Allison Allison (
Alexa Alemanni) 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 her character was little developed during the first three seasons, she was depicted as being competent and friendly. She is seen occasionally flirting with Ken, and during Joan's going-away party she was seen sitting on Ken's lap. Although Don's sudden formation of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was accomplished without Allison's knowledge (she initially declares that the agency had been robbed when she comes into Don's office and discovers it ransacked), Don eventually brought her to the new firm as his secretary. On the night of the office Christmas Party in 1964, Don asked Allison to bring him his apartment keys, which he had forgotten at work. Upon her entering his apartment, the drunken Don seduced Allison, and they had an impulsive sexual encounter. The next morning, he brusquely makes it clear to Allison that he will pretend as though nothing happened between them. Allison continued to work for Don, despite the awkwardness and his frequent coldness toward her, but breaks down crying in a focus group about beauty that led to a discussion about men and relationships. She confronts Don about their encounter and, having decided to leave, asks Don for a recommendation letter. When he suggests that she write herself a glowing reference so he can sign it, Allison becomes angry with his lack of sensitivity and throws a brass cigarette dispenser at him and runs out of the office in tears. She is replaced by Ida Blankenship, and when Ida dies at her desk, Megan, who would go on to marry Don. When Megan and Don have their first romantic encounter, Megan reassures him that she would never behave like Allison the next morning.
Lou Avery Lou Avery (
Allan Havey) is first introduced in Season 6 as a creative executive at rival agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, competing with Don Draper and Roger Sterling for the Chevrolet account. When Don is placed on indefinite leave of absence from Sterling Cooper & Partners at the end of Season 6, Lou is brought in as a replacement creative director-for-hire on a two-year contract. As Don is exiting the SC&P offices after being told of his suspension, he runs into Lou and Duck Phillips; it is implied that Phillips coordinated the deal to bring Lou into SC&P in his role as a head hunter. In Season 7, it is shown that Lou brings a very different working method to SC&P: he is more interested in getting a large amount of creative work done on rigid deadlines and tight budgets. He is also not very creative or daring and is very old-fashioned. This causes tension with Peggy Olson, who is used to spending a lot of time on one pitch at a time until a creative breakthrough produces unique work, and Lou makes a point of ignoring Peggy's ideas, shunting aside her efforts, and treating her condescendingly. The members of the creative team under him do not respect him and he becomes an object of open ridicule when someone discovers that he writes and illustrates his own unpublished cartoon, ''Scout's Honor,'' full of hackneyed themes and unamusing punchlines. Lou later becomes upset when the partners allow Don to come back to work in the creative department and report to him, possibly recognizing how much better Don is at the job than he is. Lou finds Don's presence a distraction, and assigns Peggy as Don's direct supervisor. When he and Jim Cutler seek out a major cigarette deal (knowing that winning it would allow them to get rid of Don, due to his previous anti-tobacco ad in the
New York Times), Lou is first angry when Don screws up the pitch meeting, then left ruined when they lose the cigarette deal anyway. Jim (who has no particular loyalty to Lou) makes it clear he does not care that Lou's background is in tobacco (which is now useless), that Lou is not important to the company, and that he regards Lou as essentially hired help. Not getting to share in the McCann payout windfall, Lou later emerges as the powerless director of the California office, where he openly ignores his work to keep trying to sell his planned "Scout's Honor" cartoon. He does sell the idea to a Japanese company and plans a move to Tokyo, and calls Don to taunt him about how happy he is to be living his dream; Don is first panicked, thinking Lou had the news about the McCann merger before him, but when he realizes the truth he just blankly and insincerely wishes Lou well as the call ends, Lou’s response and last line on the show being “Enjoy the rest of your miserable life.”
Joey Baird Joey Baird (
Matt Long) is a freelance artist for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, first seen at the start of the fourth season. Joey and Peggy seem to enjoy working together, reenacting the "
John and Marsha" comedy skit in a workroom and laughing. Joey is also rather crude, acts entitled, frequently makes insensitive remarks, and engages in
sexual harassment. Joey misinterprets Harry Crane's friendly offer to help him get acting jobs and to go out for coffee as homosexual advances. Joey is anti-authoritarian and while disrespectful behind Don and Lane's backs as some other SCDP employees are, is (unlike them) openly defiant of Joan. Things come to a head in "
The Summer Man", when Joey reveals she reminds him of his mother, who he says is "a Joan" at her job; he speaks contemptuously about and to Joan, alleging she got her job by having sex with men in the office, because she lacks any skills of her own, calls her a "madame" and a "Shanghai whore", tells her she walks around the office like she "want[s] to get raped" and draws a pornographic picture of Joan and Lane Pryce engaged in
oral sex and tapes it to the glass door of her office. Joan's efforts to control and admonish Joey herself fail to accomplish anything and Joey escalates his insulting and defiant behavior. She attempts to have Don and Lane handle him, emphasizing the problems with his work while indirectly referencing his transgressions toward her. Her attempts to indirectly deal with the situation fail. At first, Peggy's repeated efforts to confront his sexist attitudes are as his peer but Joey brushes her aside. Peggy ultimately shows Don the obscene drawing and, at his suggestion, empowers herself by ordering Joey as his superior to apologize to Joan and fires the shocked freelancer when he refuses to comply. In the aftermath, Joan is angry at Peggy about the firing because she perceives it as Peggy acting to "look important" and causing Joan to look like a "glorified secretary" lacking power, respect, or authority, and needing Peggy to fight her battles for her.
Jimmy and Bobbie Barrett Bobbie Barrett (
Melinda McGraw) is the wife and manager of comedian
Jimmy Barrett (born Jimmy Bernstein) (
Patrick Fischler), an
insult comic (reminiscent of
Don Rickles) whom the firm uses in their advertisements for
Utz Potato Chips. After Jimmy insults the wife of Utz's owner about her weight, Don has to intercede and ends up meeting Bobbie, who shrugs off her husband's behavior. After that meeting, Bobbie seduces Don, though he initially resists as he wants to remain faithful to his marriage vows, despite his previous infidelities. When Bobbie later (in a ladies' lounge at
Lutèce, where they and the Schillings are meeting for the apology) tries to get Don to pay more for the apology as her husband's pay-or-play contract does not require it, Don grabs her hair with one hand and puts the other up her skirt, then threatens to ruin Jimmy if he does not apologize, and with no financial bonus. Bobbie appears to enjoy the dominating treatment, and quickly signals her husband to apologize. Later, she comes to Don with a TV pitch called "Grin and Barrett", a
Candid Camera-type show, featuring 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 story. The two resume their affair after a brief hiatus following the accident, but Don breaks it off completely and abruptly, when Bobbie reveals to him that she and other women with whom Don has had affairs have been discussing his prowess as a lover. Upset to learn that he has a "reputation" and annoyed at his inability to control Bobbie, Don leaves her during the middle of a sexual encounter, while she is tied up. Later, during a party where Don, Jimmy, and their spouses are in attendance, Jimmy reveals to Betty that Don and Bobbie have had an affair, and Jimmy also confronts Don and gloats about the trouble he has just unleashed for Don. Betty is humiliated by the revelation; though Betty may have suspected affairs in the past, Don's affair with Bobbie appears to be the only one Betty has actually been confronted about, leading to a period of separation for her and Don. Don later encounters Jimmy in an underground casino and delivers a solid punch to Jimmy's face, knocking him off his feet, which Jimmy later disparages as "nothing".
Bob Benson Bob Benson (
James Wolk) is a recurring character in
season 6. A new hire in Accounts, he answers to Ken Cosgrove, although no one recalls having hired him. Bob's overly eager and helpful demeanor irritates many in the office and is interpreted as
sycophantic by Don, Pete, and Ken. Bob engages in practices such as always buying an extra coffee so he has one to give to others, sending a catered deli platter to Roger's mother's wake, as well as hanging out on the lower floor of the office (Accounts is on the upper floor), looking for people to talk to, and in the reception area of Accounts, trying to be seen and (unsuccessfully) to appear busy. While at first these activities annoy people, eventually they bear fruit and gain Bob a stronger place in the firm. Bob is also shown listening to an LP audiobook of
Frank Bettger's
How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling (1949) and using similar language to inspire his friend, Michael Ginsberg. In "Man with a Plan", Bob tactfully assists Joan when she is in pain due to an
ovarian cyst and, displaying an ability to think quickly and a willingness to lie, tells the nurse that he strongly believes that Joan has just ingested poison, resulting in Joan's receiving treatment immediately after her abdominal pain alone had failed to result in any treatment. A grateful Joan prevents his lay-off after SCDP merges with CGC, and Bob is later seen accompanying Joan and Kevin to the beach. Based on a comment made by Joan, Bob assists Pete Campbell in getting an experienced nurse for his now-ailing mother. Later, Benson intervenes in an argument between Michael Ginsberg and Jim Cutler, taking Cutler's side; his subsequent apology to Cutler leads Cutler to assign Bob to handle the Manischewitz account and give Bob a foot in the door with the Chevy business (although Bob is apparently unaware that this is part of Cutler's efforts to stage a coup within the merged firm). When Pete voices concerns to Bob that the nurse Bob recommended, Manolo Colón, may be sexually abusing his mother and taking advantage of her dementia, Bob says Manolo does not date women and then hints heavily at his own romantic feelings for Pete, which Pete, repulsed, rejects. When Ken is injured and the senior partners assign Bob to take the lead on the Chevy account, where he would potentially be working closely with Pete, an angered Pete threatens Bob and is astonished when Bob threatens him in turn. Bob is later shown venting in fluent Castillian Spanish on the phone to Manolo about Pete threatening Bob's future, saying it does not matter how nice Pete's mother is. Pete proceeds to hire Duck Phillips to find Bob another job. Instead, Duck uncovers Bob's secret: much like Don Draper, Bob's adopted an assumed identity to compensate for an embarrassing and impoverished past. None of his college references check out, he is from a poor area of West Virginia, and he was the manservant of a vice president at
Brown Brothers Harriman, rather than an employee of the firm itself in the accounts department, as he had implied. Moreover, his name is likely a false one. Pete immediately thinks to expose Bob, but, having learned from his experience trying to expose Don years earlier, decides to call a truce with Bob and lays out some ground rules to control Bob instead. Bob appears shocked when Pete tells him Manolo (aka Marcos Constantine) apparently eloped with Pete's mother, and she has "fallen" overboard and become lost at sea under mysterious circumstances. Pete flatly rejects the idea that Bob was not in on the situation and proceeds to try and strong-arm him out of Chevy's good graces. Bob, maintaining his innocence in the Manolo situation, manipulates Pete into making a fool of himself at Chevy's headquarters, thereby securing his own position. Around the same time, Roger Sterling sees that Bob is spending time with Joan and giving Kevin gifts. Roger confronts Bob and threatens him about his relationship with Joan, which Bob replies to by insisting that he and Joan are just "buddies". Bob is later seen carving the turkey at Joan's Thanksgiving dinner, to Roger's surprise. In season 7, Bob Benson reappears. He is called by a GM executive (
Matthew Glave) asking to be bailed out of jail, having been arrested for offering to fellate an undercover police officer. The executive warns Bob that Chevy's advertising is going to become an in-house project, and SC&P is going to lose the account, but assures him not to worry, as Buick will hire him to work for them in Detroit. This prompts Bob to propose marriage to Joan, who turns him down, stating that they both deserve to be with people they love, not spending their lives in "an arrangement". When Bob explains that he needs a wife to assuage the GM executives, Joan learns about the losing of the account but neglects to inform Roger, who is at first incensed, until he realizes it will be an unavoidable blow for Jim Cutler.
