List of Mad Men characters

This is a list of fictional characters in the television series Mad Men, all of whom have appeared in multiple episodes.

Primary characters

Don Draper

Main article: Don Draper

Donald "Don" Draper (né Dick Whitman; Jon Hamm) born 1926, is the creative director at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; he eventually rises to become a partner. He later becomes a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Draper is the series' protagonist, and more storylines focus on him than on other characters.

Peggy Olson

Main article: Peggy Olson

Margaret "Peggy" Olson (Elisabeth Moss), upon introduction, is the ostensibly naïve "new girl" at Sterling Cooper. She was originally Draper's secretary, but showed surprising talent and initiative, including a knack - similar to Draper's - for understanding the consumer's mind. Don promotes her to copywriter, and she eventually accepts a copy chief position with Ted Chaough's firm, CGC, only to find herself once again working for Don following a merger.

Pete Campbell

Main article: Pete Campbell

Peter "Pete" Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is an ambitious young account executive whose father-in-law controls the advertising for Clearasil, a Sterling Cooper account. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he becomes more competitive with Don as the series progresses, and ultimately becomes a partner of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

Betty (Draper) Francis

Main article: Betty Draper

Elizabeth "Betty" Francis (née Hofstadt, formerly Draper; January Jones) is the ex-wife of Don Draper (who affectionately called her "Betts," or on occasion "Birdy") and mother of their three children, Sally, Bobby, and Gene. Her family home was in Elkins Park, Pa., and she graduated from Bryn Mawr College. She speaks fluent Italian. She is the archetypal dissatisfied 1960s housewife, who dutifully turned her back on her education and professional career (as a model) to become a homemaker. After obtaining a divorce from Don, she marries Henry Francis and moves to Rye in late 1965. Despite no longer being married to Don, Betty is shown to harbour feelings for him.

Joan Harris

Main article: Joan Holloway

Joan P. Harris (née Holloway; Christina Hendricks) is first depicted as an office manager at Sterling Cooper, who acts as a professional and social mentor, as well as an occasional rival, to Peggy Olson, much as Don Draper is to Pete Campbell. Throughout the course of the series, Joan has a long-standing affair with Roger Sterling, which results in their conceiving a son. She ascribes the boy's fatherhood to her husband, a physician serving as a military officer in Viet Nam, whom she later divorces. SCDP's partners (except Don, who disapproves) negotiate to reward her for engaging in a sexual tryst with a client by making her a partner.

Roger Sterling

Main article: Roger Sterling

Roger H. Sterling, Jr. (John Slattery), was one of the two managing partners of Sterling Cooper, and later a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

Supporting characters

Ted Chaough

Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm) (pronounced /tʃɔː/), is a self-proclaimed rival of Don Draper's in the advertising world. His agency, Cutler Gleason and Chaough (CGC), picks up Don's resigned accounts Clearasil and Belle Jolie, and is competing with SCDP for an account with Honda in Season 4. Don tricks Ted into making an expensive presentation to Honda executives, which backfires on Ted as he violates Honda's presentation rules (no finished work or commercials allowed at the presentation). Though the two agencies are comparable in size, Chaough seems obsessed with competing against Don, behaving in a magnanimous and jesting manner whenever Don crosses Ted's path. Ted tries to woo Pete Campbell over to his agency, but Pete remains loyal to Don. After Don writes a New York Times ad proclaiming that SCDP will be dropping business with cigarette companies for moral reasons, Ted makes a prank call to Don pretending to be Robert F. Kennedy. In Season 5, Ted recruits Peggy to leave SCDP and join his advertising firm as chief copywriter for $1,000 a year more than she had asked for. This time, Ted remains confident but is much less obnoxious than in his previous appearances; he doesn't tell Peggy how jealous he is of Don, and he appreciates her talent more than Don ever had. She accepts his offer, which in the season finale has him assigning her a huge amount of material involving an account for cigarettes aimed at female consumers.

When, in Season 6, Peggy shares Stan's SCDP insider information with Ted, noting that the Heinz Ketchup executive had met surreptitiously with SCDP but there was friction between him and Heinz Beans executive Raymond Geiger (an SCDP client). Ted sees an opportunity and pressures Peggy to "find out everything you know about Heinz Ketchup." In "To Have and To Hold", Chaough's team encounters Don's in the hallway in front of the room where firms are making their Heinz pitches, and Don is shocked to see Peggy there—in the end, Heinz chooses a third (larger) firm, and Raymond Geiger drops SCDP because he feels betrayed.

In "For Immediate Release," Ted and Don commiserate at a bar over their very low chances of winning the Chevy account, primarily due to the small size of their respective firms. Don spontaneously comes up with, and pitches to Ted, the idea that they should combine their firms so as to have a shot at competing with the major ad agencies. Ted agrees, and the two firms merge, much to the surprise of everyone concerned. In this same episode, Ted surprises Peggy by kissing her.

In "Man with a Plan", Ted's management style is shown to clash with Don's, as the personable Ted tries to involve everyone and get their input, while Don primarily values his own opinion. Don decides to assert his authority by getting Ted drunk and letting him humiliate himself at a subsequent creatives meeting. Ted, however, gets his revenge by flying the two of them in his small plane to a Mohawk Airlines meeting despite the rainy, turbulent weather; Don is a visibly terrified passenger. The two men also clash over Peggy, with Don trying to get his protégé to take his side, while Ted tries to woo Peggy to his.

Unhappy in his marriage, Ted meets with Peggy after the merger and expresses his interest in having a romantic relationship with her, but they agree that the relationship would be impossible given the circumstances. He also insists that because of his attraction to her, he must remain reserved in her presence. However, they ultimately begin a relationship and are not very subtle about it; they're seen giggling and paying attention only to each other in the office, which annoys many of their colleagues.

After Don embarrasses Ted and Peggy in front of a client, Ted decides that he cannot be around Peggy anymore. However, seeing her dressed provocatively to go on a date with another man, Ted camps out at her door until she returns. He professes his love for her, they sleep together, and he makes plans to leave his family for her. However, by the next morning he changes his mind and pleads with Don to send him to California to work the new Sunkist account for SC&P. Don agrees, and Ted says goodbye to a devastated Peggy.

Ted spends the first part of Season 7 completely adrift in California, badly missing New York and mostly ignored as an impotent figurehead in an office where the work that's getting done is entirely due to Pete's efforts. He hits rock bottom when flying Sunkist executives to a meeting, briefly turning off the engine as he considers crashing the plane before changing his mind. He isn't bothered by Sunkist's dismay, telling Jim Cutler, his partner from CGC, that he wants to be bought out of his SC&P partnership share, and he plans to vote for Jim's plan to fire Don over the nebulous breach of Don's contract. However, the combination of the huge windfall from Roger's McCann buyout offer and Don's pledge that Ted can come back East and simply do the hands-on work leads him to approve the sale. Ted reveals to Don late in Season 7 that he has divorced his wife and begun dating his former college girlfriend.

Ted is last seen in the 12th episode of Season 7. SC&P has been absorbed by McCann Erickson, and Ted and Don are attending a meeting for Miller Beer with at least a dozen other McCann Creative Directors. When Don steps out to leave the meeting, Ted smiles to himself.

Bert Cooper

Bertram "Bert" Cooper (Robert Morse) is the senior partner of Sterling Cooper, a crafty old gentleman who is treated with considerable deference by Roger Sterling and Don Draper. He founded the agency in 1923 with Roger Sterling's father. Cooper's late wife introduced Roger and his first wife, Mona, and Cooper keeps a picture of young Roger and Roger's father in his office. Cooper lectures Roger about being dependent on smoking and criticizes him for his love life. Cooper is not present in the office's day-to-day wranglings, but he is devoted to the business and quietly manages various challenges from behind the scenes. Cooper's younger sister, Alice, is a silent partner at Sterling Cooper and invested in the company when it was just getting started.

Cooper has a late period red painting by Mark Rothko and the erotic illustration The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife hung in his office and is a devotee of Ayn Rand. He appears to be an aficionado of Japanese art and culture: his office is decorated in a Japanese motif with shoji dividers among other things (including a photograph of President Coolidge), and he requires visitors to remove their shoes before entering his office. Roger attributes this to Cooper's being a germaphobe. Cooper also walks around the rest of the Sterling Cooper offices in his socks.

Though he is generally perceived as gracious and accepting, Cooper seems to harbor some racist feelings, as evidenced in Season 7's "A Day's Work" when, after, Joan has reassigned Dawn Chambers to the reception desk, Cooper complains that visitors to the agency are greeted by someone who is black.

He is a member of the Republican Party and gets Sterling Cooper involved with the 1960 Nixon campaign, providing advertising services to the campaign gratis. Cooper is the second character at Sterling Cooper to learn that Don Draper is actually Dick Whitman, after Pete Campbell informs him of the truth, but he reacts with nonchalance, remarking famously, "Mr. Campbell, who cares?" and urging him to forget about it. He keeps silent about Don's identity but uses this knowledge two years later (in "Seven Twenty Three") to pressure Don into signing a three-year contract with the agency.

After selling a majority interest in the company to British firm PPL, which begins to exert control, he begins to feel increasingly insignificant but accepts this as part of the terms of the buyout, from which he, Alice, Roger, and Don profited handsomely. But when Bert discovers PPL will be selling Sterling Cooper to a rival agency – and that he will be forced to retire as a result – Cooper goes on to co-found the new agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

During Season 4, Don Draper finds a taped recording of Roger's memoirs "Sterling's Gold" in a drawer by accident, from which it is revealed that a younger Cooper was given an unnecessary orchiectomy during the "height of his sexual prime". Don and Peggy also learn that when Roger was a young man, he was sexually involved with Cooper's much older, very eccentric, long-time secretary Ida Blankenship.

Later in Season 4, in the episode "Blowing Smoke", when the agency is forced to radically downsize its staff following the loss of the Lucky Strike account, an angered Cooper tells the other partners he is quitting, partially in response to Don Draper's ad in The New York Times, which he feels is a needlessly reckless career move, and he does not want to be associated with Draper's "stunt". However, as of the premiere of Season 5, he is back in the offices of SCDP, although without an office of his own.

By Season 6, Cooper has been given his own office on SCDP's new second floor. Though far less spacious than his office at Sterling Cooper, it is still decorated with Japanese art. Cooper this season goes about his duties with more vigor and enjoyment than he has for the past two seasons (and more effectively than Roger and Don, the other major partners). Cooper works in secret with Pete and Joan to prepare SCDP for becoming a publicly traded company, but his plans are derailed when Don loses the Jaguar account. Cooper's initial opinion on the subsequent merger with CGC is unclear, though he goes about his duties at the new firm with his usual aplomb. Cooper later volunteers to have his name removed from the company's along with those of the recently deceased partners, but gleefully accepts Cutler's proposal to name the firm "Sterling Cooper & Partners." On Thanksgiving Day, 1968, Cooper leads Roger, Jim and Joan in confronting Don over his recent behavior and placing the errant creative director on an indefinite leave of absence.

