and that has helped her to keep her husband grounded. Solidary and generous, Jennifer has often tried to "fit in" with the more sophisticated circle of people surrounding Harry's workplace. She has an unspoken "rivalry" of sorts with Trudy Campbell. She threw Harry out of the house when he had a one-night stand with one of the secretaries, but the two eventually reconciled. She and Harry are parents to an (as yet unseen) little girl named Beatrice Grace, born in 1962.
Midge Daniels
Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWittRosemarie DeWitt
Rosemarie DeWitt is an American actress. DeWitt played Emily Lehman in the Fox television series Standoff, co-starring her now husband Ron Livingston, from 2006 through 2007, and played Charmaine Craine on Showtime's acclaimed original series, United States of Tara...
) is an art illustrator engaged in an affair with Draper in season 1. She is involved with the Beats
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
and several proto-hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s, smoking marijuana
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...
as well as making several references to Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
and Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
. It appears Midge has other lovers besides Don, including one she may be in love with. Aware of her love for one upon seeing a photo of them, Draper ends their affair at the end of Season 1 and gives her a bonus he earned. She reappears in the fourth season after tracking Don down in his office building. After leading him back to her apartment to meet her husband, her ruse to get Don to buy one of her paintings becomes clear, as does her addiction to heroin, and Don gives her $120 cash and leaves.
Anna Draper
Anna Draper (Melinda Page HamiltonMelinda Page Hamilton
Melinda Page Hamilton is an American actress. She played a supporting role in the 2004 film, Promised Land, and the leading role in the 2006 film Sleeping Dogs Lie. She is a frequent guest star on several present-day television programs which include: Star Trek: Enterprise, CSI: NY, CSI: Miami,...
) is the widow of the real Don Draper, the man whose identity Dick Whitman stole after his death during the Korean War. Anna tracks Dick/Don down while he is working as a used car salesman and confronts him about her husband. Don tells her that he died, and she is heartbroken. Despite the circumstances of their meeting, Don and Anna become close friends, and he buys her a house in California. Anna often serves as an understanding confidante to Don and he stays with her whenever he's in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. When Don meets Betty and wants to marry her, he must get a "divorce" from Anna, which she grants him. He pays her another visit during his trip to California during the second season. Anna has a noticeable limp as a result of polio, and has a sister named Patty whom the true Don Draper was interested in before he married Anna. In the fourth season, Anna's niece Stephanie informs Don that Anna has terminal cancer, devastating him. Patty has kept the news from Anna, and Don eventually agrees to do the same. Several months later, Anna succumbs to her illness, and her death prompts Don to pull himself out of the alcoholic downward spiral he has been mired in since the end of his marriage.
Suzanne Farrell
At the beginning of Season 3, Suzanne Farrell (Abigail SpencerAbigail Spencer
Abigail Leigh Spencer is an American actress. Her first major acting role was playing Rebecca "Becca" Tyree on All My Children. She later starred in Lifetime Television's original series Angela's Eyes, which was cancelled on December 1, 2006...
) is Sally Draper's home room teacher. She engages in an extended period of flirtation with Don, and eventually enters into a sexual relationship with him. Suzanne is depicted as having a degree of idealism and shows hints of the "flower child" culture that will bloom in the late 1960s. Farrell lives in an apartment above the garage of a single-family, detached house. Her younger brother, Danny (Marshall Allman
Marshall Allman
Marshall Scot Allman is an American actor. He is known to television audiences for his role as L. J. Burrows on Fox's successful television series, Prison Break...
), suffers from epileptic seizures and as a result has become somewhat of a drifter, unable to keep a job for very long. At the end of Season 3, Don signals a desire to strengthen their relationship, but his plans are scuttled when Betty unexpectedly returns home from a vacation and confronts Don about his past.
Lee Garner Jr.