Glen Bishop Glen Bishop (Marten Holden Weiner, son of series creator
Matthew Weiner) 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 purposely walks in on her while she is using the bathroom and looks at her for several seconds. He then later asks for a lock of her hair. She acquiesces, and when Helen discovers it, she angrily confronts Betty in a supermarket, telling her he is just a "little boy", causing an offended Betty to slap Helen across the face. Betty immediately leaves the market, and while her friend Francine offers her support, she also reveals that the incident has become a topic of neighborhood gossip. In Season 2, episode 10, "The Inheritance", Betty discovers that Glen has run away and has been living in the Drapers' backyard playhouse for several days. Glen's father wants Glen to live with him and his new wife and baby, but Glen dislikes his stepmother and says she is mean. He also says his mother is only interested in her boyfriends, and that Glen brushes his little sister's teeth and puts her to bed. Glen and Betty comfort each other because they are both lonely and miserable. He tells Betty that he is there to rescue her. He proposes that Betty elope with him, but she instead calls his mother, which leads him to tell her he hates her. He returns in Season 4, working for his father at a Christmas tree lot, where he encounters Sally Draper and fixates on her as a replacement for Betty, bonding with her over their now-shared experience as children in divorced families. After discovering that Sally hates living in her house with her mother, Glen breaks in with a friend and vandalizes it, but leaves Sally's room untouched and leaves a secret gift on her bed. Glen often mentions age-inappropriate things to Sally about divorce and tries to encourage her to be secretive. Betty finds out about Glen's friendship with Sally and forbids him to see her, even going so far as to fire her housekeeper Carla when Carla allows Glen to see Sally one last time before they move to Rye. Betty is partly jealous of her daughter, but also aware of Glen's propensity for unsettling behavior. However, in Season 5, it is revealed that Glen still speaks to Sally regularly on the telephone from his dorm at the
Hotchkiss School, even going so far as to meet clandestinely in New York. Glen is unpopular at school and is frequently picked on, with the entire lacrosse team urinating in his locker. Though he encourages the boys at school to believe Sally is his girlfriend, with whom he has snuck off campus to have sex, Sally and Glen agree their relationship is closer to that of siblings. In season 6, he and Rolo, a friend from Hotchkiss, bring alcohol when visiting Sally and her student hosts at Miss Porter's School. When Rolo makes an unwanted pass at Sally, she tells Glen, who attacks Rolo and they briefly fight before leaving. In Season 7, an 18-year-old Glen visits the Francis residence to tell Sally he has enlisted in the U.S. Army. His revelation that he has enlisted angers Sally, who condemns him for reversing his earlier stance on the
Kent State shootings. Sally asks if he is going to Vietnam, to which Glen says it looks likely, but he has not yet gotten any orders. Later, Glen returns to the house and talks to Betty, revealing he flunked out of school and joined the Army to appease his stepfather. Unlike Sally, Betty considers Glen brave for enlisting.
Helen Bishop Helen Bishop (
Darby Stanchfield) is one of the Drapers' neighbors. She is a liberal divorcée with two children and a
Mount Holyoke College graduate. Helen works in a jewelry store and volunteers for
John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. Her divorce and habit of taking long walks have made her the subject of gossip for women in the neighborhood. A further rift develops between Helen and Betty Draper when the former discovers that Betty has 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 across 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. Later, Helen remarries and sends Glen to a boarding school at her new husband's request.
Ida Blankenship Ida Blankenship (
Randee Heller) is Bert Cooper's long-serving secretary. She remains an unseen character until the fourth season, when Joan assigns her to be Don's secretary as punishment to him for having drunkenly seduced and then brushed off his previous secretary, Allison, causing her to have a breakdown at the office. An older woman, Miss Blankenship has a tendency to annoy Don and his co-workers with her salty attitude and eccentric work performance, though having been a secretary for over 40 years, she is quite experienced. Her blunt and cantankerous demeanor starkly contrasts with those of her predecessors and the firm's other secretaries. However, Don acknowledges that she is exactly the type of secretary he needs, as she is not overawed by him and he is unlikely to have an affair with her, which is likely the reason Joan assigned her to him. However, it is mentioned by Bert and Roger that she was rather attractive many years ago. In his tape recordings for his autobiography, Roger claims to have had an affair with Miss Blankenship when he was a very young man at the firm, which caused a rift between Cooper and himself. Roger implies she was sexually adventurous and aggressive, referring to her as the "Queen of Perversions". She is absent from the office for a brief time while she has cataract surgery. Not long after returning she dies, suddenly and unexpectedly, at her desk at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in the
ninth episode of Season 4, at the age of 67. Heartbroken over her death, Cooper sends her to the
Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel instead of the morgue and goes out of his way to make sure she has a nicely written obituary, stating: "She was born in 1898 in a barn. She died on the 37th floor of a skyscraper. She's an astronaut." Actress Randee Heller states she created Blankenship's New York Jewish accent from the memory of her Yiddish-speaking grandparents.
Richard Burghoff Richard Burghoff (
Bruce Greenwood) is a wealthy real estate mogul who becomes romantically involved with Joan in Season 7. After meeting Joan while she is in Los Angeles for business, he talks her into a date, which leads to a romantic encounter. A recently divorced, semi-retired millionaire with two grown children, Richard is exhilarated to be free to do as he pleases. He flies to New York on a whim and continues pursuing Joan. Their second date ends badly when he learns of the existence of her young son and becomes angry at the thought of Joan having commitments that will not allow her to pursue the kind of freewheeling lifestyle he envisions for himself. The next day, he shows up at Joan's office and apologizes, and they begin a relationship. Joan continues seeing Richard and he comforts her when she begins to have problems transitioning to work at McCann Erickson, offering semi-jokingly to have a sexist co-worker beaten up. After she quits McCann, Joan spends an increasing amount of time with Richard, flying to
Key West for a getaway and trying cocaine together. However, when she begins to plan a new business venture of her own, Richard becomes angry that she does not share his desire for a responsibility-free life. When Joan refuses to choose between her career and her relationship with him, he ends their relationship without saying goodbye.
Émile Calvet Émile Calvet (
Ronald Guttman) is Megan Calvet's pompous and arrogant father. Émile is an academic, an atheist, and a Marxist, and does not approve of Don. In "
At the Codfish Ball", it is revealed that he has written a book and Marie believes he is having an affair with his graduate teaching assistant. He, in turn, seems bitter toward his wife, accusing her of infidelity; he is much closer to Megan than to Marie and urges Megan to pursue her dreams. Megan is frustrated with his politics, however, particularly with the attitudes he expresses following the assassinations of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.
Marie Calvet Marie Calvet (
Julia Ormond) is Megan's mother; she has at least one more daughter, Marie-France, and 10 total grandchildren. When first introduced, she lives in Montreal with her husband, Émile, to whom she is unhappily married. Her accent indicates she is from France rather than Canada, and she indicates some knowledge of Paris while speaking with Arnie Rosen. Attractive, yet vain and prickly, Marie has a strained relationship with her husband Émile, as well as both Megan and Don, and is not especially supportive of Megan's acting dreams, telling her "not every little girl gets to do what she wants; the world cannot support that many ballerinas." Marie has a short affair with Roger Sterling in Season 5; Sally discovers her fellating Roger at Don's award dinner in "
At the Codfish Ball". Later, Roger wants Marie to watch out for him while he takes LSD, but Marie tells Roger he is "too old" to take LSD and she does not want to be his support; she then leaves him, causing Roger to take his second acid trip alone. In season 6, Marie and Arnie Rosen flirt mildly and Roger suggests she accompany him and the Drapers to a business dinner with the coarse, crude Herb Rennet and his irritating wife, Peaches. Roger stands them up and an unhappy Marie makes insulting remarks in French about Peaches to Megan. When Roger phones the house later that night to talk business with Don, Marie answers the phone, insults Roger, and hangs up on him twice, telling him to forget her name. In season 7's "New Business", Marie meets Megan in New York to collect Megan's remaining possessions from Don's apartment as a result of their forthcoming divorce. After Megan leaves early for a lunch date and asks Marie to supervise the movers, Marie has them empty the apartment, removing Don's possessions as well as Megan's. Marie and Roger also resume their affair, which Megan learns of accidentally. She remains in New York after Megan returns to California, her marriage to Émile having apparently ended, as Roger notes in "Time & Life" that he is on his way to meet her for a date. By the
final episode of season 7, she and Roger have become a married couple and spend their honeymoon in France.
Andrew and Dorothy Campbell Andrew Campbell (
Christopher Allport) is Pete Campbell's father. He disapproves of Pete's profession and treats him with contempt. In
Season 2, Andrew dies in the crash of
American Airlines Flight 1; it is revealed that he has squandered his wife's fortune and family's inheritance on a lavish lifestyle and by donating large sums of money to
Lincoln Center and the
Botanical Garden to maintain the appearance that he is wealthy.
Dorothy "Dot" Dyckman Campbell (Channing Chase) is Pete's somewhat detached mother who comes from a prominent New York City family. Pete hates his mother and jokes with his brother Bud about it, mentioning Hitchcock's
Rope. Dorothy greatly disapproves of Pete and Trudy's exploration into adoption, referring to orphans as "someone else's discards" and saying she will disinherit him if he adopts a child. Insulted, Pete reveals the truth about the family's fortunes to his mother, leaving her stunned. By Season 6 she suffers extensive memory lapses and is diagnosed with some form of dementia. When Bud foists her upon Pete, he is upset and annoyed with the situation, and resorts to exploiting her illness to keep her under control. Pete eventually hires Manolo, a Spanish nurse recommended to him by Bob Benson. Manolo initially works out quite well, but Dorothy begins implying that they are involved in a satisfying sexual relationship. Pete fires Manolo for sexually assaulting his mother, much to Dorothy's fury. Bob tells Pete that Manolo is gay, leaving it ambiguous as to what is actually happening. In the season finale it is revealed Dorothy married Manolo on a cruise ship and later "fell" overboard, implying Manolo married her to receive her (non-existent) riches and pushed her from the ship. Pete and Bud accept that it would be too expensive to pursue justice against Manolo, telling each other that "she's in the water, with Father," and "she loved the sea."
Bud and Judy Campbell Andrew "Bud" Campbell, Jr. (Rich Hutchman) and
Judy (Miranda Lilley) are Pete's elder brother and sister-in-law. Bud is an accountant and is the strongly favored child of their parents; it is understood that he alone will inherit his father's fortune. It is further shown when following her husband's death, Dorothy Campbell refers to her sons as "salt and pepper". After the death of their father in "
Flight 1", Bud reveals to Pete the precarious financial state their father created and arranges for the liquidation of their mother's assets so that she can live comfortably. Bud tells Pete that he and Judy have no plans to have children, and he lets slip to their mother Pete and Trudy's exploration of adoption. In Season 6, Bud is angry when Pete selects a third party investment bank to take SCDP public rather than involving his business. In the episode "In Care Of", Bud and Pete tacitly agree to not pursue a potentially costly investigation of Manolo Colon, after learning he had eloped with their mother, who disappeared off the cruise ship on which they were honeymooning.
