Born in 1906 as Charles T. Aldrich, Jr., Gale Gordon had show business in his genes. His mother was the English actress Gloria Gordon and his father was Charles Aldrich, a big star of vaudeville. With a background like that and an entertainment atmosphere to grow up in, there is little chance that Gordon would not end up in show business himself.

He began in radio and became highly respected within the industry. His first big role in radio was as Mayor La Trivia on the very popular radio show, Fibber McGee and Molly. Later he played Rumson Bullard on the spin-off radio show, The Great Gildersleeve, but this show never achieved the huge following that the parent show enjoyed.

He played many radio roles through the years before television became the standard in American homes. He was the very first to play Flash Gordon in the first serial with that character in 1935, The Amazing Interplanetary Adventures of Flash Gordon. Gordon worked on The Wonder Show, with Jack Haley and Lucille Ball, from 1938 to 39. He played John Granby in 1950 for the radio show Granby's Green Acres (the inspiration to the 60s sitcom, Green Acres). Gordon became Osgood Conklin, the pompous school principal in Out Miss Brooks and he continued to play that role in television once the show came to that medium.

He had worked with Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, for a time on one of their early shows, My Favorite Husband, and Gordon was their first choice to play the role of the landlord, Fred Mertz, in their new sitcom, I Love Lucy. Unfortunately, he was under contract to Out Miss Brooks and had to turn down the role. He did end up making two guest appearances on the show as Ricky's boss at the Tropicana Club.

Gordon had several guest star and co-starring roles in television shows over the next several years before ending up taking over the role of Mr. Wilson in Dennis the Menace when the original actor died. In 1962, when Lucille Ball developed another series, The Lucy Show, he was again her first choice as a co-star but Gordon was still under contract as Mr. Wilson and had to turn it down. However, when that show ended, Gordon joined the cast of The Lucy Show -with Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, Mary Jane Crof- as the inimitable Mr. Mooney, the banker employer of Lucille Ball's zany character, Lucy Carmichael.

Gordon stayed with Lucille Ball through the rest of the series and then joined her again with her next series, Here's Lucy. This time Gordon played Lucy's brother-in-law and boss at an employment agency. While the character's name and job changed, the chemistry and bouncing off each other that began with The Lucy Show continued in Here's Lucy.

After Here's Lucy ended, Gordon retired from show business although he did come back for her attempted television series comeback in the 1980s called Life With Lucy. Gale Gordon's entire career intertwined with Lucille Ball in some way as he either guest starred or co-starred in every radio or television series she had done after the 1940s – he is the only actor or actress to have this distinction.

Gordon died in 1995 of lung cancer, just one month after the passing of his wife of over half a century. He has since been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Despite all of his roles in radio and television through the years, none made him as famous as the role of Mr. Mooney and that is how he is best remembered today.