In Season 7, after Roger's urging, Cooper is willing to let Don return to the agency under strict stipulations. He dies alone while watching the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing on television. At the end of the first half of Season 7, Bert appears to Don as an apparition in the SC&P lobby, and goes into a song and dance of "The Best Things in Life Are Free", surrounded by smiling, dancing secretaries instead of showgirls, before disappearing. Later, during Season 7's "Lost Horizon", Cooper's ghost appears to Don in his car, chatting and giving him a bit of insight during a late-night drive.

Ken Cosgrove

Kenneth "Ken" Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) is an account executive at Sterling Cooper. Pete says Ken is the son of a salesman from Burlington, Vermont, and Ken tells Fillmore Auto Parts he grew up in rural Vermont. Ken says his mother was overweight and worked as a nurse at a state hospital. As he tells Sal and Kitty Romano (in "The Gold Violin"), he attended Columbia University and before getting married, lives in Murray Hill (close enough to walk to work, but he doesn't), writes as a hobby, and took a job in advertising because he heard there was money in it.

He initially appears as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Ken has literary aspirations and has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, an accomplishment that elicits jealousy from both Peter Campbell and Paul Kinsey.

In Season 2, it is revealed that Ken makes considerably more money than his co-worker Harry Crane, even though Crane works longer hours and has a much tougher job. In Season 3, Ken and Pete are promoted, sharing the role of Accounts Director, which infuriates Pete (who wanted the role all to himself) while leaving Ken completely unruffled. While not as outwardly ambitious as Pete, he has proven to be a competent executive and an exceptionally talented creative thinker, eclipsing Campbell as a rising star at Sterling Cooper. Eventually, Cosgrove is promoted above Campbell, to the latter's fury.

Because Pete Campbell was approached first and agreed to join SCDP, Cosgrove is not seen in the earlier episodes in Season 4. However, Ken later joins SCDP, bringing Birds Eye and other clients with him, and agrees to serve under Campbell. There are limits to what Ken will do, however: he refuses to try to bring his father-in-law's business over to SCDP. Later in Season 4, Ken is having dinner with his fiancée, Cynthia, and prospective in-laws when he learns that Lucky Strike, SCDP's biggest client, is taking their business to another agency.

In the Season 5 premiere he is happily married, and he and his new wife attend Don's surprise birthday party. Ken is also shown to have continued writing in his off-hours and has published science fiction stories using the pseudonym of Ben Hargrove, which Farrar Strus wants to publish, a fact he tries to keep secret from his co-workers. At the end of "Signal 30", Ken tells Peggy Olson that Roger Sterling is forcing him to abandon writing fiction. He continues to do so under the new pen name Dave Algonquin. In "Commissions and Fees," Don and Roger manage to secure Ken's father-in-law as a client on their own. Ken doesn't mind working on the account since it was acquired without his help, but in exchange for feigning ignorance to Cynthia, Ken demands that Pete be excluded from the proceedings.

In Season 6, Ken has been given a spacious office on SCDP's second floor, and appears to be on somewhat friendlier terms with Pete, even giving him advice when the latter finds himself in a very awkward situation. He dislikes his new employee Bob Benson. After the acquisition of the new Chevy account and the subsequent merger with CGC, Ken is assigned to deal with the account, necessitating he be in Detroit more and more often. Unknown to Ken, this is exploited by Joan to allow Benson to keep his job. In "The Crash", while under the influence of a "mild stimulant" that is intended to help SCDP employees to work the extra hours needed on the Chevy account, Ken demonstrates that he is a talented tap dancer, but can't remember clearly whether he learned the skill from his mother or his first girlfriend. In "Quality of Mercy", Ken is wounded in a hunting accident by a pair of Chevy executives, resulting in the loss of an eye. Deciding that Chevy is too much for him, he returns to New York to support the newly pregnant Cynthia.

During Season 7, Ken reveals he has become a father to a son, Edward. Cynthia is growing frustrated with Ken facing increased pressure at work, and she encourages him to write the Great American Novel he has dreamed of doing. After his father-in-law retires from Dow Chemical, Ken presents him a gift of golf clubs as a client. Shortly afterward, Roger (who is pressured by McCann executives) fires him and gives his accounts to Pete. He considers leaving advertising to focus on his writing full-time but takes a job as the head of advertising with Dow Chemical. In light of Ken's new position, Roger and Pete attempt to mend fences with him, especially when SC&P seeks to retain some autonomy from McCann-Erickson by proposing to move operations to Los Angeles. However, instead of becoming a writer, Ken sees an opportunity to get revenge for their dismissive treatment. Rather than drop SC&P as Dow's agency, he informs them he will retain them but make their life difficult.

Harry Crane

Harold "Harry" Crane (Rich Sommer) was a media buyer at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more of his time in the office drinking, flirting, and gossiping than actually working. Harry is originally from Wisconsin and is a University of Wisconsin alumnus, the only one of Pete's best friends who did not attend an Ivy League school (Ken went to Columbia, Pete to Dartmouth, and Paul to Princeton). He is married to Jennifer, who works at the phone company. In early seasons, they seem to have one of the more egalitarian marriages on the show; Harry is honest with his wife and is shown asking her advice about his problems at work. Harry sometimes appears to be rather henpecked. He flirts with women but is faithful to his wife until he has too much to drink at an office party and has a one-night stand with Hildy, Pete's secretary. He confesses the infidelity to Jennifer, who kicks him out of their home for a time. Harry and Jennifer appear to have resolved that issue by Season 2, and Jennifer later gives birth to a daughter named Beatrice. In Season 6 it is mentioned that they also now have twin sons Nathan and Steven.

Harry is initially a bit of a pushover, accepting far less in pay in negotiations than he could have asked for, and his non-confrontational attitude causes him to mishandle a situation that leads to the firing of his friend and co-worker, Sal Romano. Despite these flaws, Harry is the only member of the firm to recognize the advertising power of television and subsequently creates and puts himself in charge of Sterling Cooper's television department. Later, when Sterling Cooper is in the process of being sold, Harry mistakenly thinks they are considering opening a West Coast office and believes he would be the person to move to California.

In Season 3, he is the only Sterling Cooper executive who is promoted by the firm's British owner as part of a short-lived company reorganization. Harry later accepts an offer to join Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as "Head of Media". By Season 4, a more confident and slimmer, if smarmier, Harry shows great progress, as he is often seen making deals with television networks on the new agency's behalf. We see him flirting with Peggy's friends as well, and it is implied that he cheats on his wife but has learned to keep it from her. When he calls Joey Baird into his office and tells him that he has a particular look suited to television, Baird interprets it as a homosexual advance and becomes wary of him.

During the season 5 premiere, Megan mentions to Peggy that Don really doesn't like Harry, and thus wouldn't want him to attend his birthday party. Nonetheless, Harry is invited and attends. Given his mild social awkwardness, he is seemingly unaware of Don's opinion of him. The next day at the office, Megan catches Harry making lewd comments about her performance of "Zou Bisou Bisou" and he is briefly concerned that could lose his job. Also in Season 5, he is approached by former close friend Paul Kinsey, who is now a Hare Krishna and is floundering. He has sex with Paul's Hare Krishna girlfriend, without Paul's knowledge. Later, Paul, wanting to escape the Krishnas, approaches Harry for help—he has written a spec script for Star Trek and wants to know if it will be successful. Harry, avoiding confrontation as usual, assures Paul it's a great script (when in truth he and Peggy agree it is not only terrible but borderline racist), and urges him to go to California, giving him $500 for the trip. Paul expresses gratitude, but it is not made clear whether he actually left.

In Season 6, Harry's personality has changed considerably from his days at Sterling Cooper; he is shown to have an inflated view of himself and the media department. His jealousy manifests itself when Joan fires his secretary, Scarlett, for falsifying her time card. He orders Scarlett back to work and then bursts into a partners' meeting, displaying considerable anger over the fact that Joan was promoted to partner when he had been passed over several times, particularly as his accomplishments happened "in broad daylight." Cooper and Sterling later give him a generous commission on a last-minute commercial he and Ken made, which saved several accounts, but flatly reject his demand to become a partner, observing that the commercial is the only genuinely impressive thing he's ever done. When Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, Pete is outraged by Harry's fretting over the ad time lost to news coverage, which leads to a brief but intense shouting match in which Pete accuses Harry of being a racist. Harry takes it as a given that he will soon be made partner. Cooper, at the meeting of Harry's outburst, assures Joan that will never happen.

During Season 7, Jim Cutler takes a dualistic view of Harry: on the one hand he says that Harry's TV work is hugely successful and will be a major part of SC&P in the future, but he also bluntly tells Harry "you are the most dishonest man I've ever met." Jim decides that Harry should finally be offered a partnership and the senior partners agree, though Joan and Roger are outspoken in their opposition. Harry is surprised to run into Don when they both end up at an Los Angeles party for one of Megan's actress friends. The two men are uncomfortable at the event and go to a bar, where Harry says he wishes Don was back (which Don barely notices) before stating that Jim and Lou Avery are planning a major cigarette-company account bid because that will allow them to get rid of Don (which Don very much notices, and uses when he crashes the meeting and ultimately ruins the account bid). In "Waterloo", Harry has not yet signed his approved partnership deal, wanting to hold out for more money, and Roger tells him that he "missed the boat" and that the idea of his becoming partner is now off the table. It is not clear whether Harry will benefit in any way from the McCann deal when the partners (including Jim) approve of it. Harry has lunch with Megan, purportedly to help her with her acting career, but makes it clear he expects her to sleep with him in exchange. When she refuses and leaves in disgust, he quickly goes to see Don (who is unaware of the proposition) to assure him that Megan is "crazy" and Don shouldn't believe anything she says. By the series finale, Harry is last seen wearing a fur coat and eating cookies as he awaits to attend a final lunch with Pete and Peggy.