Tammy Campbell Tammy Campbell is Pete and Trudy Campbell's only child. Tammy was born between September 7 and 10, 1965. The labor was long and difficult. Pete and Trudy Campbell believed they could not conceive a child, and they had consulted a fertility specialist. They discussed adoption, could not agree about it, and it was then revealed in Season 4's episode, "
The Rejected.” that Trudy's father disclosed Trudy's pregnancy to Pete. Trudy's father, Tom, said he would give Pete $1,000 if the baby were a boy and $500 if it were a girl. Tammy's mother, Trudy Campbell, is unaware of Pete's child with Peggy Olson.
Trudy Campbell Gertrude "Trudy" Campbell (née
Vogel;
Alison Brie) is Pete Campbell's wife. She met Pete when they were both in college (Pete was at
Dartmouth while Trudy attended
Mount Holyoke College); 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, unaware he already conceived a child with Peggy Olson. After discovering 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 manipulates a neighbor's au pair into having sex with him when Trudy is away on her summer vacation with her parents. This leads to the distraught au pair confessing the situation to her host father, who then threatens Pete to stay away from her. In turn, Pete tells Trudy she should never leave him for a long time, implying that it was her absence that led to his cheating. 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, Tom Vogel. Later in the season, Trudy gives birth to a daughter, whom they name Tammy. In season 5, the couple has relocated to
Cos Cob, Connecticut, against the wishes of Pete, who prefers living in Manhattan, and while Trudy settles in as a suburban housewife, Pete experiences angst and insecurity, eventually having a brief affair with Beth Dawes (
Alexis Bledel), the wife of a fellow commuter. Following some fisticuffs with Beth's husband, Pete desires a
pied-à-terre in Manhattan that he can use for affairs, though he tells Trudy he needs it for late nights at work. Trudy is reluctant at first, but finally agrees to let him have a bachelor pad in Manhattan, ostensibly for safety purposes but aware of the real reason. In Season 6, Pete has a sexual liaison with their neighbor, Brenda, who her husband then beats when he finds out. A distraught, bloody Brenda, wearing only lingerie, shows up at their door. Trudy treats her with the utmost consideration and assistance, then returns home to Pete, furious; she knew Pete would cheat on her but she expected him to be discreet and keep his affairs in Manhattan. She orders Pete to leave the house, though she refuses to admit defeat by divorcing him. Over the next several months, Pete visits and she gradually begins to accept him back, but she ends it again after her father, not knowing Pete and Trudy are separated, runs into Pete in a Manhattan brothel. Her father removes the Vicks account from Sterling Cooper in response. In retaliation, Pete then tells Trudy that he saw her father at the brothel, which Trudy refuses to believe. While she is polite to Pete when he says goodbye to her and Tammy before his move to Los Angeles at the end of Season 6, she responds forcefully when Pete hypocritically snaps at her for staying out late one night in Season 7, stating that Pete is "no longer a part of this family." She reluctantly asks Pete for help when their daughter is denied admission to a prestigious preschool and opens up to him about how she is lonely and feels unattractive, leading Pete to compliment her and part on cordial terms. In the penultimate episode, Pete is offered a job in Wichita and asks Trudy for reconciliation and to come with him. Trudy refuses at first, admitting she still loves him but cannot forget his adultery. However, Pete insists and Trudy agrees, and the two rekindle their marriage. They are last seen with Tammy as they board a flight on a private plane to Wichita.
Carla Carla (
Deborah Lacey) is a black woman who has worked as housekeeper for the Draper household since Sally's birth. Carla is shown to be the true maternal influence in Sally and Bobby's lives and is seen watching the children for extended periods of time, such as when Betty dashes off to Nevada with Henry to seek a quick divorce from Don. Throughout the first three seasons, Carla tries to offer marital advice to Betty. She continues to work for Betty after the latter divorces Don and marries Henry Francis, until being fired for allowing Glen Bishop to visit Sally. Carla later telephones Henry for a reference because Betty would not give her a written one for her job search. Though her character is often on the show's periphery, Carla has far more insight into the issues surrounding Don and Betty's marriage than perhaps anyone else. A silent critic of the couple's behavior, it is apparent that Carla recognizes how Don and Betty's relationship is affecting the development of their children.
Caroline Caroline (
Beth Hall) is Roger Sterling's longtime secretary, first appearing in Season 4's "
Christmas Comes But Once a Year". She is very well liked by nearly everyone at SCDP and is extremely loyal to Roger, being apparently close enough to him that she is able to speak her mind to him when she feels he is out of line. She is also close to Roger's family, becoming very upset when she learns of Roger's mother's death. Of the secretaries at SCDP, she seems to be the one closest to Joan.
Dawn Chambers Dawn Chambers (
Teyonah Parris) becomes Don Draper's new secretary in Season 5. She is the only black employee at SCDP, hired after
the firm places an "equal opportunity employer" ad in a stunt against rival firm
Y&R. She is befriended by Peggy Olson in the fourth episode of Season 5, "
Mystery Date", after Peggy lets Dawn stay with her when she discovers Dawn has been sleeping in Don's office due to concerns of racial tensions near Dawn's apartment in Harlem. Dawn proves herself competent at her job and develops a good working relationship with Don. In the Season 6 episode "To Have and to Hold," Joan reprimands Dawn for covering for Harry Crane's secretary by punching her out five hours after the secretary had already left the building. Dawn becomes panicked by the accusation, as she feels she is perpetually at risk of being fired, and she proposes that Joan dock her pay. Quietly impressed and unable to fire Dawn without causing issues for the firm, Joan "punishes" Dawn by putting her in charge of the stockroom and time cards. Little is initially known about Dawn, but in "To Have and to Hold", it is revealed, through a conversation with her best friend, that she feels lonely and alienated as the only black employee at SCDP and, due to her long hours there, she has little opportunity to date. She also comments on SCDP's dysfunctional work environment, where many people are mean to each other and women cry in the bathroom. In season 6's "The Flood," Don and Joan, largely untouched by the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, connect with the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King by empathizing with Dawn over the tragedy. Dawn seems bewildered by Joan's sympathetic hug and insists on remaining at work when Joan and Don suggest she go home. In season 7's "A Day's Work", Dawn is shown paying secret visits to Don's home to keep him apprised of the office activities while Don is on mandatory leave. Don's replacement, Lou Avery, demands that Joan assign him a new secretary due to her loyalty to Don. In the same episode, Joan decides to surrender her personnel management duties, and chooses Dawn to take over from her, a decision which also neatly resolves Lou and Bert Cooper's concerns about Dawn (Bert makes it clear to Joan he doesn't want an African American woman as the first person people would see entering SCDP, which ironically leads Joan to deliberately give Dawn a much more powerful if not visible position in the company). Later episodes show Dawn conducting her new duties with aplomb, straining her relationship with Don. She is last seen during season 7 episode "Time & Life" as her future following the absorption of SCDP into McCann is not revealed.
Toni Charles Toni Charles (
Naturi Naughton) is a black
Playboy Bunny with whom Lane Pryce has an extramarital affair in Season 4, after his wife Rebecca and their son return to the UK. Lane seems to genuinely be in love with her, but their relationship comes to an abrupt end when Lane's father forces him to return to the UK and reconcile with Rebecca.
Clara Clara (
Alexandra Ella) is Pete Campbell's secretary, first appearing during Season 3. She is well regarded and remains professional and unmoved by Pete's frequent angry outbursts and verbal abuse, which are often directed at her. She is pregnant in much of season 6, and Ken mentions that one of the account men, Torkelson, is the father and has decided not to take responsibility for the baby. She does not appear in season 7.
Manolo Colon Manolo Colon (aka
Marcus Constantine) (
Andres Faucher) is a con-artist associate of Bob Benson's whom Bob convinces Pete Campbell to hire in Season 6 as a personal nurse to Campbell's mother, Dorothy, after she begins to show signs of dementia. He is fired by Campbell after being suspected of sexually abusing Dorothy but remains in contact with her. They eventually marry on a cruise ship before he murders her by throwing her overboard in hopes of inheriting her wealth, which, unbeknownst to him (and, presumably, Bob), had been depleted by her late husband.
Cynthia Cosgrove Cynthia Cosgrove (
Larisa Oleynik) (née Baxter) is Ken Cosgrove's wife and the daughter of
Ed (
Ray Wise), the CEO of Corning. Cynthia is a New York society girl, who appears to have moved in the same Manhattan social circles as the presumably older Trudy Campbell, with whom she gets along well. Ken calls Cynthia "his life" and does not want to use her or his future father-in-law to get business, claiming in Season 4 that he does not want to be like Pete Campbell. In the
Season 5 premiere, her character is listed during the credits as Cynthia Cosgrove, implying she and Ken were married between the fourth and fifth seasons. Cynthia appears as a background character in several episodes of Season 5. She is very supportive of Ken's work and his side hobby as an author. She and Ken live in
Jackson Heights, Queens. In the third episode of Season 7, it is revealed that Cynthia and Ken now have an infant son, Edward.
Jennifer Crane Jennifer Crane (
Laura Regan) is Harry Crane's wife. Blonde and charismatic, Jennifer has the peculiarity of being a "working wife", at least until Season 3, holding a position as a supervisor at AT&T. She is from a blue-collar environment, which has helped her keep her husband grounded. Solidary, no-nonsense and generous, Jennifer has often tried to "fit in" with the more sophisticated circle of people surrounding Harry's workplace and has an unspoken rivalry of sorts with Trudy Campbell. She briefly threw Harry out of the house when he confessed to having a one-night stand with one of the secretaries, Hildy, but the two soon reconciled. She and Harry are parents to a daughter, Beatrice Grace, born in 1962. Sometime between the fifth and sixth seasons, they have twin sons, Nathan and Steven. It's implied but not outright stated that Harry and Jennifer get divorced in 1970, because Harry outright says he is delaying acceptance of a partnership at SCDP because once the divorce the final he won't have to share any of the profits with Jennifer. However, bad luck and timing lead to Roger nixing the partnership offer to Harry, and Harry presumably continuing the divorce process as the series ends.
Jim Cutler Jim Cutler (
Harry Hamlin) is a partner at the (once) rival firm, Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough and a senior partner at the merged Sterling Cooper & Partners. He first appears in the sixth episode of Season 5, "
Far Away Places". He is the equivalent of
Roger Sterling at CGC and Peggy describes him as "just like Roger but with bad breath." Cutler is usually courteous and mild-mannered, which belies his impatience and tendency for childlike escapades. On one account, he brought his doctor to the newly merged SCDP-CGC office to give everyone a shot of "super vitamins" to help with their working over the weekend for Chevy. Instead of making everyone productive, the booster shot only made Cutler and Stan Rizzo hyperactive, and causes Don to fade in and out of consciousness. He also brought Frank Gleason's daughter Wendy to the office that weekend, shortly after her father's funeral, and later peeked on Stan and Wendy having sex. He was part of the CGC team that was supposed to present to Chevy and vocally opposed the merger of SCDP and CGC, unless it would win them the account. In the Season 6 episode "A Tale of Two Cities," it appeared as if Cutler still opposed the merger, resentful of his loss of absolute control in the office and feeling disrespected by Michael Ginsberg and annoyed by Bob Benson's constant meddling. He then assigns Bob Benson to Chevy in open defiance of Don and Roger. Ted Chaough, having noticed this, chided Cutler for dividing the firm. As a sort of peace offering and tactical move, Ted and Jim proposed a new name for the merged firms: Sterling Cooper & Partners, removing any partner name from CGC as a sign of goodwill and cooperation. Cutler supports Don's suspension at the end of Season 6 and is openly opposed to his reinstatement, desiring to morph SC&P into a more technologically driven marketing agency. When Roger negotiates the acquisition of SC&P by McCann-Erickson, Cutler is initially opposed, but eventually concedes, realizing the amount of money his share in the agency will bring him. In Season 7, his status is clarified by Roger, who confirms that Cutler took the cash payoff and retired from the company. Cutler is a veteran of the
Army Air Force and mentions that he participated in the
bombing of Dresden in February, 1945.