Lee Garner Jr. (Darren Pettie) is an executive at Lucky Strike, a cigarette company with a very long relationship with Sterling Cooper. Boorish, bossy and womanizing, Lee's behavior is accepted due to the fact that his father runs the company, as well as the fact that Lucky Strike represents a major share of Sterling Cooper's business, and an even greater share of SCDP's accounts.Season 3 reveals that Lee Garner Jr. has homosexual tendencies, as he brusquely propositions Sal Romano, only to be rebuffed by the still closeted man. Not taking the rejection lightly, Garner Jr. uses his clout to have Sal fired from Sterling Cooper.
In Season 4, Garner invites himself to the SCDP's 1964 Christmas party, forcing the company to go against its tight budget in order to make the party a grander affair for their most important client. At the party, Garner humiliates Roger by forcing him to dress up in a Santa suit. Several months later, Garner abruptly informs Roger Sterling that Lucky Strike will be ending their business with SCDP, sending the agency into crisis.
Father Gill
Father John Gill (Colin HanksColin Hanks
Colin Lewes Hanks is an American actor who is best known for his work as Shaun Brumder in the film Orange County and as Alex Whitman in Roswell. He also portrayed the role of Henry Jones in Band of Brothers and is currently on the sixth season of the Showtime crime drama Dexter...
) is a young Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
priest
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
in a visiting ministry at the church attended by Peggy's family in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, first appearing in the second-season episode "Three Sundays." The fact that he is a Jesuit priest
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
is indicated by the "S.J." after his name on church bulletins in the same episode. A rather progressive priest, he asks Peggy for advice about public speaking and advertising church events (such as a youth dance) after learning about her employment in advertising. He changes the style of a Sunday sermon to include more colloquialisms and to be more accessible to his congregation after listening to Peggy's criticisms, later giving her a copy of the sermon. Father Gill hears about Peggy's pregnancy during Peggy's sister Anita's confession; he appears to have taken an interest in bringing Peggy into the church community more completely. His progressiveness manifests itself at the end of "A Night to Remember," when he pulls out a guitar and begins to sing a folk
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
-Gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
song (which would have been associated with Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
and considered rather radical at this time; the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
had only been called the previous Christmas, and had yet to convene). He conveys subtly to Peggy he would hear her confession if she wished, hinting he wishes their friendship to be one where they treat each other as equals. Additionally, he expresses a desire for her to receive the Eucharist. Peggy, for her part, is uncertain how involved she wishes to become - not only in the Church community but also in terms of her own faith, though she does appreciate Father Gill's friendship. Their relationship is a bit strained by the fact that Anita's narrative about the particulars of Peggy's pregnancy, which she told Father Gill, are based on a mistaken assumption regarding the identity of the child's father (Peggy later confided to Don that her whole family thought he was the father because he'd been the only one to visit her in the hospital). At the end of season 2, after a confrontation with Father Gill over the nature of sin and forgiveness, Peggy decides to define her own spiritual faith and leaves the Church.
Francine Hanson
Francine Hanson (Anne DudekAnne Dudek
Anne Louise Dudek is an American actress, known for her role as Dr. Amber Volakis on the television show House and her leading role on UK television series The Book Group as well as playing Francine Hanson in the series Mad Men...
) is one of Betty Draper's closest friends and neighbors. She spends many afternoons gossiping with Betty about the neighborhood's newest resident, divorcée Helen Bishop. Francine, married to a man named Carlton, in season 1 has just had a baby. Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair. The clues—secret phone calls to Manhattan and the fact Carlton sleeps at the Waldorf two nights a week—make her wish she could just poison him. By Season 2 the couple has reconciled somewhat; Carlton appears to have gained weight, and the insinuation is food has become a substitute for womanizing.
Greg Harris
Dr. Greg Harris (Samuel PageSamuel Page
Samuel Page is an American actor. He is credited under the name Sam Page.-Early life:...
) is Joan's husband. During his engagement with Joan, she brings him with her to Sterling Cooper, at which time he rapes her on the floor of Don's office. After failing to become chief resident, he decides to enlist in the Army in order to be a surgeon. He does not consult Joan prior to enlisting, and before he leaves for basic training he states his desire to start a family. After basic, Greg is sent to Vietnam. He is aware that Joan is going to have a baby, but does not realize that Roger is the father.
