Natural Talent

Club Member Yuji Gordon talks political dynasty roots, motorcycle accidents and forging a career in TV.

Yuji Gordon lifts the hem of his pants to reveal two purple scars that resemble the puncture marks of a Godzilla-sized stapler.

They’re a daily reminder of how his career in television nearly ended the day it began. Fourteen years ago, Gordon, then 16, had just landed a role as a wayward youth in the hit TV drama “Gokusen,” in part because of his bad boy image.

“Everybody was, like, ‘Let’s have a party, it’s a celebration,’” says the Club Member, sitting with his two young daughters in a Rainbow Café booth. “The car just came into our motorcycles. It just hit and ran.”

The head-on collision snapped his left shinbone in half.

These days Gordon, 30, appears on Japanese television almost every day as a media personality, or tarento, offering his thoughts and witticisms on daytime shows. It was his mixed American-Japanese heritage and family roots in the Dominican Republic that led to that first showbiz break.

According to Gordon’s Japanese mother, his great-grandfather, Antonio Guzmán Fernández, was president of the Dominican Republic, and his grandfather was the Caribbean island nation’s ambassador to Japan. During his grandfather’s time in Tokyo, Gordon’s parents met while studying at Sophia University.

After graduation, the soon-to-be-wed couple moved to Miami, where Thomas Yuji Gordon was born. They lived in a palatial home on the coast, complete with a private pool and waterslide, until it was decimated by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The family moved into the penthouse of a luxury hotel. “Miami Vice” star Don Johnson lived on the floor below.

“When we went shopping, we had a driver who carried our luggage,” says Gordon. “It did change. My mother was fighting with my father. The last thing my mother said was, ‘I don’t need any money from you. …I can do it by myself.’”

At 5 years old, Gordon and his mother returned to Japan. Since companies wouldn’t hire a single mom, Gordon’s mother opened a nail salon and modeled sporadically.

Gordon was enrolled in a Japanese public school in Saitama. Kids made fun of his foreign name and called him “liar” when he claimed to be descended from the man who led the Dominican Republic’s political revolution.

“Every time they laughed at me or pushed me, I would push them back,” says Gordon, who didn’t learn Japanese until age 8. “I was crying and going home, but my mother was working. I had nobody to talk to.”

At age 14, Gordon’s mother signed him up at her modeling agency, and he appeared in a Disney commercial. A series of auditions—and frustrating rejections—followed. His mother convinced him to attend one more audition. He was hired to play a teenage hoodlum in acclaimed director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2003 film Bright Future.

“The people I was watching in the movies are right in front of me and talking to me,” says Gordon of that first acting job. “It was more interesting than school and friends. I thought maybe I really like this job.”

A friend introduced Gordon to a larger talent agency, which led to bigger roles and, eventually, “Gokusen.” Only Gordon was laid up in the hospital learning how to walk again after his bike accident.

“I pretty much lost hope,” he says of his yearlong rehabilitation. “Maybe I can’t return to this industry. I was even more worried that maybe I won’t walk again.”

Out of the hospital, Gordon returned to his old ways. His mother kicked him out of the house. A friend was stabbed.

“Those motorcycle groups were a big problem in Japan. I wasn’t comfortable being there,” says Gordon. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but I was acting like a tough guy around my friends.”

At age 19, he flew to Los Angeles to reflect. At the arrivals gate, a hulking man with a smile resembling his own bear-hugged him.

“As soon as I saw his face, I knew he was my father,” says Gordon, who had never seen a photo of his father, Michael. “Somehow my mother knew I was going to the United States and she contacted my father. She said, ‘Yuji is in a bad [place] right now, so it is time for you to help as a father.’”

Michael Gordon was a Hollywood actor, with credits in such movies as Bad Boys 2 and Transporter 2. Gordon stayed at his father’s house in Inglewood. They worked out and golfed together.

“I watched him on set, and he was doing the same kind of work as me,” says Gordon, who at 1.85 meters is 8 centimeters shorter than his father. “I wondered, ‘Why did I quit this job?’”

Gordon was handed another lesson during his time in California. While working out at a gym, his passport, wallet and keys were stolen from his locker. In the parking lot, a group of kids exchanged the keys for Gordon’s necklace and Louis Vuitton gym bag.

“I felt so small,” says Gordon. “I was acting bad in this small town in Japan, but it doesn’t work around the world. That was a huge turning point.”

After he discovered that his mother had been sending money to his father for Gordon’s food and clothing, he vowed to repair the relationship with his mom.

Back in Japan, Gordon returned to his agency and begged for a second chance. His reputation was too tarnished, he was told. With “Gokusen” auditioning for another season, Gordon asked for a chance to apologize to the producers. Instead, he was handed a part. Offers soon began mounting up.

Establishing himself as a TV personality presented plenty of stumbling blocks, though. His jokes fell flat and, on occasion, he was driven to tears in studio bathrooms. To improve his commentary skills, he hit the books, devoured Japanese TV programs and shadowed veteran comedians.

American Dave Spector, one of local TV’s most recognizable faces, says in today’s Internet-fueled, 24-hour news cycle, commentators must appear informed, which can be a challenge for foreign celebrities who may not be familiar with all the topics discussed.

The Club Member says being half- or quarter-Japanese isn’t the novelty it was when he started in the industry three years before Gordon was born, and the business is becoming increasingly competitive.

“One’s background provides only a shot of publicity and uniqueness in the beginning. After the first or second appearance, you are largely on your own,” says Spector. “Yuji-san is a smart cookie and, naturally, would not be happy just resting on his laurels.”

In addition to his regular appearances as a daytime commentator, Gordon is launching a kids’ science program and dreams of one day sharing the screen with his father. Family is now an important part of his life. When he met his wife nearly a decade ago, she already had a young son.

“With only his mother, and playing by himself at the house, I felt like I was looking at myself,” says Gordon. “I felt like maybe I could help him.”

As the father of 3-year-old and 2-year-old daughters, Gordon was honored with a best father award in 2016. “I was happy, but I was, like, ‘How can I tell this to my wife?’” he jokes.
Gordon, who works out at the Fitness Center three times a week, says the Club provides an environment in which he can relax with his kids while helping him maintain a connection to the other side of his identity.

“It is impossible to go back to the United States a few times a week, but I can come here a few times a week,” he says. “It makes me feel like I am back in America, and it makes me comfortable.”

Words: Nick Narigon
Images: Cédric Diradourian