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Don Porter
Known for: ActingDonald "Don" Porter (September 24, 1912 –February 11, 1997) was an American actor who appeared in a number of films since the 1940s, including Top Sergeant and Eagle Squadron. On television, he portrayed the widowed father of 15-year-old Frances "Gidget" Lawrence (Sally Field) in the 1965 ABC sitcom Gidget. Besides his work in film and television, Porter was active on stage, as he acted in more than 200 plays, including The Front Page, Plaza Suite, and Any Wednesday. He appeared in various films in the 1940s before landing the role of Peter Sands, the boss of Susan Camille MacNamara (Ann Sothern), on the 1950s sitcom Private Secretary. A retooled version of the series appeared later, titled The Ann Sothern Show. It featured many of the same actors, including Porter as hotel manager James Devery in the venue of a fashionable New York City hotel. He later guest starred on episodes of Green Acres, Love, American Style, The Mod Squad, Barnaby Jones, The Six Million Dollar Man, Hawaii Five-O, Three's Company (on which he played Jack Tripper's uncle), and Switch.
Filmography 34
Gidget
as Professor Russell Lawrence 
Tropic of Desire
as Commodore Phillips 
The Racket
as R. G. Connolly 
The Candidate
as Senator Crocker Jarmon 
My Friend Irma Goes West
as Mr. Brent 
She-Wolf of London
as Barry Lanfield 
The Savage
as Running Dog 
Cripple Creek
as Denver Jones 
Mame
as Mr. Upson 
Live a Little, Love a Little
as Mike Lansdown 
A Woman for All Men
as Barney 
Buck Privates Come Home
as Capt. Christie 
White Line Fever
as Cutler 
The Ghosts of Buxley Hall
as Judge Oliver Haynes 
Bachelor in Paradise
as Thomas W. Jynson 
The Turning Point
as Joe Silbray 
Who Done It?
as 'Murder at Midnight' program manager 
40 Carats
as Mr. Latham 
Because You're Mine
as Captain Burton Nordell Loring 
Gidget Goes to Rome
as Russell Lawrence 
The Legend of Lizzie Borden
as George Robinson 
Reconnaissance Pilot
as Camera Instructor 
Resisting Enemy Interrogation
as Lt. Frank L. Williams, Jr. - American Co-pilot 
Night Monster
as Dick Baldwin 
The Norliss Tapes
as Sanford T. Evans 
Happy Anniversary and Goodbye
as Ed Murphy 
711 Ocean Drive
as Larry Mason 
Danger Woman
as Professor Claude Ruppert 
The Last Song
as Philip Brockhurst 
The President's Mistress
as Craig 
Youngblood Hawke
as Ferdie Lax 
Our Miss Brooks
as Lawrence Nolan 
Eyes of the Underworld
as Edward Jason