Dale Dale (Mark Kelly) is a copywriter. He first appears in Episode 2 of Season 1 ("
Ladies Room"), and reappears in Episode 1 of Season Two ("
For Those Who Think Young"), Episode 6 of Season 3 ("
Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency"), and Episode 11 of Season 5 ("
The Other Woman").
Midge Daniels Midge Daniels (
Rosemarie DeWitt) is an art illustrator engaged in an affair of several years' duration with Don Draper in Season 1. She is involved with
beatniks and several proto-
hippies, smokes
marijuana, and makes several references to
Jack Kerouac and
Allen Ginsberg. It appears Midge has other lovers besides Don. When Don realizes she is in love with Roy, one of her beatnik friends, through a Polaroid he takes of the two, he ends his affair with her and gives her the bonus he received at work. She reappears in the Season 4 episode "
Blowing Smoke" where she runs into Don at his office building, claiming to be there for a business meeting for her paintings. After inviting him back to her apartment to meet her husband, it is revealed that Midge tracked Don down to try and coax him into giving them money to fuel their heroin addiction, as well as to buy one of her paintings. Initially writing them a check for $300 for one of her paintings out of pity, Don instead gives Midge $120 in cash he had in his wallet following advances made by Midge and leaves with one of her paintings.
Anna Draper Anna M. Draper (
Melinda Page Hamilton) is the widow of the real Don Draper, the man whose identity Dick Whitman stole after Don's death during the Korean War. She has a noticeable limp as a result of polio and a sister named Patty (Susan Leslie), in whom the real Don Draper was interested before he married Anna. Anna tracks down Dick/Don while he is working as a used car salesman and confronts him about her husband. Dick/Don tells her he died, and despite the circumstances of their meeting, Don and Anna become close friends: he buys her a house in California, Anna often serves as an understanding confidante to Don, and he stays with her whenever he is in
Los Angeles. When Don meets Betty, he gets a "divorce" from Anna in order to marry Betty. Don pays Anna another visit during a trip to California during the Season 4 episode "
The Good News", during which she has a broken leg. Anna's sister Patty and college-aged niece Stephanie (
Caity Lotz) are also staying with Anna during Don's visit to help care for Anna. After dinner out with Anna and Stephanie, Don attempts to make a move on Stephanie, who turns him down and informs him that Anna has terminal cancer, which devastates Don, and that Anna does not know about her diagnosis. Don angrily confronts Patty about this, offering to pay for any possible cancer treatments, but Patty tells him that she has consulted several doctors and confirmed that Anna's cancer is terminal, and asks that Don leave before he can inadvertently tell Anna about her cancer. Don agrees to leave but stays long enough to paint over Anna's water-stained wall, which Anna decorates with a painting of a flower and is signed "Dick + Anna '64" by Don. Later, in the Season 4 episode "
The Suitcase", Don repeatedly avoids returning calls from Stephanie, falling asleep and dreaming of an apparition of Anna smiling and holding a suitcase. When he awakens the next morning, he finally returns Stephanie's call and learns that Anna had died the night before, and breaks down in front of Peggy Olson. Don later brings his children to Anna's house in the
finale of Season 4, showing them the wall they had painted and introducing them to Stephanie, who gives Don Anna's engagement ring from the real Don Draper. It is Anna's death that then inspires Don to start a new life.
Gene Draper Eugene Scott "Gene" Draper (Evan Londo) is Don and Betty Draper's youngest child. He was born during Season 3, on June 21, 1963, and is named after Betty's late father,
Gene Hofstadt. His sister, Sally, first thinks that Gene is a reincarnation of their grandfather, as he is born shortly after their grandfather dies and is given the same room their grandfather had lived in, and is terrified of him, but she eventually grows to love her brother after Don comforts Sally and tells her that Gene is a baby and nobody knows who he is going to be yet. He speaks his first line in the
premiere of Season 5 (“Good night, Daddy”) and his second and last line in the penultimate episode of the series (“No”).
Abe Drexler Abe Drexler (
Charlie Hofheimer) is Peggy Olson's boyfriend, beginning in Season 4. Abe, who is Jewish, is a freelance journalist with strongly expressed liberal/leftist political views. He and Peggy first meet at a loft party in a sweatshop. Another meeting is engineered by their mutual friend Joyce Ramsay, where Abe's progressive views on race, combined with his mild sexist attitude, rub Peggy the wrong way. When he brings her a piece he wrote condemning the capitalist attitudes of Wall Street, which names some of the firms with which Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is contracted, Peggy loses her temper with Abe. In spite of this, they later reconcile and become a couple. In Season 5, Abe asks Peggy to move in together which, after some contemplation and Joan's encouragement, Peggy accepts. Despite some problems (including criticism from Peggy's mother, who objects both to the fact that Abe is not Catholic, as well as the fact that Peggy has chosen to live with a man to whom she is not married), they settle into a life together, eventually purchasing a run-down building on the Upper West Side midway through Season 6, which they renovate and live in. However, Abe proves incompetent at home repair, has far too lax of an attitude towards the crime in the neighborhood, and never tells the tenants to behave or be quiet, much to the chagrin of Peggy. He also refuses to identify a group of teenagers who stabbed him at the train station and instead turns it into an issue about race, further angering Peggy. Peggy and Abe become increasingly frustrated with the different directions their lives are taking, and after a serious incident in which Peggy accidentally stabs him, Abe ends the relationship.
Suzanne Farrell Suzanne Farrell (
Abigail Spencer) is Sally Draper's third grade teacher at the beginning of Season 3. She engages in an extended period of flirtation with Don, and they eventually enter into a sexual relationship after Sally has moved on to the next grade. She 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 something of a drifter, unable to keep a job for very long. At the end of Season 3, Don signals a desire to strengthen his and Suzanne's relationship, but his plans are scuttled when Betty unexpectedly returns home from a vacation and confronts Don about his past. She is not seen again and is the last person with whom Don has an affair while married to Betty.
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 that began with Roger's father. Boorish, bossy, boozy, and sexually predatory to both women and (secretly) men, Lee's behavior is accepted because his father runs Lucky Strike, which represents the lion's share of Sterling Cooper's business. In Season 3, Lee Garner, Jr., sexually propositions Sal Romano, only to be rebuffed. Not taking the rejection lightly, Garner, Jr., uses his clout to have Sal fired from Sterling Cooper. As Don explains to Sal after Roger fires him, "Lucky Strike can shut off our lights" and the agency could thus not risk losing the account by defending Sal. Garner, in Season 4, invites himself to the SCDP 1964 Christmas party, forcing the company to overstep its tight budget to make the party a grander affair for their most important client. At the party, Garner gropes female employees and further 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, by going to
BBDO, sending the agency into crisis.
Lee Garner, Sr. Lee Garner, Sr. (
John Cullum) is an executive at
Lucky Strike, a cigarette company with a very long relationship with Sterling Cooper. A proud, no-nonsense man in his seventies, he and Bert Cooper go way back. He eventually turns executive power over to his son due to ill health.
Father Gill Father John Gill (
Colin Hanks) is a young
Catholic priest in a visiting ministry at the church Peggy's family attends in
Brooklyn. He first appears in the Season 2 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. He asks Peggy for advice about public speaking and advertising church events such as a youth dance after learning about her employment in advertising, and changes the style of his Palm Sunday sermon to include more colloquialisms and be more accessible to his congregation after listening to Peggy's criticisms; he later gives her a copy of the sermon. He learns about Peggy's pregnancy during the confession of Peggy's sister, Anita, and he appears to take an interest in bringing Peggy more fully into the church community. 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. He subtly indicates to Peggy that he would hear her confession if she wished, stating that "no sin is too great for God." Additionally, he expresses a desire for her to receive the
Eucharist. However, Peggy is uncertain how involved she wishes to become in the church community and in the Catholic faith, although she appreciates Father Gill's friendship. Their relationship is a bit strained by the fact that Anita's confession, including the particulars of Peggy's pregnancy, was based on a mistaken assumption about the identity of the child's father. Peggy later confides to Don that her whole family believes he was the father because Don was the only non-family member to visit her in the hospital.
Francine Hanson Francine Hanson (
Anne Dudek) is one of Betty Draper's closest friends and neighbors in the first four seasons, before Betty moves from Ossining. Francine spends many afternoons gossiping with Betty about the neighborhood's newest resident, divorcée Helen Bishop. Francine, who is married to Carlton Hanson, has a son named Ernie and is pregnant in Season 1, giving birth to a baby girl named Jessica. Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair, as he makes secret phone calls to Manhattan and sleeps at the
Waldorf Astoria two nights a week; she tells Betty she wishes she could poison him. Even Don is uncomfortable with Carlton, who confides his attraction to Jessica's young babysitter. By Season 2 the couple has reconciled somewhat; Carlton appears to have gained weight, and the insinuation is that food has become a substitute for womanizing. After Betty and her family leave Ossining, Francine appears only once, meeting Betty for lunch in the Season 7 episode "Field Trip", by which time she is working as a travel agent in
Dobbs Ferry.
Brooks Stanford Hargrove Brooks Hargrove (Derek Ray) is the dutiful husband of
Roger Sterling's daughter Margaret. They were married on November 23, 1963, the day after
John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In the
Season 6 premiere, following Roger's mother's memorial service, Margaret asks her father to invest in Brooks'
refrigerator car technology venture. Later in the season, she withdraws her Thanksgiving invitation because Roger declines to invest. In Season 7, Margaret abandons Brooks and their son Ellery to live in a commune in upstate New York. He is last seen watching the TV broadcast of the
Apollo 11 moon landing alongside Ellery, Roger, and Mona.
Greg Harris Dr. Greg Harris (
Samuel Page) is Joan's ex-husband, as of Season 5. During his engagement to Joan in Season 2, she brings him with her to Sterling Cooper to close up, at which time, feeling threatened by Joan's rapport with Roger, he rapes her on the floor of Don's office. After failing to become chief surgical resident because his brown-nosing and entitlement do not make up for his subpar surgical skills, he whines at length to Joan and insults her, and she smashes a vase over his skull. Greg later decides to join the Army, which is desperate for surgeons, not believing he may be shipped to the front line in
Vietnam. He does not consult Joan prior to enlisting, but before leaving for basic training he states his desire to start a family. After basic training, Greg is sent directly to Vietnam. While there, he learns that Joan is pregnant, but is unaware that Roger Sterling is the father. In Season 5, Greg returns from his initial deployment and is overjoyed to meet his new "son" Kevin, but tells Joan that he has been ordered to return to Vietnam for another year. However, at a homecoming dinner with Joan's mother and Greg's parents, it becomes clear that Greg volunteered to return, contrary to what he told Joan, preferring the status and respect his rank confers to being with his family. Joan is furious that he lied to her and made such an important decision without her, and tells him to leave and not come back. When he tells her the army makes him feel like a "good man", she tells him he was never a good man, implicitly referencing the rape. He storms out, and a few months later serves Joan with divorce papers at the office, humiliating and infuriating her. It is revealed in the series finale that, following his divorce from Joan, Greg remarried and had twins with a nurse. He also disowned Kevin and refused to be involved in his upbringing in any way, despite still having no idea that Kevin is not his biological son.
