Dan Gordon is the screenwriter of fifteen Hollywood feature films, including "The Hurricane", (which earned Denzel Washington an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor), "Wyatt Earp" (Kevin Costner), "The Assignment" (Sir Ben Kingsley), "Murder in The First" (Kevin Bacon and Gary Oldman) and "Passenger 57" (Wesley Snipes). Gordon also has more than two hundred hours of television programming as a writer, director and/or Executive Producer, including head writer on Michael Landon's long-running series, "Highway to Heaven".
His plays have appeared in New York and include "Irena's Vow", nominated for Best Play on Broadway (Outer Circle Critics Award), and "Murder in The First" (nominated for seven Innovative Theater Awards, including Best Play). In the UK, his stage adaptation of the movie "Rain Man" (Olivier Award Nominee Adam Goddley for Best Actor, and costarring Josh Hartnett in the West End Production), and "Terms of Endearment" (staring Linda Gray). In addition, Gordon is the author of seven novels.
Gordon left home, with the active encouragement of his parents, at the age of sixteen and wound up on a kibbutz in Israel, where he went to high school. He returned to the US to attend the UCLA School of Film, Television and Theater and sold his first screenplay at the age of 20, becoming the youngest professional feature writer in the United States at that time.
The desire to return to Israel took Gordon back to that country, where he was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1973, in time to serve during the Yom Kippur War. Gordon has worn the uniform of the IDF ever since, in a variety of roles; in the Israel Air Force, later as a sniper and squad leader in an armored infantry reserve unit, attached to the Northern Command during the late 1970's at the height of PLO raids from Lebanon. During that time, his unit served many times as the rapid response counter terrorism force along the Lebanese border.
Gordon then joined the ranks of the Military Spokesperson Unit, serving as an escort officer and Spokesperson. He has served in Operation Defensive Shield (2002), The Second Lebanon War, Operation Cast Lead (2009), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), and in Operation Defensive Edge (2014). Most recently, Gordon has begun serving with one of the IDF's most elite combat units, The Givati Brigade, which was the most highly decorated combat unit of the last Hamas/Israel War. In fact, he is the oldest person ever to have attempted, let alone completed, that unit's grueling 40 kilometer overnight forced march, at the end of which he was personally awarded the unit's distinctive beret by the brigade commander, the only one to have received such an honor.
In the Pre Oslo Accords period (1980's), Gordon co-authored a Peace Plan endorsed by then Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Lee Hamilton, and traveled with the late Congressman Wayne Owens (D/Utah), meeting with the leaders of Egypt, The Late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as with various leaders of Palestinian terrorist factions from the West Bank and Gaza.
He has written extensively on Middle Eastern Affairs and Counter terrorism on such diverse sites as The Huffington Post, Breitbart News and American Thinker. As a Spokesperson for the IDF and Middle East Analyst, Gordon has appeared on virtually every major US and European broadcast and cable news outlet. In 2006 he was widely quoted as stating at the end of the Second Lebanon War,
"Israel has not cured the cancer that is Hezbollah. But we have put it into remission.
Now it will be up to the Lebanese people and the International Community to see if
that cancer stays in remission or spreads. As for the Lebanese People, they will have
to decide whether they wish to remain Lebanon, or become an extension of Iran."
Gordon was one of the first to coin the phrase "terrorist army", a phenomenon which today has become commonplace, as embodied by ISIS, Hezbollah and Hamas. His words turned out to be as accurate as they were prescient.
During the 2014 Hamas/Israel war, Gordon was a firsthand witness to a new and terrifying weapon of today's terrorist army; Terrorist Tunnel Attacks, which can cross international boundaries unnoticed and sprout terrorists in suburban areas like zombies rising up from the grave. Unfortunately, these zombies are armed with RPGs, submachine guns, grenades, tranquilizers and handcuffs.
With "Day of the Dead Book One: Gaza" along with its forthcoming sequel, "Day of the Dead Book Two: America", Gordon has in essence created a new genre: not Sci-fi, but Terror-fi.
Gordon has also published:
"Murder in the First" - St. Martin's Press
"Wyatt Earp" - Warner Books
"Just Play Dead" - St. Martin's Press
"The Assignment" - St. Martin's Press
"Davin" - Delacorte Press
"Postcards From Heaven: Messages of Love From the Other Side" - Free Press
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