Born in Ohio, 1925, Gordone grew up in Elkhart and graduated from Elkhart High School in 1944. In the 1950s, he moved to New York City where he worked as an actor, director, and playwright. During the 1960s, he acted in the award-winning off-Broadway play, The Blacks, and worked to ensure more opportunities for blacks in the entertainment industry.
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In 1970, Gordone won national acclaim as the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for No Place to Be Somebody, also the first off-Broadway play to win the award. In the 1980s, Gordone advocated integrating minority actors into the casts of classic dramas. In 1987, he joined the Texas A&M University faculty. He died in 1995.
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