Bobby Draper

Robert "Bobby" Draper (Maxwell Huckabee in season 1; Aaron Hart in seasons 1 and 2; Jared S. Gilmore in seasons 3 and 4; and Mason Vale Cotton in seasons 5, 6 and 7) is Don and Betty Draper's middle child. His mother referred to him as a "little liar." Bobby was mentioned as being 5 years old in the season 2 episode "The Mountain King," and 7 years old in the season 4 episode "The Chrysanthemum and the Rose," making his birthday between March and September 1957. Due to many of the Draper story lines focusing on Don, Betty and Sally, Bobby does not have much of a role in the early seasons. He is depicted as being clumsy and accident-prone, such as burning his lip on a hot stove. When Betty urges Don to spank Bobby for damaging the radio, he opts to scold the boy rather than resorting to physical punishment; he later reveals that he "wasn't half as good as Bobby" when reflecting on his own childhood. After the Drapers separate and divorce, Bobby gradually becomes close to his stepfather Henry Francis, and he is treated kindly by Don's new wife Megan. During the sixth season, Bobby's character is expanded; he shown to be sympathetic towards blacks in the aftermath of Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination, as well as expressing concern for Henry's safety. Don realizes that he has been missing out on his children's lives. By season seven, Bobby is deeply troubled over Betty and Henry's arguments and fears they might divorce.

Megan Draper

Megan Draper (née Calvet) (Jessica Paré) (born 1940/41) begins as a member of SCDP's typing pool and rises from receptionist to Don Draper's secretary, ultimately marrying Don Draper (as of the beginning of Season 5). Following Miss Blankenship's sudden death, she is promoted from the main reception desk to take over as Draper's personal secretary. In "Chinese Wall", she indicates to Don an interest in advertising, and one night, while discussing work, she initiates a sexual encounter with Don on his office couch. She comments that she would not run out crying the next day if they slept together (presumably a reference to Don's previous secretary, Allison, who left SCDP in tears following Don's cold treatment of her after their one-night stand). In the Season 4 finale, Don takes Megan on a trip to California to take care of his kids when his planned childcare falls through at the last moment. Although Don has been dating Faye Miller (SCDP's marketing research consultant) for months, he proposes marriage to Megan after the California trip and she accepts. Don promotes her to copywriter soon after their wedding announcement at SCDP.

Megan is originally from Montreal and she is bilingual in English and French. She is intelligent and capable but also moody and combative; as her own mother tells her, she has the "artistic temperament." She originally wanted to be an actress, and in Season 5, she quits her copywriting job at SCDP to pursue acting again and she lands her first acting job with Don's intervention (a commercial for Butler shoes) in the Season 5 finale. She is 26 at the time of her marriage to Don, who turns 40 seven months after the wedding.

Between seasons, Don appears to have fully disclosed his personal secrets to Megan, as she is aware of his former identity and knows who Anna is. By season 6, Megan is a recognizable actress (whose fans request her autograph), having landed a regular role in a daytime soap opera titled To Have and to Hold. She admits to Sylvia Rosen she had become pregnant while in Hawaii with Don and was relieved when she miscarried, as she had contemplated her options (a pregnancy would have disrupted her emerging acting career). Megan later reveals to Don that she had been pregnant and miscarried.

Near the end of Season 6, Don — who is obsessed with neighbor Sylvia Rosen, unbeknownst to Megan and Arnie Rosen — barely communicates with Megan. Marie suggests Megan dress less like a wife for a business dinner Don has invited Megan to, which attracts Don's amorous attention that night, but ultimately he practically ignores her, and she, believing he is simply working and drinking too much, tells him things must change. In the Season 6 finale, Don tells Megan they are moving together to California and she quits her soap opera job, eagerly anticipating pursuing acting opportunities on the West Coast. However, later that same day, Don tells her they are not moving. Angered, Megan leaves the apartment. Megan moves to Los Angeles anyway, and their marriage deteriorates rapidly in the first half of season 7, particularly when Megan finds out that Don has been put on leave from SC&P and hasn't actually been working (meaning he'd rather stay at home and brood than be with her). It is also implied that Megan's own career isn't going well; she is having difficulty securing roles and at one point, she bombs an audition and then tracks down the director to tearfully demand a second chance. Megan ends her marriage with Don, who had finally decided to move to Los Angeles, over the phone midway through episode 7. Later in Season 7, they have an unpleasant final meeting, where they sign the divorce papers and Don offers Megan a check for $1 million. Bitter and angry, Megan berates Don but accepts the money.

Sally Draper

Sally Beth Draper (Kiernan Shipka) is Don and Betty Draper's oldest child. The series' third episode, "The Marriage of Figaro," depicts a party for her 6th birthday in late March or early April 1960. She becomes a more central character in the third and fourth seasons (according to the time line of the series, she would turn 9 years old in season 3 and 11 in season 4); as of the fourth season, she has been promoted to a starring role. The death of her grandfather, Gene Hofstadt, affected Sally significantly and deepened the rift between her and her mother. When her youngest brother is named after their dead grandfather and given his room, Sally becomes convinced that the baby is her grandfather's reincarnation and becomes terrified of him. Sally is adventurous, and she has been seen throughout the series making cocktails for her father, smoking one of her mother's cigarettes, and being taught how to drive by her grandfather. Her behavioral problems lead Betty to have her see a child psychiatrist in season 4. Sally appears to be closer to her father than her mother, and in one episode ("The Beautiful Girls"), she unexpectedly shows up at Don's office, because she wants to live with him instead of Betty and Henry Francis. Don sometimes affectionately calls Sally "Salamander." She develops a friendship with slightly older neighborhood boy Glen, who is about 12 or 13, in season 4. This infuriates Betty because, in prior years, Betty and Glen reached out and comforted each other when they were both feeling sad, lonely, and neglected. Betty forbids Sally to see Glen, and proves to be very volatile whenever Sally sees him. Sally continues to surreptitiously communicate with Glen, calling him frequently at his boarding school.

As Sally progresses into young adulthood, she witnesses several disturbing events, such as in season 5 when she sees Marie Calvet, her stepmother Megan's mother, fellating Roger Sterling during a business dinner, and, most disturbingly, her own father having sex with his neighbor in season 6. Don's outright denial of the reality of the encounter alienates him from Sally, and, resentful of her parents, Sally decides to attend boarding school. While at school, Sally becomes a troublemaker, smoking constantly, sneaking alcohol onto campus, and dueling with golf clubs with her friends. By the end of the sixth season, Don decides to be more honest with his children, starting with showing them the now dilapidated whorehouse where he grew up. The choice to be truthful makes an impact on Sally and she begins to forgive her father for his transgressions by the beginning of the seventh season. However, she still objects to Don's decisions in life, telling her father that she does not want to be anything like her parents. "You're a very beautiful girl," Don responds. "It's up to you to be more than that."

When the series begins to draw to a close, Sally faces further complications of growing up. Glen decides to join the army and fight in Vietnam, causing a frustrated Sally to yell at Glen and express disdain over the possibility of his killing of innocent children and bystanders. Sally later expresses regret over her outburst and, through tears, tells Glen's mother that she is sorry and wants to say goodbye to Glen before he leaves for boot camp. Later, Sally learns from Henry that her mother Betty is dying from lung cancer. On a surprise visit to the Francis household, Betty gives Sally a letter that she tells Sally to read after her death. Shortly afterward, at her dorm room, Sally goes against orders and reads the letter anyway. In the letter, Betty gives Sally a picture of Betty to show the embalmers how to entomb her and tells Sally that she loves her, resulting in Sally breaking down in tears. Later, upon learning Betty wants to send Bobby and Gene to her uncle, Sally decides to cancel her planned trip to Madrid and serve as a maternal figure to her brothers. It is also implied that she will press for Henry to raise the boys after Betty's death, since she tells Don they should not be uprooted. The final image of Sally is of her washing dishes while Betty smokes at the kitchen table.

Henry Francis

Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) is a Republican political advisor who serves as the Director of Public Relations and Research in the Governor's Office under New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and, later, is an advisor to New York City Mayor John Lindsay. He is instantly infatuated with Betty Draper when he meets a six-months pregnant Betty at the Sterlings' Kentucky Derby party. Later, when Betty calls him to ask if he can use his influence to save a local reservoir, they develop a personal connection. Betty reciprocates Henry's attention because she increasingly feels no connection with Don due to his non-stop infidelities, lies over his true identity, and his sometimes verbally abusive attitude towards her. After Betty's beloved father dies, the much older Henry also serves as a replacement father-figure for her. Henry and Betty have only a few brief and furtive meetings before Henry proposes marriage in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Season 3 ends with the two of them on a plane with baby Gene, flying to Reno so Betty can obtain a quick divorce from Don. At the start of season 4, we see that Henry and Betty have married and Henry has rather uncomfortably taken up residence in the Drapers' house, living with Betty and her three children and initially paying no rent to Don. He tries to soothe Betty as she continues to react angrily to Don and his irresponsibility towards the children, but he becomes more frustrated with her over time. Betty, on her part, feels unaccepted by Henry's family, especially when she is unable to control Sally during a family visit to the home of Henry's mother Pauline, and in the face of Pauline's not-so-veiled scorn of Betty. During this time, Henry is concerned by Betty's continued anger towards Don, and he wonders aloud if they rushed into their marriage too quickly. At the end of season four, Henry and Betty decide to move to Rye, NY. By season 5, Betty has gained a large amount of weight, but Henry tells her she's beautiful, her relationship with Henry seems affectionate. In season 6, when Betty dyes her hair black, to her children's dismay, Henry says she looks like Elizabeth Taylor. Betty supports, and seems rejuvenated by, Henry's decision to run for office in season 6, and after he admiringly tells (the overweight, brunette) Betty that during his campaign people will "really see" her, she rapidly regains her former svelte figure and blonde hairdo.

Michael Ginsberg

Michael Ginsberg (Ben Feldman) first appears in the episode "Tea Leaves" (season 5, episode 2), when he is hired as a part-time copywriter by Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. He is initially hired to service the Mohawk Airlines account, and proves himself to be both prolific and innovative. He quickly becomes an essential part of the creative team and surpasses Peggy Olson midway through the season as the firm's most productive writer, when Peggy becomes mired in the Heinz story arc. Ginsberg is an idiosyncratic, socially awkward character who tends to speak his mind, which both helps and hinders him. His position at the firm is threatened at times, including at his interview, when Peggy decides not to employ him for fear of his being too extroverted and idiosyncratic for Don's tastes. However, this decision is reversed by Roger, who has already told Mohawk they have taken Ginsberg on.

The quality of Ginsberg's work is his main asset, and he tells Peggy immediately following his interview that although he can be tough to handle, he is a natural copywriter. His pitching style is theatrical, and he often captivates his clients with his over-the-top performances and youthful vigor. In this respect, he stands out from the rest of the SCDP team, particularly Don and Peggy, who are quieter and more understated both in their copy and their presentation. As the season goes on, Ginsberg's socially awkward, tone-deaf genius and refusal to follow orders begin to create resentment in both Don and Peggy, leading to a conflict between Ginsberg and Don in "Dark Shadows", when Don decides to submit his own work for an account instead of Ginsberg's. The episode reveals Ginsberg's competitive side, which had been rarely evident until then.