Conrad Hilton Conrad "Connie" Hilton (
Chelcie Ross) is the fictional portrayal of the real founder of the
Hilton Hotels chain, one of the only times the show has portrayed historical personages in person. He first meets Don Draper, who initially presumes Conrad is a bartender, at a country club where Don is a guest at Roger Sterling's
Kentucky Derby party and Connie is a guest at a wedding reception. They share their hardscrabble beginnings and laugh about Don's urinating in the trunks of fancy clients' cars at the roadhouse where he had worked as a valet. Connie later seeks out Don's help with an advertising campaign, and thus becomes a Sterling Cooper client. Hilton is depicted as a demanding client and difficult to please; he is known to call Don during the middle of the night and to show up in Don's office unannounced. After sending Don to numerous Hilton properties throughout the country, Connie flies Don to meet him at the Hilton property in Rome, with Betty joining at the last minute to help put the property through its paces. Connie is behind Sterling Cooper forcing Don to sign an employment contract with the agency. Don begins to see Connie as something of a father figure whom Don seeks to impress, but Connie is ultimately unsatisfied with Don's work. At the end of Season 3 he gives Don the heads-up that Putnam, Powell & Lowe, Sterling Cooper's parent agency, will be bought by McCann-Erickson. The two-part ways vowing to try working again in the future, but Hilton never returns to the show even after the founding of SCDP.
Gene Hofstadt Eugene "Gene" Hofstadt (
Ryan Cutrona) is Betty's elderly father, who does not approve of Don. A businessman of some kind in the affluent
Philadelphia Main Line area and a veteran of
World War I, he first appears in Season 1 when, several months after his wife's death, he begins dating another woman, Gloria Massey, which upsets Betty. He marries Gloria sometime between November 1960 and April 1962. In 1962, Gene suffers a series of small strokes that leave him with impaired mental abilities, emotional lability, and short-term memory loss. He becomes repeatedly confused, believing himself to be back in the Army or in the midst of
prohibition; he mistakes his daughter Betty for his wife and fondles her. He also becomes more openly critical of Don, berating him in front of others and accusing him of not appreciating Betty; Don later tells Betty that he and Gene had a kind of mutual hatred for each other. His declining health eventually leads to Gloria leaving him in early 1963, leading him to move in with the Drapers at Don's instigation in the Season 3 episode "Love Among the Ruins". He becomes especially close with his granddaughter, Sally Draper, before dying in June 1963 in the Season 3 episode "The Arrangements", shortly before his youngest grandchild is born. Betty names her new son "Eugene" in honor of her late father.
William and Judy Hofstadt William Hofstadt (
Eric Ladin) is Betty Draper's younger brother. He and his wife
Judy (
Megan Henning) have three daughters. William and Betty disagree over the disposition of their father's house, since Betty does not want William to live there nor inherit the house, as well as arguing over how their father will be cared for as his health deteriorates. Although William is shown to be jealous of his father favoring Betty as a child, Judy seems to be a warm and kind caregiver for Gene. Don and Betty share a dislike of William and Judy for their selfishness and inability to control their unruly children. In the
series finale, despite Betty's strained relationship with William and Judy, she feels they should raise Bobby and Gene after she dies from lung cancer. While Don initially insists on retaking custody of his sons, and Sally believes that Henry is capable of raising the two boys alone, Betty opines that William and Judy look after them, as this will ensure the presence of a mother figure in their lives.
Hollis Hollis (La Monde Byrd) is the black elevator operator in the Sterling Cooper building on Madison Avenue. He occasionally interacts with the Sterling Cooper staff. During the Season 1 episode "
Red in the Face", Don pays Hollis to pretend the elevator is out of service in order to force Roger to climb the 23 flights of stairs to the office after an excessive lunch of oysters and martinis. Roger, having made the stairs, then meets the representatives of Richard Nixon's 1960 Presidential campaign in reception but vomits up his lunch on the floor due to the strain. He realizes that Don has exacted his revenge for making a pass at Betty, with Hollis's assistance. His skin color becomes important on a number of occasions. In the Season 3 episode "
The Fog", Pete tries to engage him in conversation about the product preferences of black people (for television brands), which Hollis is either uninterested in or sees as inappropriate. Pete, however, continues to push him by stopping the elevator and forcing Hollis to talk about the subject, knowing that Admiral television sets seem to sell well in "Negro markets". Hollis, while initially intimidated, is quick to respond to the issue of race, stating that, "We have bigger things to think about than TV". Pete is remorseful, but Hollis remains hardened. Paul, too, addresses Hollis in an uncharacteristically familiar fashion, ostentatiously introducing Hollis to Paul's black girlfriend, Sheila, and telling Hollis to call him "Paul" instead of "Mr. Kinsey" in the Season 2 episode "The Inheritance". On the day that
Marilyn Monroe's death is announced in the Season 2 episode "Six Month Leave", Hollis expresses sympathy for her ex-husband
Joe DiMaggio, in contrast to many of Sterling Cooper's female characters who mourn Monroe's loss, and male characters (such as Roger), who appear emotionally unaffected.
Gail Holloway Gail Holloway (
Christine Estabrook) is Joan's mother, who comes to stay with Joan after Joan's son Kevin is born. She first appears in the Season 5 premiere "
A Little Kiss" and remains as a recurring character through much of the season; she again appears in numerous Season 6 episodes, beginning with "To Have and to Hold", as well as the Season 7 episode "The Strategy". Gail is supportive of Joan, but their relationship is somewhat tense. She does not understand why Joan would want to return to work, thinking she should instead be content to be a full-time wife and mother, and she makes several disparaging comments to that effect. Joan, in turn, makes several references suggesting that Gail may have a drinking problem. Gail strikes up a flirtation with the apartment building's handyman, Apollo, of which Joan disapproves, until Apollo's wife forbids him to go to their apartment. Gail remains with Joan after Joan throws Greg out, but continues to be condescending about her daughter's job and failed marriage. She also frequently manipulates Joan's dependency on her to get her own way. In the Season 6 episode "To Have and to Hold", Gail surprises her daughter when she tells Joan's childhood friend Kate she is proud of her daughter having become a partner at a Madison Avenue firm. In "Man with a Plan", Gail advises Joan to accept Bob Benson's friendship (and possibly more), as not every act of kindness is a front. Gail remains with Joan, though mostly off-camera during the second half of Season 7, continuing to look at after Kevin while Joan works to establish her new company, Harris & Holloway; she appears briefly in the series finale "
Person to Person", taking Kevin out to the park while Joan works from home.
John Hooker John Hooker (
Ryan Cartwright), an Englishman, is Lane Pryce's assistant during Season 3. His title is "secretary", but he insists his status is higher than that of the other secretaries at Sterling Cooper, telling Joan, "I'm Mr. Pryce's right arm; I'm not his typist." To this end, he asks that the switchboard operators address him as "Mr. Hooker" rather than "John". He assumes Joan's position as office manager after her departure to become a housewife. A variety of Sterling Cooper employees refer to John as "
Moneypenny", much to his chagrin. His officious, self-important manner annoys nearly everyone in the office, particularly Joan; Lane and Rebecca Pryce call him a "toad". When the primary partners abandon the company to form Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, John is left to deal with the Putnam, Powell & Lowe executives, who are infuriated.
Mack Johnson Mack Johnson (Morgan Rusler) is Dick and Adam Whitman's father figure following Archie's death, whom Don called "Uncle Mack." In the aftermath of Archie's death, the Whitmans lost the family farm, and a pregnant Abigail Whitman took Dick to live with Mack and his wife, her sister. He first appears in the Season 1 episode "
Babylon", in which Don flashes back to his brother's birth. In Season 6, it was revealed that Mack was the
pimp of a brothel in
Hershey, Pennsylvania. In the Season 6 finale, Don attempts to be more honest about his life and shows his children where he grew up. While Abigail was cruel and spiteful to Dick, Mack was described as being nice to him. However, he is shown to not intervene on Dick's behalf in stopping Abigail's abusive treatment. According to Adam, Mack died shortly after Abigail's death from stomach cancer.
Joy Joy (
Laura Ramsey) is a young woman Don meets in California in the Season 2 episode, "
The Jet Set", for whom he impulsively abandons Pete and his business obligations. She belongs to a group of wealthy, sexually liberal, bohemian tax exiles who live lavishly and travel from place to place but display no work ethic or means of support. Both Joy and her father seem attracted to Don. One of their entourage is a "Doctor Feelgood" type, whom Don fends off to avoid receiving an injection of an unknown substance, after Don collapses by the pool and comes to on Joy's couch. When Don asks Joy about a book she is reading, she explains she had enrolled in a literature class while staying in Rhode Island, but "it was not for [her]". During a late night skinny dip with Joy, Don meets her brother, who is estranged from his wife, and his children, who are roughly the same ages as Don's, and Don offers them his and Joy's bedroom. Though enticed to join the group in their travels, Don declines.
Edna Keener Dr. Edna Keener (
Patricia Bethune) is a child psychiatrist whom Betty takes Sally to see when her behavior at home becomes too much for Betty to handle. Betty also has short sessions with Dr. Edna, ostensibly to discuss Sally, though Betty uses them to discuss her own psychiatric issues. After making progress with Sally, Dr. Edna recommends reducing Sally's number of sessions per week, to which Betty objects. Dr. Edna suggests that Betty seek some psychiatric help with an adult psychiatrist, but Betty elliptically convinces Dr. Edna to continue reserving time for Betty to "discuss Sally's progress" with her in the Season 4 episode "
Blowing Smoke".
Gloria Massey Gloria Hofstadt, née
Massey (Darcy Shean), is Gene Hofstadt's second wife, whom her stepchildren Betty and William despise. 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 and overall difficult demeanor, has left him and moved to
Boca Raton.
John Mathis John "Johnny" Mathis (
Trevor Einhorn) is a copywriter at Sterling, Cooper & Partners, appearing in Seasons 6 and 7. Defensive about his work, he endangers an account with
Peter Pan by interrupting a meeting. Late in Season 7, he goes to Don for help in putting together a difficult pitch, but when he tries to copy Don's off-the-cuff style and it goes disastrously wrong, he furiously blames Don for his failure and snarls that Don only gets by on looks, and makes an ugly reference to Lee Garner Jr. being sexually attracted to Don. In response, Don tells Mathis to own his failures and garbage-mouth and then fires him, leading a defiant Mathis to sneer that he was right about not apologizing to Don.
Guy MacKendrick Guy MacKendrick (
Jamie Thomas King) is a confident, handsome, charismatic accounts executive of London-based advertising firm Putnam, Powell, and Lowe. A
Cambridge University and
London School of Economics graduate, he was brought in by PPL to take over the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency. St. John Powell and Harold Ford expressed much enthusiasm for him. During the office party held in the Season 3 episode "
Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency", Lois Sadler accidentally runs over MacKendrick's foot with a John Deere riding lawnmower. Joan Holloway saves his life by quickly placing a tourniquet on his leg; however, he ultimately loses his foot. Because of this disfigurement, Powell and Ford decide that MacKendrick has no future with the firm and fire him.
Carol McCardy Carol McCardy (
Kate Norby) works at a literary agency and is Joan Holloway's roommate in Season 1. One night, she musters the courage to confess to Joan that she has loved her since they met the first week in college, but Joan ignores her romantic advances in favor of not spoiling their friendship. She has moved out by the beginning of Season 2 and is not referred to again.
