This is a list of fictional characters in the television series Mad Men, all of whom have appeared in multiple episodes.
Donald "Don" Francis Draper (né Dick Whitman; Jon Hamm) is the creative director at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; he eventually rises to become a junior partner. Draper is the series' protagonist, and more storylines focus on him than on other characters.
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Peggy OlsonMargaret "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 for understanding the consumer's mind similar to Draper's (albeit in a rawer, less focused form).
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Pete CampbellPeter "Pete" Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is an ambitious young account executive whose father-in-law controls the advertising for Clearasil, a Sterling Cooper account.
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Betty DraperElizabeth "Betty" Francis (née Hofstadt, formerly Draper; January Jones) is the wife of Don Draper (who affectionately called her "Betts", or on occasion "Birdy") and mother of their three children, Sally, Bobby and Gene. 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.
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Joan HollowayJoan P. Harris (née Holloway; Christina Hendricks) is an office manager at Sterling Cooper, who acts as a professional and social mentor, as well as an occasional rival, to Peggy Olson.
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Roger SterlingRoger 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.
Lane Pryce (Jared Harris), previously employed at Putnum Powell and Lowe, is now a full time partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
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 that 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 rapes 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. Later in the season, Trudy gives birth to a daughter, whom they name Tammy (apparently after Trudy's father, Tom).
Bertram "Bert" Cooper (Robert Morse) is the senior partner[1] of Sterling Cooper, a crafty old gentleman who is treated with considerable deference by Sterling and 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 they enter his office. Roger attributes this to Cooper being a germaphobe. Cooper also walks around the rest of the Sterling Cooper offices in his socks. 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?" He keeps silent about Don's identity but uses his knowledge two years later to pressure Don into signing a contract with the agency. After selling a majority interest in the company to a British firm who begins to exert control, he begins to feel less and less significant but accepts it as part of the terms of the buyout. But when he discovers that the firm will be selling their business 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 in a drawer by accident, from which it is revealed that 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, Cooper tells the other partners that he is quitting, partially in response to Don Draper's opinion piece 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 office.
Kenneth "Ken" Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) is an account executive at Sterling Cooper. Pete says that Ken is the son of salesman from Burlington, Vermont and Ken mentions growing up in rural Vermont. Ken says his mother was overweight and worked as a nurse at a state hospital. He attended Columbia University. He initially features 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 Pete and fellow co-worker Paul Kinsey. In Season 2 it is revealed that Ken makes considerably more money than his co-worker Harry Crane, even though Crane works very long 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 for 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, so he refuses to try to bring his father-in-law's business over to SCDP. Later in the fourth season, Ken is having dinner with his fiancee, 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 now 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, using the pen name "Ben Hargrove" on numerous science-fiction stories, which he attempts to keep secret from his co-workers. At the end of Season 5 Episode 5, Ken tells Roger Sterling and Peggy Olson that he was abandoning writing fiction stories, but in fact continues writing but under a new pseudonym: "Dave Algonquin."
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 alum. He is married to Jennifer, who works at the phone company. They seem to have one of the relatively more egalitarian marriages on the show; Harry is honest with his wife and is shown asking her advice about his problems at work. Harry 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; he and Jennifer appear to have resolved that issue by Season 2, and Jennifer later gives birth to a daughter named Beatrice, named after Rich Sommer's real-life baby daughter. Harry is 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 that he would be the person to move to California (in the early 1960s production of most television programs had moved from New York to Los Angeles). 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." During 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. During the season 5 premiere, Megan mentions to Peggy that Don really doesn't like Harry, making for an awkward—at least for the viewers—encounter between Harry and Don during Don's surprise party.
Robert "Bobby" Draper (Maxwell Huckabee, Aaron Hart, Jared Gilmore and Mason Vale Cotton) is the middle child of Don and Betty Draper. He was referred to by his mother Betty as a "little liar." In season 4, Bobby is 10 years old.
Eugene Scott "Gene" Draper is the youngest child of Don and Betty Draper. He was born during the third season, on June 21, 1963, and is named after Betty's late father.
Megan Draper (née Calvet) (Jessica Paré) is Don's wife (as of the beginning of Season 5) and is in the office typing pool. Following the death of Miss Blankenship, she takes over as Don Draper's secretary. She indicates to Don an interest in advertising, and one night while discussing work she and Don have a sexual encounter on his couch. She comments to him that she would not run out crying 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. She gets promoted to copywriter at some point. In the season 4 finale, Don takes Megan on a trip to California to take care of his kids when his planned care falls through at the last moment. Although his girlfriend Faye (SCDP's head of marketing research) has been with him for months, he proposes marriage to Megan while on vacation in California, and she accepts. Megan is originally from Montreal, and she is bilingual in English and French. She wants to be an actress, and in season 5, she quits her copywriting job at SCDP to pursue acting. She is 26 at the time of her marriage to Don who turns 40, 7 months after the wedding.