Ginsberg is Jewish, and he lives with his adoptive father Morris in Brooklyn. In "Far Away Places", he reveals to Peggy that he was told he was born in a concentration camp during World War Two, and that his father found him in a Swedish orphanage at age 5. He also claims to be a Martian who is waiting for orders from above, but whether this is a genuine belief, a particularly straight-faced joke, or an expression of psychological estrangement from society resulting from his personal history, remains ambiguous. Ginsberg appears to have a difficult relationship with his father, who is overbearing and physically dominates him.

Roger takes a liking to Ginsberg when he discovers they share a common desire to throw something out of their skyscraper windows, and Roger thereafter canvasses Ginsberg's support to help him with the Manischewitz account, which he is trying to bring to SCDP. With Peggy's departure from SCDP in episode 8, Ginsberg's position as copywriter is further elevated, and he becomes one of the two full-time copywriters at the firm, both of whom report to Don. However, in the season finale "The Phantom", Ginsberg and Stan struggle to make the same impression on clients that Peggy did, and Don does not back their ideas the way he did hers, frustrating them.

In Season 6, Ginsberg is shown to have embraced more of the counterculture, and grows a thick moustache while dressing less formally. With the merger of SCDP and CGC, Peggy once again becomes his superior. His politics come to a head when, during an argument with partner Jim Cutler, Ginsberg denounces Dow Chemical for the use of its Napalm in Vietnam. Cutler angrily criticizes Ginsberg as a hypocrite for abhorring Dow's policies and yet accepting paychecks from them.

Ginsberg's father later sets him up on a blind date, but he immediately botches it through being socially awkward and admitting that he is still a virgin. His behaviour and manners continue to be erratic and begin to deteriorate throughout the season, culminating in a psychotic breakdown brought on by the installation of an IBM computer in the old creative breakroom. After the computer is installed at SC&P, Ginsberg becomes convinced that the computer has a plan to destroy the human race, and that it is doing so by turning those within its proximity into homosexuals thereby eradicating the possibility of female fertilization. Convinced that this is true, he arrives at Peggy's apartment to escape from it in order to do his work, but later wakes Peggy in order to 'reproduce' and therefore beat the machine. The next day he gifts Peggy his severed nipple as an apology, explaining that since his nipple is a valve and he has now removed it, the computer's vibrations can now flow through him and he will not need to use Peggy as an outlet. Ginsberg is removed from the building tied to a stretcher, leaving Peggy in tears and Stan in shock.

Paul Kinsey

Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete Campbell's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting, and gossiping than working. Paul has been involved with Joan in the past, but the relationship ended badly, apparently because Paul talked about it too much. When a then-naive Peggy begins to work at Sterling Cooper as Don's secretary, Paul hits on her, but Peggy refuses him, as she is secretly attracted to Pete. Paul later dates a black woman who is involved in civil rights. Joan makes fun of his black girlfriend, who dumps Paul while they are registering black voters in the South. He lives in a beatnik neighborhood in Montclair, New Jersey and espouses more Bohemian ideas and attitudes than his fellow young copywriters, listening to jazz and smoking marijuana. Joan, however, mocks him for this lifestyle, proclaiming that he is simply pretentious and wants to believe he is better than the people he works with. He is originally from New Jersey and attended Princeton on a scholarship, two facts he is eager to hide. A fan of science fiction and The Twilight Zone, he has a notably Kennedy-era fascination with space.

In season two, Paul grows an Orson Welles beard and later quotes passages from Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast. He initially encourages Peggy to pursue copywriting, noting, "There are female copywriters", but it immediately becomes apparent this is merely an attempt to seduce her. He later becomes jealous and pettily competitive when her skill becomes apparent. He realizes Peggy and Don have creative "magic" together when it comes to advertising ideas and slogans and is annoyed, especially as his own contributions become less favored by Don and, as a result, diminish his importance at the firm. Paul expresses considerable anger when he realizes Peggy was secretly chosen to leave the company and join the new agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, while he was not.

In the season 5 episode "Christmas Waltz", he reappears as a devotee of the Hare Krishna movement, which he has joined at least partly to win the affections of a girl. (His advertising career has apparently stalled, since he bounced between a few other agencies before becoming a Hare Krishna.) He contacts Harry Crane to ask him to pass on his spec script for Star Trek to Harry's contacts at NBC. The script is terrible, but Harry praises it and gives Paul $500 and a ticket to Los Angeles so he can start afresh. He advises Paul not to submit the script to the Star Trek production team due to "studio politics," and instead recommends that he write his own original stories. Paul expresses considerable gratitude toward Harry, telling him he is the first person to actually do something for him.

Rachel Menken

Rachel Katz (née Menken; Maggie Siff) is the Jewish head of a department store who becomes romantically involved with Draper after she comes to Sterling Cooper in search of an advertising agency to revamp her business' image. Don’s first encounter with Rachel, in the pilot, is at a meeting where he pitches the idea of using coupons to attract more customers to the store. Rachel disagrees with the tactic, asserting that she would like to attract wealthier customers. Draper is unhappy with hearing a woman talk to him assertively at the business table. He storms out of the meeting, but Roger Sterling later asks him to reconcile with Rachel, as she is worth $3 million. At his dinner with Rachel, Don questions her desire to work in business, confused that she would choose the “stress” of work over the comforts of married life. Rachel confidently replies that business is a thrill and adds that she’s never been in love. Don mocks this addition, asserting that love doesn’t exist; it was invented by admen. He goes on to say that everyone is essentially alone – that people live alone and die alone. Rachel responds that she knows what it is like to be disconnected and feel out of place, and she sees that in Don. Something about the statement seems to intrigue Don, but Rachel ends the meeting, promising to come back to Sterling Cooper for another meeting on Monday morning.

At the second meeting, in the third episode, Rachel is irked that none of the admen on her team have been to her store. Don solves the problem by going there with Rachel. While there she gives him a pair of medieval knight cuff links and takes him to her favorite place in the store – the roof - where the store keeps its patrol dogs. Rachel explains that she was always close to the dogs as a young girl because her father liked to work a lot. Other than her sister, the dogs were her only companions, as her mother died while giving birth to her. After her revelation, Don kisses her. He tells her he is married, which stuns her. She feels foolish and asks that he put someone else on her account at the firm.

In the tenth episode, when Roger has a heart attack, Don goes to Rachel’s apartment and asks to come in; he has been highly affected by Roger’s condition. She keeps her distance, while trying to console him. Don tries to kiss her, telling her she knows everything about him. She stops him and urges him to go to his wife. At this point Don kisses her again, saying, “This is it. This is all there is". She consents, and their affair begins. The episode ends with Don's confiding in Rachel the nature of his upbringing.

When Pete Campbell blackmails Don, he comes to Rachel with the suggestion that they run away together to Los Angeles. She reminds him of his duty to his children and questions whether he would want to abandon his children after having grown up without a father. When Don persists, Rachel comes to the realization that he does not want to run away with her; he just wants to run away. She calls him a coward. Their relationship seems to collapse from that point onwards, and they break up sometime between the first and second seasons. Apparently, Rachel was so upset that her father complains to Bert Cooper, who in turn asks Don, "Why is this man calling me?" Cooper later reports she was sent on an extended "ocean cruise" to heal her psyche.

Don encounters her again in season 2, while he is dining out with Bobbie Barrett. Rachel introduces them to her husband, Tilden Katz. Though it appears that Don is only momentarily shaken by the news of Rachel's marriage, four episodes later, after drinking heavily with Roger and Freddie Rumsen, he gives his name as "Tilden Katz" to a bouncer outside an underground club Roger is trying to get them into.

In season 7, Don has a vision of Rachel attending a casting call for aspiring models. When he tries to contact her, Don discovers that Rachel died the previous week. During a shiva conducted in her memory, Don learns that Rachel suffered from leukemia and that she had two children.

Lane Pryce

Main article: Lane Pryce

Lane Pryce (Jared Harris), previously employed at Puttnam, Powell and Lowe, becomes a junior partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce at the end of season 3. Despite being a junior partner, his name is on the company's masthead. In the fifth season, after embezzling funds from the company, he forges a check and gets caught by Don, who tells him to resign. After typing a resignation letter, Lane commits suicide by hanging himself in his office.

Stan Rizzo

Stan Rizzo (Jay R. Ferguson) becomes the art director at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce after Salvatore is fired. Before coming to the company, he worked at DDB, making unaired work for Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. In the beginning of his tenure, he and Peggy are often at odds with each other due to his abrasive and sometimes macho attitude, but the two develop a strong working relationship after Stan tries to intimidate Peggy by suggesting they work in the nude; Peggy calls his bluff and strips down, prompting Stan to concede victory to her. Stan is one of the few members of the SCDP creative department who survives the staff cuts.

By season 5 the two are working well together, until the firm hires Michael Ginsberg, whose bombastic and somewhat sexist attitude is more in line with Stan's than Peggy's.

In season 6, after Peggy leaves to join CGC, she and Stan maintain their friendship through late-night phone calls. Peggy's boss Ted Chaough overhears one such conversation, and Peggy relates Stan's news that Heinz ketchup is considering meetings; Chaough takes advantage of this and pressures Peggy to pitch a CGC campaign. Although neither firm ultimately wins the account, a betrayed Stan gives Peggy the finger at a bar. After SCDP and CGC merge (eventually becoming SC&P), Stan and Peggy easily rebuild their friendship, and he is happy to be working with her again. In "The Crash", Stan is one of several employees injected with a stimulant by Jim Cutler's "Dr. Feelgood" to boost creativity and spends an entire weekend intoxicated. During this time, he comes on to Peggy, who gently rejects him, and to whom reveals that his first cousin recently died in Vietnam. Peggy counsels him that loss cannot be dealt with by getting high and having sex. While Stan initially takes her advice, he is later discovered inflagrante delicto with Wendy Gleason, the hippie daughter of a recently deceased partner.

Several episodes later ("Favors"), Peggy telephones Stan in the middle of the night, waking him up, to plead for his assistance with a rat in her apartment. When he refuses, she teasingly offers to "make it worth his while," but he still refuses, as he is currently in bed with a nude sleeping woman. The camera also reveals a large poster of Moshe Dayan over Stan's bed.

In the season 6 finale ("In Care Of"), SC&P have landed the California-based Sunkist. Stan approaches Don, requesting permission to go to California and start a fledgeling branch of the firm. Don warns him that it would basically mean demotion and work on only one account, but Stan is adamant. Don is inspired by the idea, and instead of allowing Stan to go, proposes to the partners that he himself go to start the branch. Stan is infuriated by what he perceives as a betrayal on Don's part, although Don offers to let Stan come to California in a few months. Don later decides against going, and instead Pete Campbell and Ted Chaough go, without Stan.

