Gordon was born 9 November 1925 to Harry Gordon, a dockworker, and his wife, Marjorie.[1] As a child, he was taught to tap dance by his mother and to box by his father.[2] He was educated at Elwood Primary School and Melbourne High School, a selective all-boys school.[1][2] He was a high school middleweight boxing champion.[1]
He began working at The Sun News-Pictorial in 1949 as a general reporter.[1][5] In 1950, at the age of 24, he was sent abroad to cover the Korean War from the front-line.[6] In addition to his own newspaper, his war reports were published in the Adelaide Advertiser, The West Australian and The Courier-Mail. Shocked by the edits made to his reports by the United States' censorship teams, he developed a system of flying to Japan when he had a particularly good story, and dictating his report to a friend who would take a copy to the AAP-Reuters office in Tokyo for direct transmission to Australia; this avoided the reports being censored.[1]
In 1968, he was appointed Editor of The Sun News-Pictorial.[5] He used his newspaper to head a campaign titled 'Declare War on 1034' to reduce car-related fatalities;[1] the number is a reference to the number of road deaths in Victoria in 1969. The campaign was successful and in 1970 the state government introduced a mandatory seatbelt law requiring car users to wear seatbelts; this was the first such law in the world.[3]
In 1992, he was appointed the official historian of the Australian Olympic Committee.[8] He wrote a history of Australia's participation in the Olympics. It was titled Australia and the Olympic Games and it was published in 1994.[4] In 2003, he authored The Time of Our Lives: Inside the Sydney Olympics : Australia and the Olympic Games 1994–2002 and in 2014 From Athens With Pride: The Official History of the Australian Olympic Movement, 1894 to 2014.[9]
Gordon played a major role in the naming of streets around the 1956 Melbourne and 2000 Sydney Olympic precincts. The streets were named to honour significant Olympic athletes.[9]
He was hospitalised two weeks before his death because of respiratory issues.[5] He died in January 2015, aged 89.[6]
Personal life
Gordon married Dorothy Scott in 1951. Together, they had three children; Sally, Michael and John, who all followed Harry into the media (Michael into journalism, John as a news and sports cameraman, and Sally as make-up artist for film and television). He remarried in 1993 to Joy Milner. He is survived by his three children, seven grandchildren and second wife.
The embarrassing Australian : the story of an Aboriginal warrior. Melbourne : Lansdowne Press, 1962.
Young men in a hurry : the story of Australia's fastest decade. 2nd ed. Melbourne : Lansdowne, 1961.
Gold medal girl. Melbourne: Lansdowne, 1965
Famous Australian news pictures. South Melbourne, Vic. : Macmillan, 1975.
An eyewitness history of Australia. Adelaide : Rigby, 1976 (Four editions published and won the National Book Council's First Prize for Australian Literature).[12]
Die like the carp! : the story of the greatest prison escape ever. Stanmore, N.S.W. : Cassell Australia, 1978.
Bicentennial : an Australian mosaic and 1788 diary. Stafford, Qld. : Sunshine Diaries, 1988
The hard way : the story of Hawthorn Football Club. Paddington, N.S.W. : Lester-Townsend, 1990.
The shadow of death : the Holocaust in Lithuania. Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky, c1992
Voyage from shame : the Cowra break-out and afterwards. St Lucia, Qld. : University of Queensland Press, 1994.
Australia and the Olympic Games. St. Lucia, Qld. : University of Queensland Press, 1994.
Australian Olympic legends. Melbourne : Australia Post, c1998.
The time of our lives : inside the Sydney Olympics : Australia and the Olympic Games 1994–2002. St Lucia, Qld. : University of Queensland Press, 2003.
One for all : the story of the Hawthorn Football Club. Melbourne : Wilkinson Publishing, 2009 (with son Michael Gordon)
From Athens with pride : the official history of the Australian Olympic movement, 1894 to 2014. St Lucia, Queensland University of Queensland Press, 2014