Sally Beth Draper (Kiernan Shipka) is the oldest child of Don and Betty Draper. 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 years old 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, Betty. When her youngest brother is named after their dead grandfather and given his room, Sally becomes convinced that the baby is the ghost of her grandfather 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. Sally is caught masturbating, an act that prompts Betty to send her to 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, ostensibly because she wants to live with him instead of Betty and Henry Francis. Don sometimes calls Sally by the nickname "Salamander". She develops a friendship with 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. She forbids Sally from seeing Glen, and proves to be very volatile whenever Sally sees Glen. Sally continues to surreptitiously communicate with Glen, calling him frequently at his boarding school.
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 Sterling's 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 the death of Betty's beloved father, 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, presumably 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 paying rent to Don. He tries to soothe Betty as she continues to react angrily to Don and his irresponsibility towards the children, but he gets 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 Henry's mother's house, and in the face of Henry's mother's not-so-veiled scorn of Betty. At the end of Season four, they decide to move to Rye, NY. By season 5, Betty has gained a large amount of weight, but her relationship with Henry seems affectionate.
Michael Ginsberg (Ben Feldman) first appears and is hired at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in Tea Leaves (episode 3, season 5). Ginsberg is a prolific and innovative copywriter who is taken on initially to service the Mohawk account. He becomes an essential part of the creative team and surpasses Peggy Olson midway through the season as the firm's most productive writer, as Peggy becomes mired in the Heinz saga. Ginsberg is an idiosyncratic character who tends to speak his mind, which can be both a help and hindrance to him. Indeed, his employability has been threatened at times, including at his interview, where Peggy decided not employ him for fear of him being too extroverted for Don's tastes. However, this decision was reversed by Roger, who had already told Mohawk that they had taken him on.
His 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 vigour. 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 talent begins to create resentment in both Don and Peggy, leading to a conflict between he and Don in "Dark Shadows" when Don decides to submit his own work for an account instead of Ginsberg's. The episode reveals a competitive side to Ginsberg which is not really seen until then, even though his work continues to form the majority of the firm's creative output. It is perhaps his self confidence in this episode that leads Don to make an executive decision to cut out his contribution, combined with Don's own personal distance between his new life with Meagan and advertising which he is trying to overcome.
Ginsberg is Jewish, and he lives with his step father Morris in Brooklyn. In "Far Away Places", he reveals to Peggy that he was born in a concentration camp during World War Two, and that his step father found him in a Swedish orphanage aged 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 step father who trumps his extroverted personality with an overbearing nature. This is also helped by the fact that Michael is physically smaller and weaker than Morris, who is very tall. His heritage is a help to him since attitudes have changed from 1960, where a similar Jewish theme was introduced with Rachel Menken. Interestingly, the greatest contrast comes from Roger, who in the "pilot" remarked on how Jews 'work for Jewish firms, marketing Jewish products to Jewish people'. Roger takes a liking to Ginsberg when he discovers that they both share a common desire to throw something out of their skyscraper windows, and thereafter canvasses Ginsberg's support to help him with the Manischevitz account, which he is trying to bring to SCDP. Although his motives are almost identical to those of the first episode, to 'make them feel more at home', he is less derogatory in his private statements about them, presumably as a result of his ill-fated second marriage to Jane Siegel, also of Jewish descent. Ginsberg's Judaism is another factor that makes him a success at SCDP as the firm feels a need to become more diverse, although their hiring of Ginsberg and Dawn is more an act of self preservation than of idealism. Indeed, Bert Cooper often expresses his personal contempt for civil rights in its entirety, and Roger, although more open minded, is still looking for a Jewish employee to make himself more personally appealing to the clients. However, Ginsberg's employment does signal a change in social attitudes, and he fits in with the show's general trend of social change along with Peggy, Stan and Dawn, all of whom share a more youthful dress sense and attitude to life. With the departure of Meagan in episode 8, Ginsberg's position as copywriter is further consolidated and he becomes only one of two copywriters at the firm excluding Don.
Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) is a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He initially features as part of Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Paul has been involved with Joan in the past. 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 Campbell. Paul later dates an African-American 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. 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 he grows an Orson Welles beard and later quotes passages from his "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. He initially encourages Peggy to pursue copy writing, noting that "There are female copywriters", but becomes jealous and pettily competitive when her skill becomes apparent. He realizes that Peggy and Don have creative "magic" together when it comes to advertising ideas and slogans and is jealous. Paul expresses considerable anger when he realizes that Peggy was secretly selected to leave the company and join the new firm Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, while he was not. In the episode "Christmas Waltz" of season 5 he re-appears, head-shaved, as a follower of Hare Krishna, which he has joined mainly to win the affections of a girl. He contacts Harry Crane to give him a spec script for Star Trek. The script is terrible but Harry, unwilling to disappoint Paul, praises the script and gives him five hundred dollars and a ticket to Los Angeles so he can start afresh.
