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Gordon Lee, a Little Rascal, is dead at 71
(Trudi Hahn, Star Tribune) For much of his life, Gordon Lee kept quiet about having played "Porky" in 42 films about Spanky and Our Gang, also known as the Little Rascals. But in recent years, Lee, who had lived in the Twin Cities since about 1993, went public with his childhood stardom and enjoyed it.
He died Sunday of cancer, said Janice McClain, his partner of 13 years. He would have been 72 on Tuesday, said his friend Tracy Tolzmann of Sunrise, Minn.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Eugene Lee became a movie star in 1935 at the age of 19 months when the Hal Roach studio was looking for a child to play the kid brother of Spanky McFarland. The resemblance was strong in the picture sent by Lee's mother, and they were on a train to Los Angeles within days.
For the next four years the kids played while the cameras rolled to produce 42 feature films, often directed by Gordon Douglas. The family was so impressed with Douglas that they called the youngster Gordon at home and it stuck, said Tolzmann. Lee's signature line, "Otay, Panky," came about because he had a speech impediment and couldn't say his K's and S's, Lee told the Star Tribune in 1998.
A growth spurt before he entered first grade ended his career as a little brother. He never returned to film.
The "Our Gang" comedies were revived on television in the 1950s as the Little Rascals, seen in the Twin Cities on WCCO-TV's "Axel and His Dog." But Lee wasn't revealing himself as Porky. After being teased through his school years for being different, he suppressed his film life.
Educated at Texas Tech University and the University of Houston, he taught history and other subjects for many years at the high school and college levels. In later years he worked as an emergency services trainer for the state of Colorado.
About 1971, a teacher friend persuaded him to open up about his film career. By retirement, he was appearing regularly as Porky, going to reunions with his old costars and signing autographs.
"We are relics of history," Richard Bann heard him say at a 1989 Cinecon film convention in Cleveland.
Bann, a film historian from St. Paul who lives in Beverly Hills, and film critic Leonard Maltin updated their 1977 book about the film series for a 1992 edition called "The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang" and included Lee's memories about being 6 years old, no longer loved by his world, no longer able to support his family.
Despite the bittersweet nature of some of the memories, "it was fun talking to him because I could see those [childhood] things rushing back to light up his eyes," Bann said.
Lee, divorced twice, moved to the Twin Cities about 1993 to be near his son, Douglas, said Tolzmann, president of the local fan club for Laurel and Hardy, whose comedy films were also produced by the Hal Roach studios. Lee became friendly with many club members and attended the national conventions until injury and illness slowed him in recent years.
"Despite his physical problems, these last few years have been among the happiest for him," Tolzmann said. "He spread a lot of fun around people."
Date: Oct 16 2005
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