Daisy McClusky Daisy McClusky (
Danielle Panabaker) is a stewardess for
Northwest Airlines. She has recurring sexual relationship with Roger Sterling in Season 6 and notifies him when potential clients are on her flights, even detaining those clients until Roger arrives. Daisy's assistance has its limits, however, as she will not do anything that actually harms business, such as bump SCDP's rivals from her flights altogether. However, she does arrange for the luggage of rival admen to be temporarily "lost".
Meredith Meredith (
Stephanie Drake) is a secretary who first appears as SCDP's receptionist during Season 5. Her infantile mannerisms and scatterbrained demeanor annoy Joan, and the two eventually have an altercation in the Season 5 episode "
The Christmas Waltz", after Meredith allows a process server with divorce papers into the office to serve Joan. She remains at SCDP and briefly becomes Lou Avery's secretary after he complains about Dawn's continued loyalty to Don who was on involuntary leave from the agency. She becomes Don's secretary when he returns and is openly infatuated with him. When Don vanishes, she becomes one of two secretaries for Roger and moves with him to McCann-Erickson. She is let go by Roger in the
series finale, as Don had not returned to work and two secretaries for Roger was unnecessary. She is optimistic even as she is let go as she claims "there are better places than (McCann-Erickson)".
Faye Miller Dr. Faye Miller (
Cara Buono) is a psychologist and consultant who provides market research for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. She meets Don the day of the 1964 office Christmas party in the Season 4 episode "
Christmas Comes But Once a Year", and seems to immediately have multiple insights into Don's true character. She is a tough and independent "modern woman" whom Peggy admires. Although she wears a wedding ring, she admits to Don this is merely a ruse to ward off unwanted advances. She later shares that her father, "a handsome, two-bit gangster like [Don]", owns a candy store and has friends and "obligations" connected to the mob. Don, after initially denigrating her approach to advertising and overhearing her lambaste an estranged lover on the phone, during which she reveals she does not cook and does not want to clean up after him, takes an interest in her. Eventually, the two embark on a secret romantic relationship, during which time Don expresses admiration for her work. When Sally stows away on a train and a stranger brings her to Don's office, Faye reveals her discomfort with children and, although Sally liked her, her fear that she had failed some test as a result. Don later confides to Faye about his past as Dick Whitman and his fears the security clearance investigation Pete's defense industry client has ordered will expose him and lead to his arrest, to which Faye advises him to face the problem and come clean. Faye severs ties with SCDP after Don submits a full-page ad to
The New York Times saying SCDP will no longer work with tobacco companies, as her firm continues to do so. He also convinces her to put her ethics aside and breach the "Chinese wall" to use her connections to try to get his struggling firm meetings with clients; her partner secures a meeting with a tobacco company, which falls through, and she secures a meeting with Heinz Beans, for whose advertising campaign Megan Calvet Draper and Peggy Olson ultimately win a Clio Award. While in a relationship with Faye, he begins a relationship with Megan, then impulsively becomes engaged to her, leading to him breaking off his relationship with Faye. She is extremely upset by the news and tells Don he "only like[s] the beginnings of things".
Katherine Olson Katherine Olson (
Myra Turley) is Peggy and Anita's mother. 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. Old-fashioned and harsh, she disapproves of Peggy's decisions to move to Manhattan and later, to live with Abe. Not so much because of their religious differences, rather her nihilistic view that Abe's relationship with Peggy is merely practice for the real family he will someday have with someone else. She harshly tells her daughter that loneliness is no excuse for shacking up and to simply buy a series of cats for companionship until she dies. A devout Catholic, Katherine is vocally critical of Father Gill's style of preaching and informal grace at dinner during the Season 2 episode "
Three Sundays".
Burt Peterson Burt Peterson (
Michael Gaston) is Head of Accounts at Sterling Cooper until 1963, when Roger Sterling fires him in the Season 3 premier "
Out of Town" at Lane Pryce's instigation. Peterson reacts very negatively as he had recently been struggling with his wife's cancer treatments, which had caused PPL to delay firing him and lulling him into a false sense of security since he had survived the various waves of firings. He has a tantrum after his firing, sweeping the items on people's desks onto the floor, breaking them, and then throwing things around his own office, to the sounds of many crashes. At some point later, he becomes employed by CGC and mentions to Peggy that he is a widower. When SCDP and CGC merge, he is again fired by Roger in the Season 6 episode "
Man With a Plan". Roger takes great pleasure in firing Burt again, due to the bridge-burning way Burt behaved the last time he was fired. Duck Phillips later tells Pete Campbell that he used his new job as a headhunter to find Burt a Senior Vice President position at the high-powered McCann Erickson advertising agency.
Duck Phillips Herman "Duck" Phillips (
Mark Moses) was director of account services for a time at Sterling Cooper. In the Season 1 episode "
Indian Summer", when Don Draper is made partner in the wake of Roger Sterling's heart attack, Bert Cooper gives Draper the authority to appoint a new head of account services. At the end of Season 1, Draper brings in Phillips, who is looking for a job after drunkenness and an extramarital affair ended his career at
Y&R's
London office. Phillips appears to be "on the wagon" (he quit drinking), and his 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, and pharmaceuticals. At the beginning of Season 2, Phillips pushes the agency to hire younger creative talent, a move Draper resists. He also pushes Cooper to pursue
American Airlines in the wake of that airline's very public
Flight 1 plane crash, forcing Draper to break his word and abandon a client to pursue the larger American Airlines. This event is symbolic of the subsequent relationship between the two; Don got Duck hired despite the risk of Pete Campbell's revealing his true identity, but he clashes with Duck throughout the season, as Don's belief in loyalty to clients and employees is at odds with Duck's pragmatic and utilitarian approach to business. Duck also continues to struggle to stay sober, going so far as to abandon his family's dog, which his children have left with him after informing him that their mother is remarrying and their new step-father does not want a dog, to avoid painful memories. At the end of Season 2, frustrated with 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. The merger is successful but one of the PP&L executives, St. John (pronounced "SIN-jin") Powell, goads Duck into drinking alcohol, which breaks his sobriety. Phillips is named president of Sterling Cooper but he badly miscalculates his triumph because he does not realize that Don does not have a contract, leading Don to walk out when Duck's new demands as president are too odious to Don. Duck then embarrasses himself in a drunken rant against Don, securing his own dismissal. During Season 3, it is revealed Duck, apparently sober once more, is now working at
Grey, another New York agency. He fails to poach Pete and Peggy from Sterling Cooper, which leads to a sexual relationship with Peggy. They are in bed together when they learn of
John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963. Duck surfaces in the Season 4 episode "
Waldorf Stories" at the
Clio Awards, where he drunkenly heckles the man giving the introductory speech, prompting security to remove him. Sterling jokes: "I miss working with that guy". During "
The Suitcase", Duck fails to branch out on his own after being fired from Grey, attempting to create his own female consumer products-based ad agency. He tries to hire Peggy as Creative Director, sending her business cards with her name and title on them. It becomes clear that he is desperate and needs Peggy; she refuses to go along with it. During a late night at SCDP, Peggy catches a drunken Duck spitefully trying to defecate on Roger Sterling's elegant white
Poul Volther Corona chair, mistaking it for Don's. While Peggy is walking Duck out, a drunk Don catches him in the office. Don confronts him and he and Duck get into a brief and comical brawl, which Duck wins. Duck states he is a former
United States Marine officer and served in the
Pacific Theater during the war, claiming to have killed "17 men" during the
Battle of Okinawa. Peggy escorts Duck out, later telling Don she turned to Duck because she was having a "confusing time". In Season 6, a sober Duck reappears as an independent headhunter for advertising positions and Harry Crane recommends to Pete that he meet with him. Duck explains to Pete that the merger between SCDP and CGC has left confusion in the management structure, has left Pete's role unclear and it is difficult for Duck to find prominent positions for Pete in New York. He tells Pete how he turned his life around by concentrating on his family life, so that he had something to give himself pride when he hit rock bottom. He advises Pete to concentrate on managing his own family life to help manage his professional career, and that if he does better for himself at the newly merged company, Duck can find better positions for him in New York. Pete later asks for Duck's help in getting rid of Bob Benson, hiring Duck to find Bob a position at another agency. Duck asks Pete if the agency is in need of another account man but Pete makes it clear that Duck's previous antagonism with Don will prevent the firm from hiring him. Duck eventually discovers that "Bob Benson" is an alias, and that the man's entire identity is fabricated, with the only prior job on record under Bob's name being that of a manservant to an executive at another agency. Pete had not realized this because no one at SCDP had ever bothered to check any of Bob's references. In the Season 6 finale, Duck Phillips is seen entering SC&P with Lou Avery, Don's eventual replacement as Creative Director, just after Don is told to take a few months' leave. Duck and Lou run into Don as Don is on his way out of the building. Despite their antagonistic history, Duck apologizes to Don for arriving before Don has left. Duck returns in the penultimate episode of Season 7 "The Milk and Honey Route" to recruit Pete to Learjet. He is depicted as a determined, if slightly desperate, headhunter who is drinking again.
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 unsteadily trying to unlock his apartment door, she helps him to bed and fends off a pass from him. She confides that her father was also an alcoholic. Don hires her to watch Sally and Bobby one evening, when he is out with Bethany Van Nuys. Sally cuts her own hair while on Phoebe's watch, angering Don, who has to deal with the aftermath from Betty.
St. John Powell St. John (pronounced "SIN-jin") Powell (
Charles Shaughnessy) is the managing director of London advertising firm Putnam, Powell, and Lowe (PPL). In Season 2, Duck Phillips meets with Powell and Alec Martin, first to ask for a job and when he is rejected, to propose that PPL buy out Sterling Cooper. At that meeting, Powell goads Duck into drinking alcohol, breaking Duck's sobriety. Powell eventually makes an offer that is accepted. At the end of Season 2, Powell and Martin witness Duck's drunken rant against Don, which results in Duck being pushed out of Sterling Cooper. Powell is the architect of PPL's sale to
McCann Erickson, keeping the information from Lane Pryce and the rest of the Sterling Cooper staff. Pryce fires Roger, Bertram Cooper and Don to void the non-compete clauses in their contracts, allow them to start their own agency and bring Pryce along as a fourth partner. A furious Powell fires Pryce for "lack of character" in the Season 3 finale "
Shut the Door. Have a Seat.", playing into Pryce's hands.
Rebecca Pryce Rebecca Pryce (
Embeth Davidtz) is Lane Pryce's wife of 18 years. Born to an upper-class British family, she is stylish and polite, though a bit snobbish and self-involved. She follows Lane to New York in Season 3 but suffers the strain of
culture shock, and by Season 4 she returns to London, with their son, Nigel, in tow. After a brief separation, and Lane's infidelity with a Black
Playboy Bunny, they apparently smooth over their problems and Rebecca moves back to New York to reconcile. She is stunned by his suicide and combines her genuine grief over losing him and the general contempt she viewed him with when she angrily tells an apologetic Don that SCDP is at fault because they filled "a man like that with ambition". She also astutely realizes the US$50,000 check Don gives her, reimbursing Lane's partnership fee, is worth less than Lane's contributions to the firm, although she is unaware that SCDP actually got over $200,000 from insurance.
Robert Pryce Robert Pryce (
W. 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 complicated love/hate relationship with his son, whom he dominates, sometimes by violence to make him "take action and sort his problems" to "put his house in order". Lane once described him to Don as "one of those alcoholics that thinks he's collecting".