Herman "Duck" Phillips (Mark Moses) was director of account services for a time at Sterling Cooper. In "Indian Summer", when Draper is made partner in the wake of Sterling's heart attack, 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, in February 1962, Phillips wants the agency to hire younger creative talent, a move Draper resists. He also pushes Cooper to pursue American Airlines in the wake of a very public plane crash, forcing Don Draper to break his word and cut loose a client, Mohawk Airlines, in order to pursue the larger American Airlines. At the end of season 2, frustrated at 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 in a drunken rant when Draper announces his intent to leave the firm.
During season 3, it is revealed Duck is now working at Grey, another New York agency. He tries to poach Pete and Peggy from Sterling Cooper, and is unsuccessful, but he and Peggy begin having a sexual relationship. He later resurfaces in season 4 ("Waldorf Stories", episode 45) at the Clio Awards Show and drunkenly humiliates the man giving the introductory speech at the show, prompting security to remove him. Upon witnessing this, Sterling jokes "I miss working with that guy." During "The Suitcase" (episode 46), Duck unsuccessfully tries to strike out on his own after leaving Grey and deciding to creating his own female consumer product-based ad agency. He goes so far as to try to hire Peggy as a Creative Director, sending her business cards with her name and title on it. He is desperate both personally and career-wise and needs Peggy for both. During a late night at the agency, Peggy catches a drunk Duck trying to defecate on Roger Sterling's sofa chair, mistaking it to be Don's out of spite. While Peggy is walking Duck out, a drunk Don catches him in the offices. Don confronts him, and he and Duck get into a physical 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 is a former United States Marine officer and served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He claims to have killed 17 men at the Battle of Okinawa. Don then learns that Duck and Peggy had a secret romantic relationship. Peggy tells Don that after giving birth to an illegitimate baby (that Don found out about in season two when he visited her in a hospital mental ward, believing she has tuberculosis), she turned to Duck because she was having a "confusing time."
Stan Rizzo (Jay R. Ferguson) is the art director at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Before coming to the company, he worked at DDB, making unaired work for Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 Presidential campaign. He and Peggy are often at odds with each other due to his abrasive and sometimes macho attitude, although the two later develop a strong working relationship after Stan tries to intimidate Peggy by deciding to work in the nude, but Peggy sees 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.
Salvatore "Sal" Romano (Bryan Batt) is the Italian-American head art director at Sterling Cooper. He is originally from Baltimore. Sal is gay and in the closet. Sal turned down a proposition from a male employee of Belle Jolie Lipstick midway through the first season, admitting that though he has thought about having relationships with men, he has never acted on this impulse, implying it was out of fear of discovery. He joins the other men of Sterling Cooper in their flirtations with the women in the workplace, in order to keep up the appearance that he is as interested in the opposite sex as they are. He speaks to his mother in Italian. In between the first and second seasons, Sal marries a childhood friend, Kitty (Sarah Drew), who is unaware of his true orientation, but over time becomes suspicious.[2] The two entertain Ken for dinner during the second season, during which Sal seems taken with his guest.
In the third season premiere, Don Draper becomes aware of Sal's orientation after accidentally catching him with a hotel bellhop, but he subtly assures Sal that he'll keep silent by drawing Sal's attention to the ad slogan: "limit your exposure." Later in the third season, with Don's encouragement Sal branches out into directing commercials for the company, while Kitty becomes increasingly suspicious of his feelings towards her and men. Sal and Kitty have not had sexual relations in several months and Kitty tells Sal that 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. He fears that 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 be dancing and singing "Bye-bye Birdie" (with lyrics changed to words for Pepsi's new diet drink "Patio"). Kitty cannot help but notice that Sal is not only effeminate but also happy to dance like Ann-Margaret. As Sal gets into bed, Kitty's facial expression strongly implies that she thinks Sal is homosexual and now understands why they have not had sex in many months. Sal is fired from Sterling Cooper when he rejects the advances of Lee Garner, Jr., a married Lucky Strike executive who clearly has sexual experience with men. In Sal's last scene, he calls his wife late at night from a pay-phone located amidst a group of ostensibly gay men heading into the woods, possibly an area of Central Park where gay men meet for secret sexual liaisons. He does not tell her that he has been fired but only that he will be arriving home late. At the start of the fourth season, it is not revealed whether Sal remained with his wife.
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 quite supportive of Olson'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 problems 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 on account of his earlier assistance to her) despite the fact that his departure secured a promotion to senior copywriter for her ("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 sober Rumsen returns to work for SCDP, having brought a $2 million account for Pond's Cold Cream. His only condition on coming back was that Pete not be allowed near the account. He is now sober and a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous.