Sal Romano

Salvatore "Sal" Romano (Bryan Batt) is the Italian-American art director at Sterling Cooper, originally from Baltimore. Sal turned down a proposition from a male employee of Belle Jolie Cosmetics midway through the first season, admitting that though he has thought about having relationships with men, he has never acted on this impulse. He joins the other men of Sterling Cooper in flirting with the women in the workplace. He speaks to his mother in Italian. Sal is shown to have a sarcastic side to his personality, mocking Pete after he nearly loses his job and laughing at Freddy Rumsen urinating himself. Between the first and second seasons, Sal marries a childhood friend, Kitty (Sarah Drew). The two entertain Ken Cosgrove for dinner during the second season, during which Sal seems taken with his guest. Kitty shows signs of frustration at being ignored, expressing that something is wrong in their marriage.

In the third season premiere, Don Draper sees Sal alone with a partly-dressed, male hotel bellhop, but subtly assures Sal he will keep silent by drawing Sal's attention to the ad slogan they had been working on for raincoats: "Limit your exposure". Later in the third season, with Don's encouragement, Sal branches out into directing commercials for the company. Meanwhile, Sal and Kitty have not had sex in several months and Kitty tells Sal she needs "tending to". He assures her that he loves her, but his mind is elsewhere due to pressures at work. Illustrations popular in magazine advertisements in the 1950s and early 1960s are going out of style in favor of photographs, so he fears he will lose his job as an illustrator. Later in the scene, Kitty is in bed and Sal vividly demonstrates how the Ann-Margret look-alike will dance and sing "Bye Bye Birdie" in his commercial (with lyrics changed for Pepsi's new diet drink Patio). Kitty nods but appears uncomfortable with Sal's flamboyant performance.

In the episode "Wee Small Hours", Sal rejects the advances of Lee Garner, Jr., a married Lucky Strike executive who, in retaliation, calls Harry Crane and demands Sal's removal from the account. When Harry fails to pass this on, Garner walks out of a subsequent meeting. Roger fires Sal on the spot. Don supports Roger's decision on the basis that the company can afford to lose him rather than Lucky Strike and regards Sal with disdain, implying that he should have just given Garner what he wanted. In Sal's last appearance, he calls his wife late at night from a payphone located in a park, a group of men nearby. He does not tell her he has been fired, only that he will be arriving home late.

Recurring characters

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 was also shown to have something of an on-again, off-again relationship with Ken Cosgrove. In Season 1, Allison had a one-night stand with Ken on the night of the 1960 presidential election. In Season 2, after Don asked that Jane Siegel be removed as his secretary, Allison was installed as her replacement. In Season 3, she occasionally flirted with Ken, and during Joan's going-away party she was seen sitting on Ken's lap. Although the sudden formation of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was accomplished without Allison's knowledge (she declared that the agency had been robbed when she came into Don's office and discovered that it had been stripped over the weekend), SCDP hired her sometime during 1964, and she continued as Don's 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. He attempted to forget about the affair but ended up hurting Allison when she realized he was going to pretend that nothing had happened. She continued to work for Don for several months, but in the fourth episode of Season 4, his continual avoidance of the topic finally led her to resign after she burst into tears at a focus group. When she asked Don for a recommendation letter and he suggested she write a glowing reference on his letterhead and he would sign it (which she perceived as insensitive), she snapped, throwing a brass cigarette dispenser at him that noisily shattered a glass picture frame and storming out of the office in tears. When Megan later made a pass at Don, she reassured him that she wouldn't behave like Allison the next morning. Allison's last name was never mentioned in the show and remains unknown.

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 Draper is placed on indefinite leave of absence from Sterling Cooper & Partners at the end of Season 6, Avery is brought in as a replacement creative director-for-hire on a two-year contract. As Draper is exiting the SC&P offices after being told of his suspension, he runs into Avery and Duck Phillips; it is implied that Phillips coordinated the deal to bring Avery into SC&P in his role as a head hunter. In Season 7, it is shown that Avery 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. 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 and shunting aside her efforts. Avery later becomes upset when the partners allow Draper 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. Avery finds Draper's presence a distraction, and assigns Olson as Draper'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 doesn't care that Lou's background is in tobacco, since it is now useless, and that Lou isn't that important to the company. 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" comic book. 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.

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. However, Joey is also rather crude, frequently makes insensitive remarks, and engages in actions that would be classified as sexual harassment later in the century. Additionally, Joey misinterprets Harry Crane's friendly offer to help him get acting jobs and to go out for coffee as homosexual advances.

Joey is also 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 only escalate the problem, and her indirect efforts to have Don and Lane handle him (without explicitly spelling out his transgressions toward her) fail, as do Peggy's repeated efforts - acting as his peer - to rein Joey in. Peggy ultimately shows Don Joey's obscene drawing and, at Don's suggestion, empowers herself by ordering Joey to apologize to Joan and firing the shocked freelancer when he refuses to comply. Joan is angry at Peggy about the firing, because while it makes Peggy "look important", it makes Joan look like a "glorified secretary" without power or authority, who needs 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 is determined 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. Bobbie appears to enjoy the attention and then quickly makes her husband 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, Bobbie, and their spouses are in attendance, Jimmy reveals to Betty that Don and Bobbie have had an affair. Betty is humiliated by the revelation; she and Don become separated for a time. Though Betty may have suspected affairs in the past, Don's affair with Bobbie appears to be the only one Betty actually knows about. Don later encounters Jimmy in an underground casino, where he delivers a solid punch to Jimmy's face and knocks 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, answering to Ken Cosgrove. Benson's overly eager and helpful demeanor irritates many in the office and is interpreted as sycophantic by Don, Pete, and Ken. He 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, and 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 Benson a stronger place in the firm. Benson 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 willingness to bend the truth, lies to the nurse about the nature of Joan's illness to ensure Joan gets treated immediately. A grateful Joan prevents his lay-off after SCDP merges with CGC and, later, Bob is 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 Benson to handle the Manischewitz account and, better, give Benson a foot in the door with the Chevy business (though Benson doesn't seem to realize 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 Colon, may be sexually abusing his mother, Bob says Manolo doesn't 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 Benson to take the lead on the Chevy account, potentially working closely with Pete (the head of Accounts), the angered Pete threatens Benson and is astonished when Benson threatens him in turn. Benson is later shown venting, in fluent Castillian Spanish, on the phone to Manolo about Pete's threatening Benson's future and saying it doesn't 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's from a poor area of West Virginia, and he was the manservant of a leader of a blue blood firm—not 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 Benson, but, having learned from his experience trying to expose Don years earlier, decides to call a truce with Benson, laying out some ground rules to control Benson 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 concept that Benson wasn't in on the situation and proceeds to try and strong-arm him out of Chevy's good books. Bob, maintaining his innocence of the Manolo situation, manipulates Pete into making a fool of himself at Chevy's headquarters, securing his own position. Around the same time, Roger Sterling sees that Bob is spending time with Joan and sending along gifts for Kevin. Roger confronts Bob and threatens him over his relationship with Joan, to which Benson insists that he and Joan are just "buddies". Bob is later seen carving the turkey at Joan's Thanksgiving, to Roger's surprise.

On 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 fellatio to an undercover police officer. The executive warns Bob that Chevy is going to become an in-house project and he's 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 spend their lives in "an arrangement". When he 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 a blow for Jim Cutler, and one he won't be able to avoid.

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. Later he asks for a lock of her hair. She acquiesces, and when Helen discovers it, she forbids Glen to see the Drapers. Helen angrily confronts Betty in a supermarket, telling her he is just a "little boy". Offended, Betty slaps Helen's face, which a few shoppers witness. Betty immediately leaves the market, and her friend Francine offers her support and reveals the incident has become a topic of neighborhood gossip. Late in Season 2, Glen is shown to have run away from home and is discovered to have been staying in the Drapers' playhouse. Glen and Betty comfort each other because they are both lonely and miserable. He proposes that Betty elope with him, but she instead calls his mother, which seems to kill his love for her.

He returns in Season 4, working for his father at a Christmas tree lot, where he encounters Sally Draper and bonds 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. 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. However, in Season 5, it is revealed that Glen still speaks to Sally regularly on the telephone from his dorm at the Hotchkiss School. 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 is being sent to Vietnam and encounters Betty. His revelation to enlist angers Sally, who condemns him for reversing his earlier stance on the Kent State Shootings. Later, Glen returns to the house and talks to Betty, revealing he flunked out of school and joined the military to appease his stepfather. He admits his infatuation with Betty and kisses her, but she informs him that she is married. They part on friendly terms.

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 in 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.

Ida Blankenship

Ida Blankenship (Randee Heller) is Bert Cooper's long-serving secretary. She remains an unseen character until the fourth season, when she is assigned as Don's secretary after his prior secretary, Allison, abruptly leaves following a one-night stand with Don. An older woman, Miss Blankenship has a tendency to annoy Don and his co-workers with her salty attitude and eccentric work performance, though she is quite experienced, having been a secretary for over 40 years. Her blunt and cantankerous demeanor starkly contrasts with those of her predecessors and the firm's other secretaries. However, she is exactly the type of secretary Don needs (which is why Joan assigned her to him), as she is not overawed by him and won't have an affair with him. In his tape recordings for his autobiography, Roger reveals he'd had an affair with Miss Blankenship early in his career, causing a rift between Cooper and himself. Roger implies she was sexually adventurous and aggressive, referring to her as the "Queen of Perversions". In one episode she is seen adjusting her wig during a conversation. Suffering from increasingly poor eyesight, she is absent from the office for a brief time, during which time she has cataract surgery. She dies, suddenly and unexpectedly, at her desk at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in the ninth episode of Season 4. Cooper mentions her birth year (thus revealing she was 67 years old when she died), stating: "She was born in 1898 in a barn. She died on the 37th floor of a skyscraper. She's an astronaut." Heartbroken over her death, Bert goes out of his way to make sure she has a nicely written obituary.

Actress Randee Heller states she created Blankenship’s New York Jewish accent from the memory of her Yiddish-speaking grandparents.

Émile Calvet

Émile Calvet (Ronald Guttman) is Megan Calvet's often-blunt, sometimes-arrogant father. Émile is an academic, an atheist, and a Marxist, and he does not approve of Don. In "Codfish Ball", we learn he has written a book, and Marie believes he is having an affair with his graduate teaching assistant. In turn, he 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 other children and 10 grandchildren. Attractive, yet vain and prickly, Marie has a strained relationship with both Megan and Don and dismisses Megan's wishes to become an actress, telling her the acting school shouldn't exploit the hopeless and "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 "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 the Drapers and he 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.