Conrad Hilton
Conrad "Connie" Hilton (Chelcie RossChelcie Ross
Chelcie Claude Ross is an American character actor. He served in Vietnam as an officer in the United States Air Force, and earned an MFA from the Dallas Theater Center.-Filmography:*Skokie *On the Right Track...
) is the fictional portrayal of Conrad Hilton
Conrad Hilton
Conrad Nicholson Hilton was an American businessman and investor. He is well known for being the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain.-Early life:Hilton was born in San Antonio, New Mexico...
, the real founder of the Hilton Hotels
Hilton Hotels
Hilton Hotels & Resorts is an international chain of full-service hotels and resorts founded by Conrad Hilton and now owned by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton hotels are either owned by, managed by, or franchised to independent operators by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Hotels became the first coast-to-coast...
chain. He first meets Don Draper, who presumes Conrad is a bartender, at a Kentucky Derby party. He later seeks out Don for help with an advertising campaign with Sterling Cooper. He is known to call Don during the middle of the night, and is the one who reveals to Don that Sterling Cooper will be bought by McCann Erickson during the third season.
Gene Hofstadt
Eugene "Gene" Hofstadt (Ryan CutronaRyan Cutrona
Ryan Cutrona is an American actor. Cutrona has played supporting roles in several films and numerous television series. A majority of his roles are military parts due in large part to his background. Cutrona's father was a General in the United States Army, and he was born at West Point, spending...
) is Betty's elderly father. A veteran of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he first appeared in the first season when, several months after his wife's death, he began dating another woman, Gloria Massey, upsetting Betty. He remarried sometime between November 1960 and April 1962. In 1962, Gene suffered a series of strokes that left him with slowed facilities and short term memory loss. He has become "confused" repeatedly, believing himself to be back in the army or in the midst of prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
, once even fondling his daughter Betty when he mistook her for his late wife. His declining health eventually led to Gloria leaving him in early 1963 and his coming to live with the Drapers. He becomes close with his granddaughter, Sally Draper, before dying in June 1963, shortly before his second grandson is born, whom Betty names "Gene" in honor of him.
William and Judy Hofstadt
William Hofstadt (Eric LadinEric Ladin
Eric Ladin is an American actor who has guest-starred on multiple episodes of the AMC show Mad Men and the HBO miniseries Generation Kill as Corporal James Chaffin. He also appeared in the movies Toolbox Murders, Cursed, Left in Darkness...
) is the younger brother of Betty Draper. He and his wife Judy (Megan Henning
Megan Henning
Megan Henning is an American actress. She is known for playing Meredith Davies on 7th Heaven and Monica Shaw on David E. Kelley's The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire...
) have two daughters. William and Betty disagree over the disposition of their father's house (Betty does not want William to live there) and over how their father will be cared for as his health deteriorates. Judy seems to be a warm and kind caregiver for Gene.
Hollis
Hollis (La Monde Byrd) is the elevator operator in the Sterling Cooper building on Madison Avenue. He occasionally interacts with the Sterling Cooper staff. At one point, Don pays Hollis to pretend that the elevator is out of service, in order to teach Roger Sterling a lesson for coming onto Betty.John Hooker
John Hooker (Ryan Cartwright), an Englishman, is Lane Pryce's assistant. His title is "secretary" but he insists that his status is not that of the other secretaries at Sterling Cooper. He tells Joan that "I'm Mr. Pryce's right arm; I'm not his typist." He insists that the switchboard operators address him as "Mr. Hooker" rather than as "John." He assumes Joan's position as office manager after her departure to become a housewife. He is referred to as "Moneypenny" by a variety of Sterling Cooper employees, much to his chagrin.Edna Keener
Dr. Edna Keener (Patricia Bethune) is a child psychiatrist who is assigned to see Sally when her problems at home become too much for Betty to handle. After making progress with Sally, she recommends reducing the number of sessions with her per week, which Betty objects to. Dr. Keener suggests that Betty herself seek some psychiatric help.Gloria Massey
Gloria Hofstadt, née Massey (Darcy Shean), is Gene Hofstadt's second wife, who is despised by her stepdaughter Betty. Gloria tries to hide the extent of Gene's illness in Season 2. In Season 3, Gloria is not seen, but Betty's brother William discovers that Gloria, unable to deal with Gene's deteriorating condition, has left him.Rachel Menken
Rachel Katz (née Menken; Maggie SiffMaggie Siff
Margaret "Maggie" Siff is an American actress best known for her television roles, notably department-store heiress Rachel Menken Katz on the AMC drama Mad Men and Dr. Tara Knowles on the FX drama Sons of Anarchy...