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 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, she occasionally flirted with Ken and during Joan's going-away party she was seen sitting on Ken's lap. After Don asked that Jane Siegel be removed as his secretary, Allison was installed as her replacement. Although the sudden formation of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was done without her knowledge, Allison was hired by SCDP sometime during 1964 and continued as Don's secretary. On the night of the office Christmas Party in 1964, Allison was asked to bring Don his apartment keys which he had forgotten at work. Upon 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 like 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 bursting into tears at a focus group. An insensitive comment made by Don during her resignation caused her to snap, throw a brass cigarette dispenser at him and leave the office in tears. Allison's last name was never mentioned in the show, and remains unknown.
Joey Baird (Matt Long) is a freelance artist for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce who is first seen at the start of the fourth season. Joey and Peggy seem to enjoy working together, reenacting the "John and Marsha" comedy skit in a workroom and laughing. Joey is crude and makes insensitive remarks and engages in actions that would be classed as sexual harrassment later in the century. Joey also is insolent and verbally abuses Joan. Joey draws a pornographic picture of Joan and Lane Pryce engaged in oral sex, and speaks contemptuously of Joan, alleging she got her job through having sex with the men in the office and lacks any skills of her own. Peggy fires a disbelieving Joey, ostensibly due to his insubordination of Joan, but also due to some comments he made about Trudy Campbell's pregnancy, which has brought up painful memories for Peggy. Joan becomes angry at Peggy for firing Joey, because it makes Joan look like she truly didn't have any power or authority, and needed Peggy to fight her battles for her.
Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) is the wife of comedian Jimmy Barrett (born Jimmy Bernstein) (Patrick Fischler), an insult comic reminiscent of Don Rickles, who 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, also Jimmy's manager, who shrugs off her husband's behavior. On the way to get Jimmy to apologize to the Schillings, Bobbie seduces Don, though he initially resists as he is determined to remain faithful to his marriage vows, despite previous infidelities. When Bobbie later tries to get more money from Don (in a bathroom of the restaurant they and Schillings are at for the apology) in exchange for the pay-or-play contract of her husband's, Don grabs her hair with one hand and puts the other up her skirt and his fingers up further still, 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 sort of Candid Camera-type show, except with 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 up story. The two resume their affair after a brief hiatus following the accident but the affair ends when Bobbie reveals to Don that she and other women with whom Don has had affairs have been talking about his prowess as a lover. Upset to learn that he has a "reputation" and annoyed at his inability to control Bobbie, Don leaves Bobbie during the middle of a sexual encounter while she is tied up. Later, during a party, where Don and Bobbie and their spouses are in attendance, Jimmy reveals to Betty, Don's wife, that Don and Bobbie have had an affair. Betty is humiliated and kicks Don out of the home for a time. Though Betty may have suspected affairs in the past, Don's affair with Bobbie appears to be the only affair 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.
Glen Bishop (Marten 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 and they hold hands while watching television. She acquiesces, and when Helen discovers it, she forbids Glen from seeing the Drapers. Helen angrily confronts Betty in a market telling her that he is a "little boy." Offended, Betty slaps Helen hard, with a few women shoppers witnessing what happened. Betty immediately leaves the market. Late in Season two, Glen is shown to have run away from home and is discovered to have been staying in the Draper's playhouse. They 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 at a Christmas Tree lot, where he encounters Sally Draper and bonds with her over their now-shared experienced as children in divorced families. After discovering that she hates living in her house with her mother, he breaks in with a friend and vandalizes it, but leaves her room untouched and leaves a secret gift on her bed. Betty finds out about his friendship with Sally and forbids him to see her, even going so far as to fire her housekeeper Carla when she 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 boarding school.
Helen Bishop (Darby Stanchfield) is one of the Drapers' neighbors. She is a liberal divorcée and a Mount Holyoke College graduate. As a single mother of two children, 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 (Randee Heller) is Bert Cooper's long-serving secretary, who remains an unseen character until the fourth season when she is assigned as Don's secretary after his prior secretary abruptly leaves following a one-night stand with Don. An older woman, Miss Blankenship had a tendency to annoy Don and his co-workers with her salty attitude and work performance, though she is quite experienced having been a secretary for over forty years. Her blunt and cantankerous demeanor starkly contrasts with that of her predecessors and the other secretaries in the firm. Don, however, decides to keep her as she is exactly the type of secretary he needed and why she was assigned to him - one with whom he would not have a sexual liaison, as well as someone who would not go out of their way to falsely be nice to him. In his tape recordings for his autobiography, Roger reveals that he'd had a tryst with Miss Blankenship early in his career, causing a rift between him and Cooper. Roger implies that 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 was absent from the office for a brief time, during which she had cataract surgery, returning to work shortly thereafter. She died, suddenly and unexpectedly, in the office of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in the ninth episode of Season 4. Cooper mentioned she was born in 1898, making her 67 years old at the time of her death, and said "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.