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 impending 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 resume their affair (and Megan accidentally learns of their fling); she apparently remains in New York after Megan returns to California, 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 communicates her disapproval of Pete and Trudy's exploration into adoption by referring to orphans as "someone else's discards". Insulted, Pete reveals the truth about the family's fortunes to his mother, leaving her stunned. Pete hates his mother and jokes with his brother Bud about it, mentioning a childhood game called "rope". 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 must resort 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. Benson tells Peter 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), Pete's elder brother, is an accountant. Their mother strongly favors Bud, and following her husband's death, she refers to her sons as "salt and pepper". Bud reveals to Pete the precarious financial state their father has created and arranges for the liquidation of their mother's assets so that she can live comfortably. Judy (Miranda Lilley) is Bud's wife. 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. 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

Tamsin "Tammy" Vogel Campbell is Pete and Trudy's only child. The couple, who had difficulty conceiving, had consulted a fertility specialist and disagreed about whether or not to adopt (Trudy wanted to, Pete did not). Tammy was born sometime between September 7 and 10, 1965, right after Labor Day weekend, after a long and difficult labor (that took over two days). She is named a feminine variation of Thomas, after her maternal grandfather. Trudy's father accidentally spilled the beans when he told Pete that Trudy was pregnant; in the same conversation, Tom said he would give Pete $1,000 if the baby were a boy, and $500 if it were a girl.

Unbeknownst to Trudy, Tammy is not Pete's only child, as he had an unnamed baby boy in November 1960 with Peggy Olson, whom she gave away for adoption.

Trudy Campbell

Gertrude "Trudy" Campbell (née Vogel; Alison Brie) is Pete Campbell's wife. 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 (not knowing he already conceived a child with Peggy). 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 seduces a neighbor's au pair when Trudy is away on her summer vacation with her parents. 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 as Trudy settles in as a suburban housewife, Pete experiences angst and insecurity. Trudy agrees to let him have a bachelor pad in Manhattan, ostensibly for safety purposes. In season 6, Pete has a sexual liaison with their neighbor, Brenda. Trudy is infuriated; although she knew Pete would cheat on her, she expected him to be discreet and keep his affairs in Manhattan. She orders Pete to leave the house, although 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 Pete tells her that both he and her father have been frequenting the same brothel in Midtown (Tom had previously withdrawn the Vicks accounts, banking on the fact that Trudy would believe him over Pete). While she is polite to Pete when he says goodbye to her and Tammy before he moves to Los Angeles at the end of Season 6, she responds forcefully when Pete hypocritically snaps at her for staying out late on a date in Season 7, saying that Pete is "no longer a part of this family." She reluctantly asks Pete for help when their daughter is denied admission at 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 move with him (taking Tammy). Trudy refuses at first, admitting she still loves him but cannot forget his adultery. However, Pete insists and Trudy agrees, thus rekindling their marriage. They are last seen with Tammy as they board a flight 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 goes to Nevada to get a "Reno 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 on the show. 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.

Dawn Chambers

Dawn Chambers (Teyonah Parris) becomes Don Draper's new secretary in season five. 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. To their surprise, many blacks apply to work there, and the partners, feeling pressured, decide to hire one of the female candidates and choose Dawn. Peggy Olson befriends Dawn in the third episode of season 5 ("Mystery Date"). Dawn proves herself competent at her job and develops a good working relationship with Don, becoming the only one of his young secretaries, since Peggy, who doesn't sleep with him. In the season six 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 has 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 visiting Draper—still on mandatory leave—at his home to update him on the various goings-on in the office, but her loyalty to Draper does not go over well with his replacement, Lou Avery, who demands that Joan assign him a new secretary. 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. Later episodes show Dawn conducting her new duties with aplomb, straining her relationship with Draper.

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 England. Their relationship comes to an abrupt end when Lane's father forces him to return to England and reconcile with Rebecca.

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). He calls Cynthia "his life" and does not want to use her or his future father-in-law to get business, claiming in season 4 he does not want to be like Pete Campbell. In the fifth season premiere, her character is listed during the credits as Cynthia Cosgrove, implying they were married between the fourth and fifth seasons. Cynthia appears as a background character in several episodes of season five. 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's from a working-class environment, and that has helped her keep her husband grounded. Solitary 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.

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 and Partners. He first appears in season 5, episode 6. He is the equivalent of Roger Sterling in his former firm CGC and Peggy describes him as "just like Roger (Sterling) 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" for their working over the weekend for Chevy. Instead making everyone productive, the booster shot only made Jim Cutler and Stan Rizzo hyperactive, and Don phasing in and out of consciousness. He has also brought Frank Gleason's daughter Wendy to the office on that working weekend (shortly after Frank'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 won them the account. In "A Tale of Two Cities," it appears as if Cutler still opposes the merger, resenting 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, having noticed this, chided Jim 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.

Midge Daniels

Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt) is an art illustrator engaged in an affair with 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, including one she may be in love with. When Don realizes she's in love with someone else, he ends their affair at the end of Season 1 and gives her the bonus he received at work. She reappears in the fourth season after tracking Don down at his office building. After leading him back to her apartment to meet her husband, her ruse to get Don to buy one of her paintings becomes clear, as does her addiction to heroin. Don gives her $120 in cash 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. 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 and wants to marry her, he must first get a "divorce" from Anna, which she grants him. He pays her another visit during his trip to California during the fourth season. Anna has a noticeable limp as a result of polio, and has a sister named Patty (Susan Leslie) in whom the true Don Draper was interested before he married Anna. Later in the fourth season, Anna's niece Stephanie (Caity Lotz) informs Don that Anna has terminal cancer, devastating him. Patty has kept the news from Anna, and Don eventually agrees to do the same. Several months later, Anna succumbs to her illness. Don sees an apparition of her smiling and holding a suitcase the night she dies. It is her death that inspires him to try 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 the third season, on June 21, 1963, and is named after Betty's late father, Gene Hofstadt.

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 the fifth season, 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 (midway through season 6) a run down building on the Upper West Side, which they renovate and live in. Abe proves incompetent at home repair as well as having a far too lax attitude towards the crime in the neighborhood and never telling 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 which further angers 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

At the beginning of Season 3, Suzanne Farrell (Abigail Spencer) is Sally Draper's third grade teacher. 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. Farrell 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.

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 womanizing, Lee's behavior is accepted because his father runs the company and Lucky Strike represents the lion's share of Sterling Cooper's business.

In season 3, Lee Garner, Jr., sexually propositions Sal Romano, only to be rebuffed by the still closeted man. 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 in order 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, 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 turns executive power over to his son due to health issues.

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 to 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, married to a man named Carlton, is pregnant in season 1 and gives birth to a baby girl named Jessica. Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair. The clues—secret phone calls to Manhattan and the fact that Carlton sleeps at the Waldorf two nights a week—make her wish she could just 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 season 7 (in the episode "Field Trip"), by which time she is working as a travel agent.

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 Kennedy was assassinated. In the season 6 premier, 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.

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 sub-par 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 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.

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 Conrad Hilton, 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 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 worked as a valet. Connie later seeks out Don's help with an advertising campaign, and thus becomes a Sterling Cooper client. He is known to call Don during the middle of the night and to show up in Don's office unannounced. At the end of the third season he gives Don the heads-up that Putnam, Powell & Lowe, Sterling Cooper's parent agency, will be bought by McCann Erickson. Connie is behind Sterling Cooper's forcing Don to sign an employment contract with the agency.

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 Philadelphia area, and a veteran of World War I, he first appeared in the first season when, several months after his wife's death, he began dating another woman, Gloria Massey, upsetting Betty. He married Gloria sometime between November 1960 and April 1962. In 1962, Gene suffered a series of strokes that left him with slowed facilities and short-term memory loss. He becomes repeatedly "confused", believing himself to be back in the army or in the midst of prohibition; he once even fondled his daughter Betty, when he mistook her for his late wife. 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 have a kind of mutual hatred for each other. His declining health eventually leads to Gloria's leaving him in early 1963 and his coming to live with the Drapers, at Don's urging. He becomes especially close with his granddaughter, Sally Draper, before dying in June 1963, shortly before his second grandson is born. Betty names her new son "Gene" 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 two daughters. William and Betty disagree over the disposition of their father's house, since Betty does not want William to live there, 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 favouring Betty as a child, Judy seems to be a warm and kind caregiver for Gene. Don and Betty share a dislike towards 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 Season 1, Don pays Hollis to pretend the elevator is out of service in order to force Roger to climb the stairs 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 by bribing Hollis.

His skin color becomes important on a number of occasions. Pete tries to engage him in conversation about product preferences (for television brands), which Hollis is either uninterested in or sees any extended conversation beyond pleasantries 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, whilst 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, when trying to impress Paul's black girlfriend, Sheila. On the day that Marilyn Monroe's death is announced, Hollis expresses sympathy for Joe DiMaggio, in contrast to some female characters (such as Joan), who mourn Marilyn, and male characters (such as Roger), who appear emotionally unaffected. It is again one of the few occasions that he offers his own perspective in front of the executives.

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 Season 5's opener "A Little Kiss" and remains as a recurring character through much of that season; she again appears in numerous season 6 episodes, beginning with "To Have and to Hold", as well as Season 7's "The Strategy". Gail is supportive of Joan, but their relationship is also 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, frequently manipulating Joan's dependency on her to get her own way. In the season 6 episode "To Have and to Hold", Gail surprises Joan when she tells Joan's childhood friend Kate she is proud of her daughter's 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 remained with Joan, though mostly off-camera during the second half of season 7, continuing to look at after Kevin while Joan worked to establish her new company, Harris & Holloway; she appeared briefly in the finale "Person to Person", taking Kevin out to the park while Joan worked from home.

John Hooker

John Hooker (Ryan Cartwright), an Englishman, is Lane Pryce's assistant during season three. His title is "secretary", but he insists his status is higher than that of the other secretaries at Sterling Cooper. He tells 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 just "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 and including Lane and Rebecca Pryce, who call him a "toad". When the primary partners abandon the company to form Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, John is left to deal with the Puttnam, 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 during the first season in "Babylon"- in which Don flashes back to his brother's birth. In the sixth season, it was revealed that Mack was the pimp of a brothel in Hershey, Pennsylvania. At the season's end, 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 cancer.

Joy

Joy (Laura Ramsey) is a young woman Don meets in California (in the Season 2 episode, "The Jet Set"), whom he impulsively abandons Pete and his business obligations to go off with. 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 skinnydip 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 Sally's behavior at home becomes too much for Betty to handle; Betty also confides in Dr. Edna. After making progress with Sally, she recommends reducing her number of sessions per week, which Betty objects to. Dr. Edna suggests that Betty herself seek some psychiatric help, but Betty elliptically convinces Dr. Edna to continue reserving time for Betty to "discuss Sally's progress" with her. (See "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, has left him and moved to Boca Raton.