) is the Jewish head of a department store who becomes romantically involved with Draper after she comes to Sterling Cooper in search of an advertising agency to revamp her business' image. During the course of their affair, Don tells her things he has not shared with Midge Daniels or his wife. When Don is blackmailed by Pete Campbell, he comes to Rachel with the suggestion that they run away together to Los Angeles. She reminds him of his duty to his children, and questions whether he would want to abandon his children after having grown up without a father. When Don persists, Rachel comes to the realization that he didn't want to run away with her, he just wanted to run away. She calls him a coward. Their friendship seems to collapse from that point on. Don encounters her again in season 2 while out to eat with Bobbie Barrett, finding out that Rachel is now Mrs. Katz, having since gotten married to a man named Tilden Katz. Though it appears that Don is only momentarily shaken by the news of her marriage, several episodes later, after drinking heavily with Roger and Freddie Rumsen, he gives his name as "Tilden Katz" to a bouncer outside an underground club Roger is trying to get them into.
Faye Miller
Dr. Faye Miller (Cara BuonoCara Buono
Cara Buono is an American actress, screenwriter and director, probably best known for her role as Dr. Faye Miller in the fourth season of the AMC drama series Mad Men.-Early life:...
) is a free-lance consultant who provides market research for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Don takes an interest in her and eventually the two embark on a secret romantic relationship. Don later reveals his past as Dick Whitman and entrusts Faye with the information. Faye quits working with SCDP after Don submits a full-page ad to The New York Times saying SCDP will no longer work with tobacco companies. After Don proposes to Megan Calvet, he breaks off his relationship with Faye, devastating her.
Katherine Olson and Anita Olson Respola
Katherine Olson (Myra TurleyMyra Turley
Myra Turley is an American film and television actress, best-known as "Dale" in the 1995 sitcom,Muscle, and as "Madeline Evelley" in Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-winning movie Flags of Our Fathers....
) and Anita Olson Respola (Audrey Wasilewski
Audrey Wasilewski
Audrey Wasilewski is an American actress and voice actress.-Life and career:Wasilewski's first role came in the 1994 Japanese animated film Heisei tanuki gassen pompoko, where she was one of the additional voices dubbed in English...
) are Peggy's mother and sister, respectively. Peggy's relationship with her mother is strained, as Katherine does not understand Peggy's focus on her career rather than on finding a husband, and has not forgiven her daughter for having a child out of wedlock. A devout Catholic, Katherine is vocally critical of Father Paul's style of preaching during season two. Anita, who is married with three children, shared her mother's anger at Peggy after her sister's pregnancy, going so far as to reveal Peggy's secret to Father Paul while she was taking confession.
Phoebe
Phoebe (Nora Zehetner) is a nurse who lives down the hall from Don Draper's Greenwich Village apartment. She Invites Don to her Christmas party and, later, when she finds him passed out, she helps him to bed and fends off a pass from him. Don hires her to watch Sally and Bobby one evening when he is out with Bethany Van Nuys. Unfortunately, Sally cuts off her hair while on Phoebe's watch, angering Don, who has to deal with the aftermath from Betty.St. John Powell
St. John Powell (Charles ShaughnessyCharles Shaughnessy
Charles George Patrick Shaughnessy, 5th Baron Shaughnessy , simply known as Charles Shaughnessy, is a British peer, and television, theatre and film actor. He is known for his roles on American television, as Shane Donovan on the soap opera Days of our Lives and as Maxwell Sheffield on the sitcom...