Andrew Campbell (Christopher Allport) is the father of Pete Campbell. He disapproves of Pete's profession and treats him with contempt. In Season 2, Andrew dies in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1 and it is revealed that he has squandered his wife's fortune and family's inheritance on a lavish lifestyle and donating large sums of money to Lincoln Center to maintain the appearance that he is wealthy. In real-life, Allport was killed in a snow avalanche while skiing in Southern California, and the episode of his character's death was dedicated to his memory. 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 Andrew about it, mentioning a childhood game called "rope" (perhaps in reference to wanting to hang her or the 1948 Hitchcock movie Rope).
Andrew "Bud" Campbell, Jr. (Rich Hutchman) is Pete's elder brother, an accountant. Bud reveals to Pete the precarious financial state that their father has left 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 for children and he lets slip to their mother Pete and Trudy's exploration of adoption.
Tamsin "Tammy" Vogel Campbell is the first-born daughter of Pete and Trudy, born after a long and difficult labor (that took over two days). She is named in a feminine variation of Thomas, her maternal grandfather's name, quite possibly as a way to assuage the thorny relationship between Pete and his in-laws. However, she's not Pete's only child, as he had an unnamed baby boy in November 1960 with Peggy Olson, unbeknownst to him, which she gave away for adoption. Peggy lost her virginity to Pete and got pregnant the same night (she had started birth control pills that week, on the advice of Joan, even though she was a virgin, but they were not effective yet). Tammy is born sometime between September 7 and 10, 1965, right after Labor Day Weekend. Trudy's father, when he accidentally told Pete that Trudy was pregnant, told him that he would give him $1000 if it was a boy, but only $500 if it was a girl.
Carla (Deborah Lacey) is a black woman who has worked as housekeeper for the Draper household since Sally's birth. She continues to work for Betty after her divorce from Don and marriage to Henry Francis until fired by Betty after allowing Glen Bishop to visit Sally. She later telephones Henry because Betty did not give her a written reference for her next job search.
Dawn Chambers (Teyonah Parris) becomes Don Draper's new secretary in season five. She is the only African-American employee at SCDP, hired after the firm places an "equal opportunity employer" ad in a stunt against rival firm Y&R. Dawn is befriended by Peggy Olsen in the fourth episode of season 5 ("Mystery Date").
Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm) (pronounced "Shaw"), is a rival of Don Draper's in the advertising world. His agency, Cutler Gleason and Chaough (CGC), was in competition with SCDP for an account with Honda. Don tricked Ted into making an expensive presentation to Honda executives, which backfired on Ted as he violated Honda's presentation rules (no finished work or commercials allowed at the presentation). Though the two agencies are comparable in size, he seems obsessed with competing against Don. Ted also tried to woo Pete Campbell over to his agency. After Don writes his New York Times ad about dropping business with cigarette companies, Ted makes a prank call to Don pretending to be Robert F. Kennedy.
Toni Charles (Naturi Naughton) is an African-American Playboy Bunny with whom Lane Pryce engages in an extra-marital sexual liaison. Their relationship comes to an abrupt end when Lane is forced by his father to return to England and reconcile with Rebecca, his wife.
Cynthia Cosgrove (Larisa Oleynik) (née Baxter) is Ken Cosgrove's wife, the daughter of Ed (Ray Wise), who is 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. In season four, Cosgrove refuses to use Ed's connections to get new clients for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, claiming that he doesn't want to be like Pete Campbell. He calls Cynthia "his life" and unlike Pete Campbell, does not want to use her or his future father-in-law to get business. In the fifth season premiere, her character is listed during the credits as Cynthia Cosgrove, implying that they were married between the fourth and fifth seasons.
Jennifer Crane (Laura Regan) is the wife of Harry Crane. Blonde and charismatic, Jennifer has the peculiarity of being a "working wife" at least until Season 3, holding a position as a supervisor at American Telephone & Telegraph. She's from a working-class environment and that has helped her to keep her husband grounded. Solidary and generous, Jennifer has often tried to "fit in" with the more sophisticated circle of people surrounding Harry's workplace. She has an unspoken "rivalry" of sorts with Trudy Campbell. She briefly threw Harry out of the house when he had a one-night stand with one of the secretaries, but the two soon reconciled. She and Harry are parents to an (as yet unseen) little girl named Beatrice Grace, born in 1962.
Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt) is an art illustrator engaged in an affair with Draper in season 1. She is involved with the Beats and several proto-hippies, smoking marijuana as well as making several references to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. It appears Midge has other lovers besides Don, including one she may be in love with. After Draper sees a photo of her with another man, he ends their affair at the end of Season 1 and gives her a bonus that he earned. She reappears in the fourth season after tracking Don down at his office building. After leading him back to her apartment to meet the man she is living with, her ruse to get Don to buy one of her paintings becomes clear, as does her addiction to heroin, and Don gives her $120 in cash and leaves with one of her paintings.
