In Remembrance: Gordon Lee

     Gordon Lee, the former child-actor who played Porky, the chubby-cheeked younger brother of Spanky McFarland in the long-running Our Gang series of comedy shorts, has passed away in Minneapolis, MN on October 16, 2005. He was 71.

     Born Eugene Lee on October 25, 1933 in Fort Worth Texas, Lee was the adopted son of an embalmer and his stenographer wife. He was just 19 months old when his mother sent his picture to Hal Roach Studios, producers of the Our Gang series. Series creator Hal Roach, who was looking to cast a child in the role of McFarland’s brother, saw the photo and brought Lee and his mother west to Hollywood, where he was signed to a contract in a few days. In a 1998 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Lee explained his casting away simply as “Fat kid got lucky.”

     Starting with 1935’s Little Sinner, Lee would star in a total of 43 Our Gang shorts over the space of four years, ending his run with 1939’s Auto Antics. Lee was part of the cast of Bored Of Education, which won the 1937 Academy Award for Best Short Subject. Lee was often paired on screen with Billie Thomas, better known on the series as Buckwheat, whom Lee would later recall as one of his best childhood friends. On screen, the pair would often get the better of the older, and supposedly smarter, boys, especially McFarland and his screen partner Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer. Although more often associated with partner Buckwheat, it was actually Lee who first used the now famous “O-tay!” catchphrase in 1936’s Pay As You Exit. At the height of his career, Lee was earning $300 a week.

     In an interview published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this past July, Lee remarked, “"I didn't know I was making movies at the time. I had no idea. The big car would come and pick me up, and I would go to the movie lot and play with the same kids every day. We were just playing and having fun on the greatest playground in the world."

     Lee’s Hollywood career came to an abrupt end in 1939 thanks to a growth spurt shortly before he was to enter first grade. By this time Roach had sold the Our Gang franchise to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Lee found his spot in the cast taken over by newcomer Robert Blake, who was then going by his given name of Mickey Gubitosi (Ironically, MGM would insist that McFarland and Switzer stay with the series well into their teens). The Our Gang series eventually received a second life on television starting the 1950s, where the old shorts, renamed The Little Rascals, found a new audience.

     Rather than try to find work at another studio, Lee and his family returned to Texas, eventually settling in Lubbock. After college, Lee began a career as a teacher, working in schools in west Texas and Denver and Boulder, Colorado. He downplayed his Hollywood career to such a point that an imposter appeared in the 1970s stating to be the former Porky. Lee finally began attending Our Gang/Little Rascals reunions in 1980 and continued to meet his fans at various autograph shows and conventions until just a few months before his death.