) is the managing director of London-based advertising firm Putnam, Powell, and Lowe. In Season 2, Duck Phillips meets with Powell and Alec Martin to propose that Putnam Powell buy out Sterling Cooper. At that meeting, Powell goads Duck into drinking alcohol, which results in Duck's falling off the wagon. Powell eventually makes an offer that is accepted. At end of Season 2, Powell and Martin witness Duck's drunken rant against Don, which results in Duck's being pushed out of Sterling Cooper. Powell is the architect of PP&L's sale to McCann Erickson, keeping the information from Lane Pryce and the rest of the Sterling Cooper staff. He later fires Pryce for "lack of character," furious that he has conspired with Sterling, Cooper and Draper to break their contracts and steal key clients.
Rebecca Pryce
Rebecca Pryce (Embeth DavidtzEmbeth Davidtz
Embeth Jean Davidtz is an American-born actress who spent much of her early life in South Africa.-Early life:Davidtz was born in Lafayette, Indiana, while her father was studying chemical engineering at Purdue University. Her parents, John and Jean, later moved to Trenton, New Jersey, and then...
) is Lane Pryce's wife of 18 years. Born to an upper-class British family, she's a stylish, polite and kindly woman, if a bit snooty. She follows Lane to New York in Season 3, but suffers the strain of culture shock
Culture shock
Culture shock is the anxiety, feelings of frustration, alienation and anger that may occur when a person is emplaced in a new culture.One of the most common causes of culture shock involves individuals in a foreign country. Culture shock can be described as consisting of one or more distinct phases...
and by Season 4 returns to London, with her son, Nigel, in tow. After a brief separation, and Lane's infidelity with a Playboy Bunny, they smooth over their problems and Rebecca moves back to New York to reconcile.
Robert Pryce
Robert Pryce (William Morgan Sheppard) is Lane Pryce's stern father. Originally from a middle-class British background, he is a retired surgical equipment supplier. He has a rather complicated love/hate relationship with his son, whom he dominates even by physically violent means, in order to make him "take action and sort his problems, putting his house in order".Joyce Ramsay
Joyce Ramsay (Zosia Mamet) works as an assistant photo editor at LifeLife (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine in the same building as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Peggy meets her in the elevator and the two become friends, and Joyce introduces Peggy to the counter-culture scene of the early sixties. Joyce is a lesbian.
Stan Rizzo
Stan Rizzo (Jay R. FergusonJay R. Ferguson
Jay Rowland Ferguson Jr. is an American actor.His notable roles include Taylor Newton in four seasons of the CBS sitcom Evening Shade, and a starring role as Rich Connelly in the 2005 NBC television series Surface, which was originally conceived as a mini-series and then expanded to a run of 15...
) is the art director at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Before coming to the company, he worked for Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
's 1964 Presidential campaign. He and Peggy are often at odds with each other due to his abrasive attitude, although the two later develop a strong working relationship after Peggy challenges Stan over working in the nude for a campaign, which Stan gruffly concedes to her. Stan is one of the few members of the SCDP creative department who survives the staff cuts.
Lois Sadler
Lois Sadler (Crista FlanaganCrista Flanagan
Crista Flanagan is an American comedic actress best known for her work as a cast member on the FOX sketch comedy series MADtv from 2005 to 2009 and for her recurring role as Lois Sadler on the AMC series Mad Men.-Early life:...
) starts as a switchboard operator in Season 1. In Season 2, she has become Don's secretary, but is depicted as being incompetent and is eventually sacked by Don for embarrassing him. By the end of Season 2, she is back on the switchboard and gives Harry, Paul, and Ken information about the upcoming merger that she has overheard in telephone conversations. In Season 3, she is Paul's secretary. It is Lois who is driving the tractor that causes the mayhem in "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency." Miraculously, she is not fired after this incident. She has a noticeable crush on Sal in Season 1; whether she realises he's gay or not is not shown.