Anna M. Draper (Melinda Page Hamilton) is the widow of the real Don Draper, the man whose identity Dick Whitman stole after his death during the Korean War. Anna tracks Dick/Don down while he is working as a used car salesman and confronts him about her husband. Don tells her that he died, and she is heartbroken. Despite the circumstances of their meeting, Don and Anna become close friends, and he buys her a house in California. Anna often serves as an understanding confidante to Don and he stays with her whenever he's in Los Angeles. When Don meets Betty and wants to marry her, he must get a "divorce" from Anna, which she grants him. He pays her another visit during his trip to California during the second season. Anna has a noticeable limp as a result of polio, and has a sister named Patty whom the true Don Draper was interested in before he married Anna. In the fourth season, Anna's niece Stephanie 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, and her death prompts Don to pull himself out of the alcoholic downward spiral he has been mired in since the end of his marriage.
Abe Drexler (Charlie Hofheimer) is the boyfriend of Peggy Olsen in seasons 4 and 5. Abe is a freelance journalist with strongly expressed liberal/leftist political views. He is Jewish.
At the beginning of Season 3, Suzanne Farrell (Abigail Spencer) is Sally Draper's homeroom teacher. She engages in an extended period of flirtation with Don, and eventually enters into a sexual relationship with him. Suzanne is depicted as having a degree of idealism and shows hints of the "flower child" culture that will bloom in the late 1960s. 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 their relationship, but his plans are scuttled when Betty unexpectedly returns home from a vacation and confronts Don about his past.
Lee Garner, Jr. (Darren Pettie) is an executive at Lucky Strike, a cigarette company with a very long relationship with Sterling Cooper. Boorish, bossy and womanizing, Lee's behavior is accepted due to the fact that his father runs the company, as well as the fact that Lucky Strike represents a major share of Sterling Cooper's business, and an even greater share of SCDP's accounts.
Season 3 reveals that Lee Garner Jr. has homosexual or bisexual tendencies, as he brusquely 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.
In Season 4, Garner invites himself to the SCDP's 1964 Christmas party, forcing the company to go against its tight budget in order to make the party a grander affair for their most important client. At the party, Garner 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.
Father John Gill (Colin Hanks) is a young Catholic priest in a visiting ministry at the church attended by Peggy's family 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. A rather progressive priest, he asks Peggy for advice about public speaking and advertising church events (such as a youth dance) after learning about her employment in advertising. He changes the style of a 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 Anita, Peggy's sister, 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 (which would have been associated with Protestantism and considered rather radical at this time; the Second Vatican Council had only been called the previous Christmas, and had yet to convene). He subtly indicates to Peggy that he would hear her confession if she wished, hinting that he prefers their friendship to be one of equals. 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 thought he was the father because he was the only non-family member to visit her in the hospital. At the end of Season 2, after a confrontation with Father Gill over the nature of sin and forgiveness, Peggy decides to define her own spiritual faith and leave the Church.
Francine Hanson (Anne Dudek) is one of Betty Draper's closest friends and neighbors. She spends many afternoons gossiping with Betty about the neighborhood's newest resident, divorcée Helen Bishop. Francine, married to a man named Carlton, in season 1 has just had a baby. Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair. The clues—secret phone calls to Manhattan and the fact Carlton sleeps at the Waldorf two nights a week—make her wish she could just poison him. By Season 2 the couple has reconciled somewhat; Carlton appears to have gained weight, and the insinuation is food has become a substitute for womanizing.
Dr. Greg Harris (Samuel Page) is Joan's husband. During his engagement with Joan, she brings him with her to Sterling Cooper, at which time he rapes her on the floor of Don's office. After failing to become chief resident because his brown-nosing and entitlement do not make up for his sub-par surgical skills, he whines at length to Joan, who gets some revenge for his earlier assault when she smashes a vase into his skull. Greg later decides to join the Army in order to gain surgical experience, and is not concerned about the possibility of being shipped to the still-simmering crisis area in Vietnam. He does not consult Joan prior to enlisting, and before he leaves for basic training he states his desire to start a family. After basic training, Greg is sent to Vietnam. He is aware that Joan is going to have a baby, but does not realize that Roger is the father. In Season 5 Greg returns from his initial deployment but tells Joan that he has to return to Vietnam for another year, giving them only ten days together. However, at a homecoming dinner with Joan's mother and Greg's parents it comes out that in reality, Greg volunteered to return, willingly leaving his family. Joan is furious and tells him to leave and not return. He later serves her with divorce papers.
Conrad "Connie" Hilton (Chelcie Ross) is the fictional portrayal of Conrad Hilton, the real founder of the Hilton Hotels chain. He first meets Don Draper, who presumes Conrad is a bartender, at a Kentucky Derby party. He later seeks out Don for help with an advertising campaign with Sterling Cooper. He is known to call Don during the middle of the night, and is the one who reveals to Don that Sterling Cooper will be bought by McCann Erickson during the third season.