Joyce Ramsay Joyce Ramsay (
Zosia Mamet) works as an assistant photo editor at
Life magazine in the
Time-Life Building, where Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is located. Peggy meets her in the elevator in the Season 4 episode "
The Rejected" and the two quickly become friends; Joyce introduces Peggy to the counter-culture scene of the early 1960s. Joyce is a lesbian and hangs out with a
bohemian crowd, introducing Peggy to her eventual boyfriend
Abe Drexler at a
loft party in a
sweatshop. She later engineers a meeting between Abe and Peggy; although the meeting ends badly, Peggy remains friends with Joyce. That summer, Joyce reunites Abe and Peggy by giving both a ride home from the beach in her crowded car.
Anita Olson Respola and Gerry Respola Anita Olson Respola (
Audrey Wasilewski) is Peggy's older sister. She is married to
Gerry Respola (Jerry O'Donnell), who has a bad back, and has three young children. The youngest baby was born soon after Peggy's illegitimate child with Pete Campbell. Anita is sometimes judgmental and harsh, like her mother, and shares Katherine's anger about Peggy's pregnancy, although she is supportive of Peggy when Katherine reacts badly to news of Peggy's move to Manhattan. Anita reveals Peggy's secret to Father Gill while taking confession, out of anger at her sister's ability to move on.
Arnold Rosen Dr.
Arnold "Arnie" Rosen (
Brian Markinson) is Sylvia's husband and Mitchell's father. He is a cardiac surgeon who lives in Don and Megan's building. Affable and conscientious, he and Don establish a relatively close friendship. When Arnie is trapped in Washington, DC during the riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a visibly distressed Don, who is having an affair with Arnie's wife Sylvia, tries to reach him several times. Arnold quits his job in New York when his hospital nixes plans for him to perform the first heart transplant in the United States. He is also a staunch patriot, having served in the Army in Korea during the Korean War, but acknowledges America's shaky status in the world during the late '60s. He references the
Tet Offensive in Vietnam and the capture of the by North Korea as the result of America not taking its enemies seriously, and cites Fidel Castro as the original example. He is a quietly heroic man, departing in the middle of the night on cross-country skis during a blizzard on New Year's Eve to get to his hospital to perform emergency surgery, and casually saving the life of their building's doorman after he has a heart attack. At the same time, his wife Sylvia feels he takes her for granted. In Season 7, Arnold runs into Don and his new love interest Diana on the elevator. He shares news that Mitchell received an honor from the New York Air National Guard, but then proceeds to say cutting and sarcastic remarks towards Don, subtly suggesting Sylvia told him about the affair.
Mitchell Rosen Mitchell Rosen (
Hudson Thames) is Arnold and Sylvia's son. He attends college in Michigan and is studying overseas in Paris during the 1968 student riots. When he
rips up and sends back his draft card, he seems certain to be drafted, but Don arranges with Ted to get Mitchell into the
New York Air National Guard to avoid him being sent to Vietnam.
Sylvia Rosen Sylvia Rosen (
Linda Cardellini) is Arnie's wife, Mitchell's doting mother, and Don's mistress for much of Season 6. She is Italian, a plumber's daughter, and a housewife who, unlike Megan, affects visible displays of her Catholicism (wearing a Catholic crucifix and displaying Catholic icons in her bedroom), although her husband is implied to be Jewish. Sylvia is strong-willed, unhappy, and intelligent, and like Don, expresses interest in ending their liaison eventually. She is also friendly with Megan; this relationship significantly contributes to her ending her affair with Don, after she dreams that he died in a plane crash and she had to comfort Megan at the funeral. Don is heartbroken after Sylvia breaks it off, but she reminds him that he was happy with Megan once and can be so again. Nevertheless, Don becomes obsessed with Sylvia and of thinking of ways to get her back. In the Season 6 episode "The Crash", while all of SCDP has been injected with a stimulant so they can work through the night to come up with work for Chevy, Don works feverishly too, but it turns out he is focused only on thinking of an inspiration to get Sylvia back, not with inspiration for Chevy. Elements of Sylvia's physical appearance, such as her brunette hair and a facial mole, and her wearing a headwrap and kimono remind Don of his stepmother Abigail and of the maternal prostitute, Aimée Swenson, who forcibly initiated his first sexual act when he was a young teen. When Don arranges with Ted to get Mitchell into the National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam, Sylvia is overcome by the favor and falls back into bed with Don, but Don's adolescent daughter Sally walks in on them. Sylvia reacts vehemently with guilt as Don runs after Sally. She is last seen with her husband in Season 7, having reconciled with Arnie and ended her relationship with Don.
Freddy Rumsen Frederick "Freddy" C. Rumsen (
Joel Murray) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He is older than the other copywriters; his eldest daughter turns 30 in Season 2, and he served in
World War II. He and Don worked together as copywriters for Sterling Cooper, becoming friends before Don was promoted to Creative Director and became Freddy's boss. He is the first to recognize Peggy Olson's potential as a copywriter in "
Babylon" and recommends her to work on an ad campaign for Belle Jolie, which leads to her being promoted to junior copywriter. He is generally well-liked and lighthearted but he is an alcoholic who drinks unusually heavily at work, even by Sterling Cooper standards. This ends up costing him his job in the Season 2 episode "Six Month Leave" 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 fired, to Peggy's anger as she feels loyal to Freddy, despite the fact that his departure secured her promotion to senior copywriter. Don and Roger take Freddy out for a night on the town to ease the sting of his departure from the agency. They also tell him he is being sent on "six months' leave," though they really mean that he is fired. In the Season 4 episode "
Christmas Comes But Once a Year", a 16-months sober Freddy returns to work for SCDP on a freelance basis. He has left
J. Walter Thompson and brings with him
Pond's Cold Cream, a $2 million account that he has secured thanks to a fellow AA member being in charge of the account. His only condition for coming back is that Pete not be allowed near the account. Freddy's newfound sobriety and his status as a sponsor in
Alcoholics Anonymous puts him at odds with his coworkers' penchant for heavy drinking. He also clashes with Peggy over his old-fashioned ideals and strategies for marketing to women. Peggy harshly confronts him about how he needs to adapt to the times but the two make amends. In Season 5, Freddy, recognizing that Peggy cannot rise any further within the company, discreetly begins making job inquiries for her, as his freelance work allows him to interact with many of the advertising agencies on Madison Avenue. This leads Peggy to meet with
Ted Chaough. In Season 7, Freddy is still freelancing for Sterling Cooper & Partners (SC&P), and serving as a conduit for Don's ideas, while Don is under suspension from the firm. In "The Monolith," Freddy smuggles a drunk Don out of the office before anyone notices that Don is violating the rules of his return. Freddy lectures Don about putting his job at risk and asks if he wants to end up as a permanent freelancer like Freddy. He tells Don to earn his way back into SC&P's good graces, telling him, "Do the work, Don".
Lois Sadler Lois Sadler (
Crista Flanagan) is a switchboard operator in Season 1 who has a crush on Sal Romano based on his phone conversations and voice. In Season 2, she becomes Don's secretary after Peggy is promoted to copywriter, but she is depicted as being incompetent. Don demotes her back to the switchboard in "The Benefactor" (S02E03), after she fails to cover for him when he is out of the office. In "
Meditations in an Emergency" (S02E13), she agrees to give Harry, Paul, and Ken information about the upcoming merger with PPL that she has overheard in telephone conversations in exchange for being promoted to secretary again. In Season 3, she becomes Paul's secretary. In the episode "
Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" (S03E06), she accidentally runs over the foot of Guy MacKendrick, a British executive who was poised to replace Lane as the head of Sterling Cooper, while drunkenly riding a lawn mower during an office party. Miraculously, she is not fired after this, as she is still seen as Paul's secretary in "The Color Blue" (S03E10). However, she is not seen in the new SCDP offices.
Scarlet Scarlet (
Sadie Alexandru) is Harry Crane's secretary, first appearing in Season 5. In spite of her slightly ditsy personality she is nonetheless competent, and Harry values her loyalty to him, as well as her rather sycophantic demeanor toward him. In the Season 6 episode "
To Have and To Hold," she asks Dawn to commit time card fraud so Scarlet can buy a birthday present for one of the secretaries. Joan fires Scarlet when she discovers the fraud but Harry intervenes when a crying Scarlet passes him on her way out of the office, which causes a serious rift between Harry and Joan. A romantic relationship is hinted at between Scarlet and Harry, especially when Peggy requests a new secretary in "A Day's Work" and Joan replies that, "Scarlet and Harry are practically married."
Shirley Shirley (Sola Bamis) is the only other black employee at SC&P, aside from Dawn. As a contrast to Dawn, Shirley is more self-assured and dresses in trendy minidresses and go-go boots. Nevertheless, she and Dawn are often mistaken for one another by the employees of SC&P, leading to their own inside joke of referring to the other by their own name. Shirley is originally assigned to Peggy's desk, following her from CGC. However, in Season 7's "A Day's Work," Peggy becomes embarrassed when she realizes she accidentally took Shirley's Valentine's Day bouquet and insists Shirley be reassigned to another desk. Joan initially places Shirley in reception but Bert insists Shirley be reassigned yet again because he does not want a black woman to be the face of SC&P. Shirley then becomes Lou Avery's secretary for the remainder of his time at SCDP. She later becomes Roger's second secretary, when his workload becomes too much for Caroline. In the Season 7 episode "Lost Horizon", she tells Roger that she has found a job as a secretary at a
publishing house instead of going to McCann, and that "some people don't feel welcome in advertising." She tells Roger that she always found him amusing and he wishes her luck.
Danny Siegel Danny Siegel (
Danny Strong) is Jane Sterling's cousin, for whom Roger Sterling arranges an interview at SCDP in the Season 4 "
Waldorf Stories". Don and Peggy find his book laughable and decide not to hire him. However, during a pitch meeting for
Life cereal, Don drunkenly uses one of Danny's ideas, which the client loves. Peggy later calls Don out on what he did and persuades him to make things right, so he offers to pay Danny for the idea. Danny insists on having a job instead and Don reluctantly hires him. Danny ends up generally fitting in well with the rest of the younger staffers, though he remains somewhat clueless. Danny is one of the first people let go from SCDP after it loses the
Lucky Strike account, and Don and Peggy are visibly upset when they have to fire him in the Season 4 episode "
Blowing Smoke". However, he takes the news gracefully and thanks them for the opportunity they had given him. Danny reappears at a party that Don and Roger attend in the Season 6 episode "A Tale of Two Cities", by which time he has become a major movie producer with a hippie persona and now prefers to be called "Daniel J. Siegel." Danny seems genuinely friendly, but Roger is gleefully rude and demeaning towards him. When Roger attempts to pick up Danny's hippie date Lotus, Danny becomes fed up. He punches Roger in the testicles and walks away with Lotus, leaving Roger humiliated.
"Smitty" Smith and Kurt Smith "Smitty" Smith (
Patrick Cavanaugh) and
Kurt Smith (Edin Gali) are a young copywriter/artist team hired by Don at the beginning of Season 2 to target the youth demographic. "Smitty" is American, and often explains the complexities of
American culture to Kurt. Smitty is aware of Kurt's homosexuality and although he tries to caution Kurt from coming out at work, he defends Kurt from the rest of the staff's homophobia in "The Jet Set." In "
My Old Kentucky Home," Smitty mentions having graduated from the University of Michigan and he eagerly joins in the smoking of marijuana to help come up with ideas for the Bacardi account. Kurt is German and is openly gay, which causes quite a stir in the office when he casually reveals as such in order to dispel the assumption that he and Peggy are dating. Nevertheless, he is still friendly with Peggy and arranges to take her to a Bob Dylan concert. When Peggy complains to Kurt that she always picks the wrong guys, he advises Peggy to adopt a trendier appearance and provides her with a new trademark hairstyle. When SCDP is formed, the partners do not ask Smitty or Kurt to come with them. Later, Smitty is seen working for rival advertising company CGC in Season 4, implying that Kurt is working there as well. At CGC, Smitty speaks glowingly of Don Draper when asked to describe him, which makes Ted Chaough envious. The two are not seen after SCDP and CGC merge.