Danny Siegel
Danny Siegel (Danny StrongDanny Strong
Daniel W. Strong is an American actor and writer in film and television.-Early life:Strong was born and raised in Manhattan Beach, California. where he would rent videos from Video Archives, becoming friends with Quentin Tarantino who was then a clerk there...
) is Jane Sterling's cousin who is brought in for an interview at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Don and Peggy find his work laughable and the decision is made not to hire him. However, during a pitch meeting for Life
Life (cereal)
Life is a breakfast cereal made of whole grain oats, distributed by the Quaker Oats Company. It was introduced in 1961. The cereal's advertisements currently sport the slogan "Life is full of surprises".- History :...
cereal, Don inadvertently uses one of Danny's ideas, which ends up being a big hit. Peggy calls Don out on what he did and persuades him to make things right, so he brings Danny in to pay for his idea. Unfortunately, Danny is more interested in employment than to be paid for one idea, so he ends up being hired by Don. Danny is one of the first people let go from SCDP after it loses the Lucky Strike account.
"Smitty" Smith and Kurt Smith
"Smitty" Smith (Patrick CavanaughPatrick Cavanaugh
Patrick Cavanaugh is an American television actor.-Actor career:He is best known as one of the leads in National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2, portraying the half of the goofy stoner duo of Pete and Wang . He also appeared in the original movie...
) and Kurt Smith (Edin Gali) are a young copy writer/art director team hired by Don at the beginning of the second season. "Smitty" is an American, and often has to explain the complexities of American culture
Culture of the United States
The Culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore...
to the European Kurt. They always work together. Kurt is a fan of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
(whose career was still in its early stages in 1962, when the season is set) and arranges to take Peggy to a concert. Kurt is also openly gay
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
(which causes quite a stir in the office when he announces as much in the breakroom) and quickly dispels the assumption that he is pursuing a romantic relationship with Peggy. Smitty is known to indulge in smoking marijuana, as does Paul Kinsey. Smitty is seen working for rival advertising company CGC in the fourth season, and it is implied that Kurt is working there as well.
Jane Sterling
Jane Sterling (née Siegel) (Peyton List) is a secretary at Sterling Cooper. She is assigned to Don in the second season. Jane clashes frequently with Joan and is about to be fired when Roger intervenes on her behalf. Shortly afterward, she begins an affair with Roger and he leaves his family for her. He quickly proposes out of the blue one morning in the episode "The Jet Set", and as she accepts his offer of marriage, they become engaged towards the end of Season 2. By the start of Season 3 she and Roger are married. Their marriage in season three is depicted as tense. Jane is shown to be a heavy drinker, and she is repeatedly rejected by Roger's daughter Margaret, who is two years younger than she.Margaret Sterling
Margaret Sterling (Elizabeth RiceElizabeth Rice
Elizabeth Ellen Rice is an American actress.-Awards and nominations:She won the Grand Jury Award in the 2008 Solstice Film Festival for Best Actress for From Within .-Filmography:...
) is the daughter of Roger and Mona Sterling. A bit of a brat, she reacts petulantly to her father's remarriage and refuses to speak to Jane. She is engaged to be married during season three but John Kennedy is assassinated the day before her wedding. The decision is made to hold the wedding anyway, but the guest turn-out is significantly diminished.
Mona Sterling
Mona Sterling (Talia BalsamTalia Balsam
Talia Balsam is an American actress.-Early life:Balsam was born in New York City to actors Martin Balsam and Joyce Van Patten.-Career:...
, who is the real-life wife of John Slattery) is Roger Sterling's ex-wife. During their marriage he engaged in a number of extramarital affairs, but it wasn't until he met Jane Siegel that he ended their marriage.