Eugene "Gene" Hofstadt (Ryan Cutrona) is Betty's elderly father. 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 remarried 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 has become repeatedly "confused," believing himself to be back in the army or in the midst of prohibition, once even fondling his daughter Betty when he mistook her for his late wife. His declining health eventually led to Gloria leaving him in early 1963 and his coming to live with the Drapers. He becomes especially close with his granddaughter, Sally Draper, before dying in June 1963, shortly before his second grandson is born, whom Betty names "Gene" in honor of him.
William Hofstadt (Eric Ladin) is the younger brother of Betty Draper. He and his wife Judy (Megan Henning) have two daughters. William and Betty disagree over the disposition of their father's house (Betty does not want William to live there) and over how their father will be cared for as his health deteriorates. Judy seems to be a warm and kind caregiver for Gene.
Hollis (La Monde Byrd) is the elevator operator in the Sterling Cooper building on Madison Avenue. He occasionally interacts with the Sterling Cooper staff. At one point, Don pays Hollis to pretend that the elevator is out of service, in order to teach Roger Sterling a lesson for coming onto Betty.
Gail Holloway (Christine Estabrook) is Joan's mother, who comes to stay with Joan after her son Kevin is born. First apppearing in Season 5's opener "A Little Kiss", and remaining through episode 3, "Mystery Date", Gail is supportive of Joan, but it is inferred that 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. Joan also makes a couple of references suggesting that Gail may have a drinking problem, though this is not explored any further. Gail remains with Joan to help out after Joan throws Greg out.
John Hooker (Ryan Cartwright), an Englishman, is Lane Pryce's assistant. His title is "secretary" but he insists that his status is not that of the other secretaries at Sterling Cooper. He tells Joan that "I'm Mr. Pryce's right arm; I'm not his typist." He insists that the switchboard operators address him as "Mr. Hooker" rather than as "John." He assumes Joan's position as office manager after her departure to become a housewife. He is referred to as "Moneypenny" by a variety of Sterling Cooper employees, much to his chagrin.
Dr. Edna Keener (Patricia Bethune) is a child psychiatrist who is assigned to see Sally when her problems at home become too much for Betty to handle. After making progress with Sally, she recommends reducing the number of sessions with her per week, which Betty objects to. Dr. Keener suggests that Betty herself seek some psychiatric help.
Gloria Hofstadt, née Massey (Darcy Shean), is Gene Hofstadt's second wife, who is despised by her stepdaughter Betty. 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.
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. During the course of their affair, Don tells her things he has not shared with Midge Daniels or his wife. When Don is blackmailed by Pete Campbell, 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 didn't want to run away with her, he just wanted to run away. She calls him a coward. Their friendship seems to collapse from that point on. Don encounters her again in season 2 while out to eat with Bobbie Barrett, finding out that Rachel is now Mrs. Katz, having since gotten married to a man named Tilden Katz. Though it appears that Don is only momentarily shaken by the news of her marriage, several 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.
Dr. Faye Miller (Cara Buono) is a freelance consultant who provides market research for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. She is a tough and independent "modern woman" whom Peggy admires. Don takes an interest in her and eventually the two embark on a secret romantic relationship. Don later reveals his past as Dick Whitman and entrusts Faye with the information. 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. After Don proposes to Megan Calvet, he breaks off his relationship with Faye, who lacks Megan's rapport with Don's children.
Katherine Olson (Myra Turley) and Anita Olson Respola (Audrey Wasilewski) are Peggy's mother and sister, respectively. 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. She does not approve of Peggy's decision to live with Abe, less because of their religious differences than her nihilistic view that Peggy is a practice relationship for the real family he will someday have, and harshly tells her daughter that loneliness is no excuse for shacking up, and to simply buy a series of cats for companionship until she passes away. A devout Catholic, Katherine is vocally critical of Father Gill's style of preaching during season two. Anita, who is married with three children, shared her mother's anger at Peggy after her sister's pregnancy, going so far as to reveal Peggy's secret to Father Gill while she was taking confession.
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 passed out, she helps him to bed and fends off a pass from him. Don hires her to watch Sally and Bobby one evening when he is out with Bethany Van Nuys. Unfortunately, Sally cuts off her hair while on Phoebe's watch, angering Don, who has to deal with the aftermath from Betty.
St. John Powell (pronounced "SINjin") (Charles Shaughnessy) is the managing director of London-based advertising firm Putnam, Powell, and Lowe. In Season 2, Duck Phillips meets with Powell and Alec Martin to propose that Putnam Powell 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. He later fires Pryce for "lack of character," furious that he has conspired with Sterling, Cooper and Draper to break their contracts and steal key clients.
Rebecca Pryce (Embeth Davidtz) is Lane Pryce's wife of 18 years. Born to an upper-class British family, she's a stylish, polite and kindly woman, if a bit snooty. She follows Lane to New York in Season 3, but suffers the strain of culture shock and by Season 4 returns to London, with her son, Nigel, in tow. After a brief separation, and Lane's infidelity with a Playboy Bunny, they apparently smooth over their problems and Rebecca moves back to New York to reconcile.