Guy MacKendrick

Guy MacKendrick is a confident handsome accounts executive of London-based advertising firm Puttnam, Powell, and Lowe. A Cambridge University and London School of Economics graduate, he was brought in by PP&L to take over the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency. Saint John Powell and Harold Ford expressed much enthusiasm for him. During the drunken office party to welcome the company's reorganization, 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 shredded foot. Because of this disfigurement Powell and Ford decide that MacKendrick has no future with the firm and is fired. ("Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency")

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 pretends to ignore her romantic advances.

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 and potentially losing someone's luggage. 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).

Meredith

Meredith (Stephanie Drake) is a secretary who first appears as SCDP's receptionist during season 5. Her mannerisms and scatterbrained demeanor annoy Joan, and the two eventually have an altercation in "The Christmas Waltz", after Meredith allows a process server into the office to serve Joan with divorce papers. She remains at SCDP, however, and briefly becomes Lou Avery's secretary after he complains about Dawn's continued loyalty to Don (then on involuntary leave from the agency). She eventually becomes Don's secretary when he returns to the agency, eventually moving with him back to McCann-Erickson; however she is let go by Roger Sterling in the final episode, as Don had not returned to work and two secretaries for Roger were unnecessary.

Faye Miller

Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono) is a psychologist and freelance consultant who provides market research for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. 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 (though Sally liked her) her fear that she'd 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 and ruin him; Faye advises him to face the problem and come clean. Faye quits working 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. After Don impulsively becomes engaged to Megan, he breaks off his relationship with Faye, who is older, more worldly, and more accomplished professionally but lacks Megan's rapport with Don's children. Faye 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, less because of their religious differences than 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 season two.

Burt Peterson

Burt Peterson (Michael Gaston) is an account executive at Sterling Cooper until 1963, when Roger Sterling fires him in "Out of Town". In "Man With a Plan" (season 6, episode 7), he is employed by SCDP as part of their merger with CGC, but is let go when the enormous new firm is pared down. Roger takes great pleasure in firing Burt again, which does not entirely track with the way Roger outwardly reacted previously, when Burt was fired upon direct orders from the new British owners and his dismissal was seen as a travesty. Duck Phillips later tells Pete Campbell that he used his new job as a headhunter to find Burt a Senior VP 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 "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 the first season, Draper brings in Phillips, who is looking for a job after alcoholism and an extramarital affair ended his career at Y&R's London office. Phillips appears to be a recovering alcoholic whose 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 cut loose a client, Mohawk Airlines, in order to pursue the larger American Airlines. This event is emblematic of the subsequent relationship between the two: despite the fact that he risked Pete Campbell's revealing his true identity to get Duck hired, Don clashes with Duck throughout the season, as Don's belief in loyalty to both clients and employees is at odds with Duck's pragmatic and utilitarian approach to business.

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. After the successful merger, Phillips is named president of Sterling Cooper, but he embarrasses himself (and secures his dismissal) in a drunken rant when Draper announces his intention to leave the firm.

During season 3, it is revealed Duck is now working at Grey, another New York agency. He tries, unsuccessfully, to poach Pete and Peggy from Sterling Cooper, but begins a sexual relationship with Peggy. He later resurfaces in season 4 ("Waldorf Stories") at the Clio Awards Show and drunkenly humiliates the man giving the introductory speech, prompting security to remove him. Upon witnessing this, Sterling jokes: "I miss working with that guy". During "The Suitcase", Duck unsuccessfully tries to strike out on his own after leaving Grey and deciding to create his own female consumer products-based ad agency. He goes so far as to try to hire Peggy as Creative Director, sending her business cards with her name and title on them. He is desperate both personally and career-wise and needs Peggy for both reasons. During a late night at SC, Peggy catches a drunk Duck spitefully trying to defecate on Roger Sterling's sofa chair, mistaking it for Don's. While Peggy is walking Duck out, a drunk Don catches him in the offices. Don confronts him, and he and Duck get into a brief and comical brawl. Although Duck is weak in many ways, he is a masterful fighter with Don and gets the upper hand, while Don concedes his defeat by saying, "Uncle". Duck states he is a former United States Marine officer and served in the Pacific Theater during World War II, claiming to have killed 17 men during the Battle of Okinawa. Don then learns that Duck and Peggy had a secret romantic relationship. Peggy tells Don this, after giving birth to an illegitimate baby (that Don found out about in season 1, when he visited her in a hospital mental ward, believing she had tuberculosis), she turned to Duck because she was having a "confusing time."

In season 6, a sober Duck reappears as an independent headhunter for various advertising agencies, with whom Harry Crane recommends to Pete that he meet. Duck explains to Pete that the merger between SCDP and CGC has left confusion in the management structure, which has left Pete's role unclear and therefore 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 in order 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 Benson 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 Benson'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 Benson'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 meet Don as Don is on his way out of the building. Despite their antagonistic history, Duck apologizes to Don for arriving before Don had left.

Duck returns in the penultimate episode of season 7 ("The Milk and Honey Route") to successfully recruit Pete to Learjet. He is depicted as a determined, if slightly desperate, headhunter who is drinking excessively 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 an alcoholic, too. Don hires her to watch Sally and Bobby one evening, when he is out with Bethany Van Nuys. Unfortunately, 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 Powell (Charles Shaughnessy) is the managing director of London-based advertising firm Putnam, Powell, and Lowe ("PP&L"). In Season 2, Duck Phillips meets with Powell and Alec Martin to propose that PP&L buy out Sterling Cooper. At that meeting, Powell goads Duck into drinking alcohol, which results in Duck's falling off the wagon. Powell eventually makes an offer that is accepted. At end of Season 2, Powell and Martin witness Duck's drunken rant against Don, which results in Duck's being pushed out of Sterling Cooper. Powell is the architect of PP&L's sale to McCann Erickson, keeping the information from Lane Pryce and the rest of the Sterling Cooper staff. After Pryce fires Roger, Bertram Cooper, and Don in order to void the non-compete clauses in their contracts and 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.")

Rebecca Pryce

Rebecca Pryce (Embeth Davidtz) is Lane Pryce's wife of 18 years. Born to an upperclass British family, she's stylish, polite, and kindly, if a bit snooty. 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 says 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.

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 physically violent means, in order 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 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 Joyce's 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. 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.

Arnold Rosen

Dr. Arnold "Arnie" Rosen (Brian Markinson) — Sylvia's husband and Mitchell's father — is a heart 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 in love with Sylvia) tries to reach him several times. Arnold quits his job in New York when his hospital nixes plans for him to perform a revolutionary, life-saving cardiac transplant. He is also a staunch patriot, 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 USS Pueblo by North Korea as the result of America not taking its enemies seriously, and cites Fidel Castro as the original example.

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 there. 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 his going to Vietnam.

Sylvia Rosen

Sylvia Rosen (Linda Cardellini) is Arnie's wife, Mitchell's doting mother, and Don's mistress for much of the sixth season. 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), while 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. Elements of Sylvia's physical appearance (brunette hair and a facial mole) and her wearing a headwrap and kimono remind Don of his stepmother Abigail and of the maternal prostitute who aggressively took his virginity, Aimee Svenson.

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.

Freddy Rumsen

Frederick "Freddy" C. Rumsen (Joel Murray) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He is the first in the office to notice Peggy Olson's talent for copywriting while working on an ad campaign for Belle Jolie. Since that time, he has been supportive of Peggy's copywriting talents. He likes to seem lighthearted and open despite his age (his eldest daughter turns 30 in Season 2, and he served in World War II). He tries to be funny, doing things like playing Mozart pieces on his pants zipper. However, he has a serious problem with alcohol, and drinks unusually heavily at work even by Sterling Cooper standards. This ends up costing him his job 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 frustration (she felt some loyalty to Freddy because of his earlier assistance to her), despite the fact that his departure secured her a promotion to senior copywriter ("Six Months' Leave"). Don and Roger take Freddy out for a night on the town in the wake of his departure from the agency.

In Season 4's second episode, a 16-month sober Rumsen returns to work for SCDP on a freelance basis after having worked for and left JWT, bringing with him a $2 million account: Pond's Cold Cream. His only condition for coming back is that Pete not be allowed near the account. He is now sober and a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous, which puts him at odds with the penchant his coworkers have for heavy drinking. He originally retains his sexist attitude, until confronted by Peggy, who tells him that she has been asking SCDP to bring him back since they fired him. Freddy is moved by this, and the two develop a close friendship, to the point where they frequently have lunch together. 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, who hires her.

As of the Season 7 premiere, Freddy is still freelancing for the now-Sterling Cooper & Partners (SC&P), while also serving as a conduit for Don's ideas while Don is under suspension from the firm. Don eventually returns to SC&P and hits bottom at work, drinking more heavily than ever, ignoring assignments he thinks are beneath him and putting his job at risk. Freddy finally tells Don to pull himself together, pointing out that he'd be worse off without a job and having to do freelance work like Freddy, and telling him he'll have to earn his way back into SCDP's good graces, ending with the words "Do the work, Don." Don seems to take Freddy's words to heart, doing his assignments without complaint and behaving more professionally at work from then on.

Lois Sadler

Lois Sadler (Crista Flanagan) starts as a switchboard operator in Season 1, who has a crush on Sal Romano based on his phone conversations and voice. In Season 2, she has become Don's secretary but is depicted as being incompetent; Don eventually fires her for embarrassing him. By the end of Season 2, she is back on the switchboard and gives Harry, Paul, and Ken information about the upcoming merger that she has overheard in telephone conversations. In Season 3, she is Paul's secretary. In the episode "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency", she accidentally runs over the foot of Guy MacKendrick, a British executive who was poised to replace Lane Pryce as head of Sterling Cooper. Miraculously, she was not fired after this, as she was seen rousing a drunken Paul.

Shirley

Shirley (Sola Bamis) is the only other black employee at SC&P, aside from Dawn. Though they are quite different, she and Dawn are apparently often confused with 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 on Peggy's desk at the beginning of season seven, but after confusion with Peggy over Valentine's Day flowers sent to Shirley by her fiancé, Peggy demands that Joan move her. Shirley becomes Lou Avery's secretary. She later becomes Roger's second secretary, when his workload becomes too much for Caroline to handle by herself.