Brooks Stanford Hargrove
Brooks Hargrove (Derek Ray) is the dutiful fiance/husband of Margaret Sterling. They were married on November 23, 1963, the day after John Kennedy was assassinated.Bethany Van Nuys
Bethany Van Nuys (Anna CampAnna Camp
Anna Ragsdale Camp is an American stage and television actress. She is known for her role as Jill Mason in the 2008 Broadway revival of Equus and for her role as Sarah Newlin in the HBO television drama series True Blood....
) is a woman who Jane Sterling set Don up on a date with following his divorce from Betty. He dates her periodically throughout the fourth season.
Tom and Jeannie Vogel
Thomas and Jeannie Vogel (Joe O'Connor and Sheila Shaw) are Trudy Campbell's parents. Tom is an executive at Vicks ChemicalVicks
Vicks is a line of over-the-counter medications owned by the American company Procter & Gamble. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil. The Vicks brand also produces Formula 44 cough medicines, cough drops, VapoRub, and a number of inhaled breathing treatments...
. In Season 1, he offers to help Pete and Trudy buy an apartment. Tom offers to give Sterling Cooper the Clearasil
Clearasil
Clearasil is the top-selling brand of skin care and acne medication, whose products contain chiefly benzoyl peroxide, sulfur & resorcinol, triclosan, or salicylic acid as active ingredients...
account if Pete agrees to having a baby soon. In Season 2, after Trudy finds out she is unable to conceive, he pressures Pete to agree to adopt a child. When Pete refuses, Tom cancels the Clearasil account. At the end of Season 3, Pete gets the account back with Trudy's help. In Season 4, Clearasil is dropped by the agency because of a conflict with another account, but Pete is able to manipulate Tom into giving him several larger accounts from Tom's company.
Arnold Wayne
Dr. Arnold Wayne (Andy UmbergerAndy Umberger
Andy Umberger is an American actor, mainly appearing in minor roles in television.He has been credited in many television hit series, beginning in the mid-90s, although generally only in one episode of each....
) was Betty's psychiatrist during the first season, who she saw because of her problem with her hands shaking uncontrollably. While she was seeing him, Dr. Wayne was secretly in contact with Don to discuss her sessions, which Betty found out about during the first season finale.
Adam Whitman
Adam Whitman (Jay PaulsonJay Paulson
Joseph Andrew "Jay" Hughes Paulson is an American actor. Jay graduated UCLA in 2001 with B.A. in History and is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio. He also ran the 22nd Annual Los Angeles Marathon in 4:50:13, March 4, 2007.He is a practicing Theravadin Buddhist...
) is Dick Whitman's half-brother. In the first season episode "5G," Adam is seen working as a janitor who tries to re-establish a relationship with Don after seeing his picture in a thrown-away newspaper. Initially unwilling to associate with him, Don agrees to meet him at lunch and later visits him at a cheap rooming house where he's staying. Don gives Adam $5,000 and asks him not to try to contact him again. Eventually, Adam mails a package to Don that contains old family photos and soon after hangs himself. Some time later in trying to reach Adam, Don discovers that Adam has committed suicide, which devastates him. The box was later used by Pete Campbell to try and blackmail Don about his true identity. As a boy, Adam saw Dick on the train that brought back "Dick's" body (actually that of Don Draper, whose identity Dick stole) from the Korean War, and tried to tell his mother and "Uncle Mack", but they did not listen to him.
Archie Whitman
Archie Whitman (Joseph Culp) was the father of Dick Whitman. He slept with a prostitute, who died while giving birth to Dick, who was eventually raised by Archie and his wife, Abigail. Archie is also the father of Dick's brother Adam. Don tells Betty that his father would "beat the hell out of" him. When Don was a child, a friendly drifter stayed with the Whitmans and had a conversation with Don about how drifters know what kind of owner owns the place where they're staying. With the use of signs carved on the front of the property somewhere, it will indicate whether or not the owner is an honest person or not. When the drifter leaves, Don investigates and finds the sign for a dishonest person carved onto the fence. While intoxicated, Archie is kicked in the face by his horse and dies instantly, with Dick the only witness.External links
- http://madmen.wikia.com/