Robert Pryce (William 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 rather complicated love/hate relationship with his son, whom he dominates even by physically violent means, in order to make him "take action and sort his problems, putting his house in order."
Joyce Ramsay (Zosia Mamet) works as an assistant photo editor at Life magazine in the same building as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Peggy meets her in the elevator and the two quickly become friends, and Joyce introduces Peggy to the counter-culture scene of the early 1960s. Joyce is a lesbian.
Lois Sadler (Crista Flanagan) starts as a switchboard operator in Season 1. In Season 2, she has become Don's secretary, but is depicted as being incompetent and is eventually sacked by Don 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. It is Lois who is driving the tractor that causes the mayhem in "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency." Miraculously, she is not fired after this incident. She has a noticeable crush on Sal in Season 1; whether she realises he's gay or not is not shown.
Danny Siegel (Danny Strong) is Jane Sterling's cousin who is brought in for an interview at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Don and Peggy find his work laughable and the decision is made 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. Peggy 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 to be paid for one idea, so he ends up being hired by Don. He ends up generally fitting in well with the rest of the younger staffers, though he's still somewhat clueless. Danny is one of the first people let go from SCDP after it loses the Lucky Strike account, but Don and Peggy are visibly upset when they have to fire him, and he takes the news gracefully as he thanks them for the opportunity he received.
"Smitty" Smith (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Kurt Smith (Edin Gali) are a young copy writer/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 (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. 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, but he is fired by Ted Chaough for speaking too glowingly of Don Draper when asked to describe him. In the season 3 episode "My Old Kentucky Home" Smitty tells Peggy he is a graduate of the University of Michigan.
Jane Sterling (née Siegel) (Peyton List) is a secretary at Sterling Cooper. She is assigned to Don in the second season. Jane clashes frequently with Joan and is about to be fired when Roger intervenes 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", and as she accepts his offer of marriage, they become engaged towards the end of Season 2. By the start of Season 3 she and Roger are married. Their marriage in season three is depicted as tense. Jane is shown to be a 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 that he is happy as a result of his new marriage due to Jane's youth and carefree personality. 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 he bought for Jane. They sleep together in her new apartment, and Jane is heartbroken and miserable because her fresh start in her new apartment away from Roger has been ruined by their sexual encounter.
Margaret Sterling (Elizabeth Rice) is the daughter of Roger and Mona Sterling. A bit of a brat, she reacts petulantly to her father's remarriage and refuses to speak to Jane. She is engaged to be married during season three but John Kennedy is assassinated the day before her wedding. The decision is made to hold the wedding anyway, but the guest turn-out is significantly diminished.
Mona Sterling (Talia Balsam, who is the real-life wife of John Slattery) is Roger Sterling's ex-wife. During their marriage he engaged in a number of extramarital affairs, but it wasn't until he met Jane Siegel that he ended their marriage.
Brooks Hargrove (Derek Ray) is the dutiful fiance/husband of Margaret Sterling. They were married on November 23, 1963, the day after John Kennedy was assassinated.
Bethany Van Nuys (Anna Camp) is a young woman with whom Jane Sterling set Don up on a date following his divorce from Betty. He dates her periodically throughout the fourth season before becoming involved with Faye Miller.
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 offers to give Sterling Cooper the Clearasil account if Pete agrees to having a baby soon. In Season 2, after Trudy finds out she is unable to conceive, he 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, Clearasil is dropped by the agency because of a conflict with another account, but Pete is able to manipulate Tom into giving him several larger accounts from Tom's company.
Dr. Arnold Wayne (Andy Umberger) was Betty's psychiatrist during the first season, who 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.
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 him, Don agrees to meet him at lunch and later visits him at a cheap rooming house where he's staying. Don gives Adam $5,000 and asks him not to try to contact him again. Eventually, Adam mails a package to Don that contains old family photos and soon after hangs himself. Some time later in trying to reach Adam, Don discovers that Adam has committed suicide, which devastates him. The box was later used by Pete Campbell to try and blackmail Don about his true identity. As a boy, Adam saw Dick on the train that brought back "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.
Archie Whitman (Joseph Culp) was the father of Dick Whitman. Archie impregnated a prostitute who died while giving birth to Dick. After the child is brought to their home, Archie and his wife, Abigail, raise Dick. The couple are also the parents of Dick's younger half-brother, Adam. Don tells Betty that his father would "beat the hell out of him." There are other indications that Archie was a terrible father and man. When Don was a child, a friendly drifter stayed with the Whitmans and had a conversation with Dick (Don) about how drifters leave signs carved on the front of a property to notify other hoboes of a resident's character. When the drifter leaves, Dick investigates and finds the sign for a dishonest person carved into the fence. Fate caught up with Archie's bad character. Drunk, Archie is kicked in the face by his horse and killed as a stunned Dick looks on.
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