Jane Sterling Jane Sterling (née
Siegel) (
Peyton List) begins as a secretary at Sterling Cooper in Season 2 and is assigned to Don's desk. Her beauty causes her to quickly become a magnet for male attention and she frequently clashes with Joan, who reprimands Jane's overt flirtations. In "The Gold Violin," she convinces a group of employees to sneak into Bert Cooper's office to look at his new painting. Joan confronts her afterwards and Jane attempts to lie, claiming that the men pressured her to join them, before snapping and telling Joan that she does not need a mother. Joan fires her, but Jane seeks Roger on the way out and successfully manipulates him into intervening on her behalf. The two begin an affair shortly thereafter. He proposes to her in "
The Jet Set"; she accepts, and by the start of Season 3, she and Roger are married. However, their marriage is tense. Jane begins drinking heavily and the two frequently argue over how much involvement Jane should have in Margaret's wedding plans. Despite this, Roger repeatedly says his new marriage makes him happy because of Jane's youth and carefree personality. Roger refuses to cheat on Jane, something he repeatedly did with his first wife Mona, and even turns down the advances of an old flame in
"The Gypsy and the Hobo." Roger does eventually cheat on Jane with
Joan, and with
Megan Calvet's mother Marie, seemingly unbeknownst to Jane. In Season 5's "Faraway Places", Roger and Jane take LSD together, mutually realize their marriage has failed, and agree to divorce. Roger later recruits Jane in the episode "
Dark Shadows" to pretend to still be his wife for a client dinner with
Manischewitz as he thinks her Jewish background will help win the account. She agrees on the condition that he buy her a new apartment, but Roger becomes jealous when the client's son flirts with Jane. He then seduces Jane in her new apartment, and afterwards Jane is upset because their sexual encounter has ruined her fresh start. Jane is last seen in the
Season 6 premiere, when she attends Roger's mother's memorial service and offers to return the family heirloom ring he gave her. However, Roger tells her to keep it and the two seem to be on better terms.
Margaret Sterling Hargrove Margaret Sterling (
Elizabeth Rice) is Roger and Mona Sterling's only child. Roger thinks of her as spoiled and immature, complaining to Joan that she has no motivation to do anything with her life. It is strongly implied but never outright stated that she has mental illness issues. In Season 2, she becomes engaged to Brooks Hargrove, a rich bore whom she barely has interest in and whom her parents both immediately dislike. Margaret is hostile to Roger and Jane after their marriage and attempts to have Jane disinvited from her wedding. When
John F. Kennedy is assassinated
the day before her wedding, Margaret is distraught that the event has effectively ruined her big day. Roger and Mona convince her to proceed with the ceremony, which is a miserable affair where the small number of attendees are devastated over the death of the President. In the
Season 6 premiere, she is disappointed that her grandmother has not left her any money and tries to convince Roger to invest in Brooks'
refrigerator car technology venture, much to his annoyance and refusal. In Season 6's "The Flood," she is shown to have a toddler-aged son, Ellery. After Ellery gets nightmares from seeing
Planet of the Apes with Roger, Margaret berates Roger for his poor judgement and tells him that he is not allowed to see his grandson without Mona present. In Season 7's "
Time Zones", Margaret invites Roger to brunch at the Plaza to condescendingly "forgive" him. Later, in "The Monolith," Mona and Brooks inform Roger that Margaret has abandoned her family to join a commune in upstate New York, where she has taken the new name "Marigold". Roger and Mona try to persuade her to return for Ellery's sake, but she insists her son cannot be happy if she is unhappy. Although Mona gives up and leaves, Roger stays for the night to understand Margaret's point of view. He becomes disgusted when he realizes that Margaret is a participant in the free-love lifestyle, and attempts to force her off of the farm, reminding her that she is a mother and cannot abandon her responsibilities. Margaret berates him for being an absent father during her own childhood and declares that she is similarly entitled to behave selfishly and that Ellery will be fine. In the
series finale, Roger tells Joan that Margaret is "lost" and he has written her out of his last will and testament, while telling a surprised Joan he has written a large estate share to be bequeathed to her son Kevin.
Mona Sterling Pike Mona Sterling Pike (
Talia Balsam) is Roger Sterling's first wife and the mother of his daughter, Margaret. During their marriage, it is not clear whether Mona is aware of Roger's multiple infidelities. In Season 1, Mona cares for Roger as he recovers from his heart attack and when he suffers a second heart attack in a client meeting, she berates Bert Cooper for prioritizing a client over Roger's health. Despite her devotion to Roger, he later leaves her for Jane Siegel. In "
Six Month Leave," she goes to the Sterling Cooper offices and angrily blames Don for encouraging Roger to divorce her. Roger and Mona seem to be on good terms in Season 3 after their divorce as they try to help Margaret's anxieties over her wedding; Mona even advocates for Margaret to accept Jane as a step-mother. In Season 5, Mona helps Roger get a meeting with Ed Baxter from Corning Inc., noting that he still supports Mona and their daughter. In the Season 6 premiere
The Doorway, Roger gets angry when he sees Mona's new husband, Bruce Pike, at Roger's mother's memorial service but the two reconcile in Season 7s "The Monolith", when they to try to bring Margaret home after she had run off to become a hippie. Mona quickly gives up while Roger stays the night and attempts to understand Margaret. Mona is last seen watching the
1969 Moon landing with Roger and their grandson Ellery.
Bethany Van Nuys Bethany Van Nuys (
Anna Camp) is a friend of
Jane Sterling's who resembles Betty Draper. On their first date in the
Season 4 premiere, she explains that she is an actress and is working as a
supernumerary at the
Metropolitan Opera. Don dates her periodically throughout season 4, but she notes that he does not seem particularly interested in her. In "
The Summer Man", they run into Betty at a restaurant and Bethany seems pleased with Betty's jealousy. Later, Bethany performs oral sex on Don in the taxi ride back to her apartment and promises, "To be continued." In his journal, Don writes that he believes that was a rehearsed line; he continues, "She's a sweet girl, and she wants me to know her, but I already do. People tell you who they are but we ignore it, because we want them to be who we want them to be." He stops seeing her in favor of Dr. Faye Miller. At the end of Season 4, Bethany is mentioned again when Don tells Betty he is getting remarried; Betty assumes his new fiancée is Bethany.
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 Chemical, who uses his status as an important client with Sterling Cooper to wield influence over Trudy's marriage to Pete Campbell. In Season 1, he helps Pete and Trudy buy an apartment, much to Pete's chagrin. Tom also offers to give Sterling Cooper the
Clearasil account if Pete agrees to have a baby soon. In Season 2, after Trudy and Pete learn that they have fertility problems, Tom 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, the agency drops Clearasil because of a conflict with
Pond's Cold Cream, but Pete is able to manipulate Tom into giving him several larger accounts from Tom's company. In Season 6, after Tom and Pete unexpectedly meet in a brothel, Tom pulls his company's accounts in hypocritical disgust at Pete's infidelity to Trudy. In season 7, it is revealed that Tom has suffered a heart attack.
Arnold Wayne Dr. Arnold Wayne (
Andy Umberger) is Betty's psychiatrist during the first season, who she began seeing because of her problem with her hands going numb unexpectedly in the wake of her mother's death. While she is seeing him, Dr. Wayne is secretly in contact with Don to discuss her sessions, which Betty finds out about in the Season 1 finale. She uses that to her advantage by confiding in Dr. Wayne her anger at Don's infidelity, knowing that the doctor will report the session to Don.
Abigail Whitman Abigail Whitman (Brynn Horrocks) is the stepmother of Dick Whitman and the mother of Adam Whitman. She was married to Archie Whitman and had recently miscarried when a midwife gave her Dick, the child of Archie and the prostitute Evangeline, to raise. However, Abigail resented Dick and regularly referred to him as a "whore's son." Don hated Abigail in return; in Season 1's "
5G", when Adam tells Don that Abigail has died, Don's response is, "Good." After Archie died, Abigail lost the family farm during the Great Depression and she, pregnant with Adam, traveled with Dick to stay with her sister and her sister's husband, "Uncle Mack" in Pennsylvania. Uncle Mack ran a whorehouse and Abigail had to make herself sexually available to him. Abigail disliked staying at the whorehouse and told Dick to keep away from the women. In Season 6's "
The Crash," Don recalls being sick as a teenager and Abigail claiming he had tuberculosis and ordering him to the basement. When Aimée takes pity on Don, she notes that Abigail does not know how to take care of anybody. When Aimée is evicted and she reveals that she had taken Dick's virginity, Abigail beats Dick severely with a wooden spoon while berating him, calling him filthy.
Adam Whitman Adam Whitman (
Jay Paulson) is Dick Whitman's half-brother, the son of Abigail and Archie Whitman. In the Season 1's "
5G", an adult Adam tracks Don down after seeing his picture in
Advertising Age. He is a janitor working in New York City and is overjoyed to find Don alive. Initially unwilling to associate with Adam, Don agrees to meet him for lunch where Adam updates Don on their family and tries to learn more about Don's life. Don later visits Adam at his
single room occupancy rooming house to give Adam $5,000 and to tell him to never contact Don again. Adam is devastated. Later, Adam mails a package to Don that contains old family photos and soon afterward, hangs himself. The box of photos later causes Don trouble when it is found by Pete Campbell, who attempts to use the photos to blackmail Don about his true identity. Don then attempts to reach Adam, but learns that he has died and didn't spend any of the money Don had given him. Don feels guilty about the way he treated Adam. In Season 1's "
Nixon vs. Kennedy," a flashback reveals that as a boy, Adam saw Don on the train that brought back the body of "Dick Whitman" (actually that of the real Don Draper's). He attempts to tell his mother and Uncle Mack but they think Adam is imagining things. In Season 5's "
The Phantom", Don sees an employee around the office building who looks like Adam and when he finally goes into for a dental procedure involving anesthesia, he hallucinates Adam standing over him, his neck bruised from his hanging, stating, "It's not your tooth that's rotten." When Don asks Adam not to leave him, Adam smiles and tells him he will be "hanging around."
Archie Whitman Archibald "Archie" Whitman (
Joseph Culp) was a farmer in rural Illinois and the father of Dick and Adam Whitman. He impregnated Evangeline, a prostitute, who died while giving birth to Dick. The midwife then brought the newborn Dick to Archie and his wife, Abigail, since she knew Abigail had recently miscarried. Archie is depicted as a mean-spirited alcoholic; in Season 1's "
The Hobo Code", Archie refuses to compensate a drifter for labor performed around the farm and in Season 2's "
Three Sundays," Don tells Betty that his father would "beat the hell out of [him]" so badly that Don would fantasize about ways to kill him. In Season 3's "
Shut the Door. Have a Seat." Don recalls sitting in with Archie during a farmer's meeting. Archie went against all of his neighbors and refused to join them in selling his crops at the same price, despite the group having previously agreed to act in unison. Later that night, a drunken Archie set out to find a buyer for his crops and was kicked in the face by his horse during a storm. He was instantly killed as a stunned Dick looked on. == References ==