Danny Siegel

Danny Siegel (Danny Strong) is Jane Sterling's cousin, for whom Roger Sterling arranges an interview at SCDP in 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 inadvertently uses one of Danny's ideas, which ends up being a big hit. The clients had arrived unexpectedly while Don and a few other SCDP people were at the Clios, celebrating and drinking after receiving an award, so Don rushed back to the office to make a presentation, despite how drunk he was. When the clients don't like his original pitch, he starts pitching random ideas off the top of his head, and the one that the clients like is from Danny's book. Peggy later calls Don out on what he did and persuades him to make things right, so he brings Danny in to pay for his idea. Unfortunately, Danny is more interested in employment than being paid for one idea, so Don ends up hiring him. Siegel 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 ("Blowing Smoke"). However, he takes the news gracefully and thanks them for the opportunity they'd given him. Danny reappears in Season 6 ("A Tale of Two Cities"), by which time he has become a major movie producer with a hippie persona who prefers to be called "Daniel P. Siegel". Don and Roger meet him at a Hollywood party that Harry takes them to. At first Danny seems genuinely friendly, but when Roger is gleefully rude and demeaning to him, tries to pick up Danny's much taller hippie date, Lotus, and implies that he would enjoy hurting Danny, Danny smiles a bit and then punches Roger in the testicles, leaving his former boss doubled over in pain as Danny walks away with Lotus in tow.

"Smitty" Smith and Kurt Smith

"Smitty" Smith (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Kurt Smith (Edin Gali) are a young copywriter/art director team hired by Don at the beginning of the second season. "Smitty" is an American, and often has to explain the complexities of American culture to the European Kurt. They always work together. Kurt is a fan of Bob Dylan's (whose career was still in its early stages in 1962, when the season is set) and arranges to take Peggy to a concert. Kurt is also openly gay, which causes quite a stir in the office when he casually reveals as much in the breakroom and quickly dispels the assumption that he is pursuing a romantic relationship with Peggy. Peggy, who had been romantically interested in him, is forced to give the impression that she knew all along and that she is more liberal than she really is. After complaining 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. Smitty is known to indulge in smoking marijuana, as does Paul Kinsey. Smitty is seen working for rival advertising company CGC in the fourth season, implying that Kurt is working there as well. He speaks glowingly of Don Draper when asked to describe him, which makes Ted envious. In the season 3 episode "My Old Kentucky Home", Smitty tells Peggy he is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Jane Sterling

Jane Sterling (née Siegel) (Peyton List) begins as a secretary at Sterling Cooper; she is assigned to Don in the second season and becomes a magnet for her male colleagues. Joan reprimands her for her attire. As she confided to Roger (in "The Gold Violin"), she shopped at Klein's and (to Roger's amusement) lived on Jane Street.

Jane clashes frequently with Joan and is about to be fired when she successfully seeks Roger's intervention on her behalf. Shortly afterward, she begins an affair with Roger and he leaves his family for her. He quickly proposes out of the blue one morning in the episode "The Jet Set"; she accepts, and they become engaged towards the end of Season 2. By the start of Season 3, she and Roger are married. Their marriage in Season 3 is depicted as tense. Jane is shown to be a gold-digger and heavy drinker, and she is repeatedly rejected by Roger's daughter Margaret, who is two years younger than she. However, despite the perceived tension, Roger repeatedly says his new marriage makes him happy because of Jane's youth and carefree personality. As a favor to Jane, Roger forces Don to hire her cousin Danny Siegel, despite Danny's unimpressive portfolio and job interview.

For a long time after their wedding, Roger refuses to cheat on Jane (something he repeatedly did with his first wife Mona) and turns down the advances of an old flame. Roger does eventually cheat on Jane with his former mistress, Joan Harris.

In season five, Roger and Jane take LSD together, mutually realize their marriage has failed, and agree to divorce. Roger later recruits Jane to pretend to still be his wife for a client dinner, as the clients are Jewish and he thinks her half-Jewish background will help win the account. She agrees on the condition that he buy her a new apartment, which he does. After the client dinner, Roger asks to see the new apartment. They sleep together there, and afterward Jane is heartbroken and miserable because their sexual encounter has ruined her fresh start in her new apartment away from Roger.

In the season six premier, Jane 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.

Margaret Sterling Hargrove

Margaret Sterling (Elizabeth Rice) is Roger and Mona Sterling's daughter. Spoiled and immature (even as an adult, she calls her parents Mommy and Daddy), she reacts petulantly to her father's remarriage and refuses to speak to Jane. She is engaged to be married during season two and three, whines about Jane's attempts to befriend her, and dramatically complains to her father that Jane has ruined her life and will ruin her wedding by coming. John F. Kennedy is assassinated the day before her wedding; Margaret gets married anyway, though few guests come. In the season six premiere, she is disappointed that her grandmother has not left her any money and asks her father to invest in her husband Brooks' refrigerator car technology venture. She has a son, Ellery, with Brooks. When Roger takes his young grandson to see Planet of the Apes, Ellery gets nightmares and Margaret furiously tells Roger that he can't spend time with him anymore without Mona present. In season seven, Margaret abandons her son and husband to join a commune in upstate New York, taking the name Marigold. Roger and Mona try to persuade her to return to Ellery, 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, but he is disgusted by the hippies' free-love lifestyle once he realizes that Margaret is a participant, and says Ellery needs her. In response, Margaret berates him for being an absent father during her own childhood and declares that she is entitled to behave selfishly. In the series finale, more than a year later, Roger tells Joan that Margaret is "lost" and he has cut her out of his will (while getting Joan's OK to provide for Kevin from his estate).

Mona Sterling Pike

Mona Sterling Pike (Talia Balsam, the real-life wife of John Slattery) is Roger Sterling's first wife and the mother of his daughter, Margaret. Roger is frequently unfaithful to Mona, but after his heart attack in season one he appears to briefly re-devote himself to his family, ending his affair with Joan. However, in season two he leaves Mona for Don's secretary, Jane Siegel. In season 5, they seem to be on good terms after Roger has left Jane; Mona even agrees to help Roger drum up business, noting that he still supports Mona and their daughter. In the season 6 premier, Roger explodes in an angry outburst at Mona's new husband, Bruce Pike, whom she has brought to Roger's mother's memorial service. However, both of them work together to bring Margaret home after she abandons her family to become a hippie. Although they are unsuccessful in getting her to return, Roger and Mona are shown to be spending time with their grandson while watching the 1969 moon landing.

Bethany Van Nuys

Bethany Van Nuys (Anna Camp) is a young aspiring actress with whom Jane Sterling set Don up to go on a date following his divorce from Betty. Blonde Bethany bears a superficial resemblance to Betty. On their first date (season 4, episode 1), when Don is dropping her off at the Barbizon Hotel for Women, she explains that she is in between acting roles and is working as a supernumerary. Don dates her periodically throughout the fourth season before becoming involved with Faye Miller.

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. In Season 1, he offers to help Pete and Trudy buy an apartment. Tom also offers to give Sterling Cooper the Clearasil account if Pete agrees to have a baby soon. In Season 2, after Trudy discovers she is unable to conceive, 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 a larger account (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) was Betty's psychiatrist during the first season, whom she saw because of her problem with her hands going numb unexpectedly. While she was seeing him, Dr. Wayne was secretly in contact with Don to discuss her sessions, which Betty found out about during the first season finale. She used that to her advantage, by confiding her suspicions about Don's infidelity.

Abigail Whitman

Abigail Whitman is Dick Whitman's stepmother and Adam Whitman's mother, now deceased, who appears in Don/Dick's flashbacks. Abigail was married to Archibald Whitman and had recently miscarried, when the prostitute Archibald had impregnated died after delivering baby Dick. The midwife gave the newborn to Abigail (who had prayed for another child) and Archibald to raise, but Abigail resented Dick and regularly referred to him as a "whore's son."

When Archibald died and Abigail lost the farm, she – pregnant with Adam – brought Dick with her to stay with her sister and "Uncle Mack" in Pennsylvania, where both were to earn their keep helping out at Mack's whorehouse, and Abigail was to make herself available to Mack sexually. One of the prostitutes, Aimee Swenson (who had a facial mole similar to Sylvia Rosen's), caught Don peeping through the keyhole when Mack was mounting the child-heavy Abigail. When Dick was ill and Abigail claimed he had symptoms of tuberculosis and ordered him to confine himself to the basement, Aimee checked his breathing and told him he only had a common cold, commenting that "Your mother don't know how to care for anybody." Young Dick responded, "She ain't my mother." Aimee hid him in her room and nursed him back to health. When Aimee was evicted, she revealed that she had taken Dick's virginity, and Abigail beat Dick severely with a wooden spoon while berating him.

When Adam finds Don/Dick in New York City and tells him Abigail had died, Don's response is "Good."

Adam Whitman

Adam Whitman (Jay Paulson) is Dick Whitman's half-brother. In the first season episode "5G", Adam is seen working as a janitor who tries to re-establish a relationship with Don after seeing his picture in a thrown-away newspaper. Initially unwilling to associate with Adam, Don agrees to meet him for lunch and later visits him at the cheap rooming house where Adam is staying. Don gives Adam $5,000 and asks him not to contact him again. Eventually, Adam mails a package to Don that contains old family photos and soon afterward, hangs himself. (Pete Campbell later appropriates the box and uses it to try to blackmail Don about Don's true identity.) Sometime later, when trying to reach Adam, Don discovers his brother has committed suicide.

As a boy, Adam saw Dick on the train that brought home "Dick's" body (actually that of Don Draper, whose identity Dick stole) from the Korean War and tried to tell his mother and "Uncle Mack", but they did not listen to him. Adam reappears in the final two episodes of season 5, as Don/Dick hallucinates mildly while suffering from a "hot tooth" that turns out to be abscessed. In one such scene, as Don is placed under anesthesia, he hallucinates Adam's standing over him, his neck bruised from his apparent self-hanging, stating, "It's not your tooth that's rotten."

Archie Whitman

Archibald "Archie" Whitman (Joseph Culp) is Dick Whitman's late father. Archie impregnated Evangeline, a prostitute, who died while giving birth to Dick. The midwife, who knew that Archie's wife, Abigail, had recently miscarried and prayed for a child, brought Dick to their home for Archie and Abigail to raise. However, Abigail always resented Dick and called him a "whore child". Archie and Abigail are birth parents of Dick's younger half-brother, Adam. Don tells Betty his father would "beat the hell out of him". There are other indications that Archie was a terrible father and a mean drunk; e.g., when Don was a child, a friendly drifter stayed with the Whitmans, told Dick that drifters leave signs carved on the front of a property to notify other hobos of the resident's character, and drew some of the signs for Dick. When the drifter left (after Archie reneged on a promise to pay for the drifter's labor), Dick found the sign for a dishonest person carved into the fence. While drunk, Archie was kicked in the face by his horse during a storm and was killed as a stunned Dick looked on.