Don Draper

Don Draper
Jon Hamm as Don Draper
First appearance	Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Created by	Matthew Weiner
Portrayed by	Jon Hamm
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Creative director (advertising)
Family	Betty Draper
Children	Sally, Robert
Relatives	Adam Whitman (half-brother) - deceased Archibald Whitman (father) - deceased Elizabeth "Betty" Draper (wife)

Donald Draper (also known as Dick Whitman) is a fictional character and the protagonist of AMC's television series Mad Men. He is portrayed by 2008 Golden Globe winner Jon Hamm. Draper is the creative director of a third tier New York advertising firm, the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency, and his character is somewhat based on a historical figure, Draper Daniels, the creative head of the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago in the 1950s who fathered the Marlboro Man campaign.

Biography

Most of the characters in the series know little if anything of Draper’s past, his history, and true identity. Clues are given through flashbacks, confessions, and secret visits to figures from his past.

Draper was born as Dick Whitman in 1925. His mother was a prostitute and his father, Archibald Whitman, her client. After his mother dies in childbirth, Dick was raised by his father and his wife, Abigail Whitman. When Dick was ten years old and while Abigail was pregnant, Archibald was killed after a kick to the face by a horse. Subsequently, Dick and his half-brother Adam were raised by Abigail and a man referred to as "Uncle Mack." It is suggested that Adam was fond of his older brother and also that Dick suffered abuse at the hands of Archibald, Abigail, and Uncle Mack.

Korean War

When Whitman was in his early 20s, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was sent to serve in the Korean War. Whitman was put under the command of 2nd Lt. Donald Draper, an engineer, who is in charge of building a field hospital, with only Whitman to assist him.

The two men are fired upon by the enemy, but they are unharmed and begin to light cigarettes. When Draper points out that Whitman has soiled himself, Whitman accidentally ignites a pool of gasoline, which sets off a stockpile of explosives. Draper is killed and Whitman switches their dogtags in order to assume Draper's identity.

Whitman, as Draper, is awarded a Purple Heart and is sent home with Draper's body to offer the Army's regrets to the Whitmans. Whitman avoids meeting the Whitmans but is spotted by Adam, who chases the train, but Whitman makes his escape and begins his life as Don Draper.

Life as "Don Draper"

Draper, who is working as a car salesman, is tracked down by Anna Draper, the real Draper's widow. The two remain close friends until Draper meets and marries Betty Hofstadt. Draper continues to support her financially.

Not many details have been provided as to how Don Draper became the creative director at Sterling Cooper. For some time, Draper was a used car salesman before writing copy for a fur company. It was at this job that he met his future wife, Betty, who was then a professional model.

Draper eventually becomes the creative director and a junior partner at Sterling Cooper. He is considered an asset to the company as he has considerable talent for understanding the desires of others and selling ideas to them. He has occasionally been courted by other advertising firms. Almost everyone at the firm respects his talent, but his true character remains mysterious and heavily guarded from them. This is most true for account executive Pete Campbell, who seems to view Draper as both a mentor and a hindrance to his advancement within the firm. When Campbell accidentally receives a package addressed to Draper from half-brother Adam, which revealed Draper’s true identity, he attempted to blackmail Draper with this information. However, when Campbell goes to Bert Cooper, the firm's senior partner, to reveal the information, Cooper expresses indifference.

Peggy Olson starts as Draper's secretary, but with his support, eventually becomes a copywriter. In the show's second season, the relationship between Peggy and Don is revealed to be more complex than it first appears, each having helped the other while in trouble. Peggy is one of few people in the office to refer to Draper by his first name on a regular basis.

Personality

In many respects Draper is typical of an American upper-middle class man of Post-World War II America. It becomes clear during the second season that many of Draper's less admirable qualities (infidelity, etc.) are his way of dealing with his internal conflicts.

Draper appears to be one of the very few men at Sterling Cooper that does not engage in the sex-centered, locker-room style conversations. In fact, Draper keeps his extramarital affairs to himself and appears to be a decent and chivalrous man.

He warns Pete Campbell, in the first episode ("Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"), about his rude remarks to and about Peggy Olson, whom he has just met.

In the first episode of the Second Season ("For Those Who Think Young"), Draper is in an elevator listening to two younger men having a crude, sexual conversation about panties and their conquests. Draper is disgusted, and when an older woman enters the elevator, and they continue their graphic, sexual conversation, Draper tells the man twice to remove his hat (which up until the late 1960s when most men commonly wore hats as a fashion, was a sign of respect when a woman was around). This man seems to be clueless, and Draper removes the man's hat himself, thereby ending the men's conversation and sparing the woman further embarrassment.

During the episode "Six Month Leave" where he admonishes several of his subordinates for mocking Freddy Rumsen's episode of urinary incontinence which was the result of his drinking. The employees defend themselves by stating that they are simply having some harmless fun. Draper responds by saying "Sure. It's just a man's name, right?"

Draper's Women

Draper meets his wife Betty Draper when she is modeling furs. Betty (Elizabeth) is not interested in him until he surprises her and buys her the fur she wore on a photo shoot. Betty and Don marry when she is around 20, and she gives birth to their first child, Sally, soon thereafter. A few years later, she gives birth to their son, Bobby.

Don cheats on Betty repeatedly throughout Seasons One and Two. In Season One, Draper has affairs with Midge, a beatnik who likes to wear different wigs. She is an illustrator and works out of her small, dingy apartment. Draper meets up with Midge in Season One, Episodes 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 and 10. Midge's beatnik lifestyle and friends do not appeal to Don, but she offers him an escape from his high-pressure job on Madison Avenue. Don receives a sizable bonus check of $2,500 from Sterling Cooper and he wants her to run away with him to Paris. However, Don realizes Midge is really in love with a fellow beatnik and instead stuffs the check in her blouse. He tells her to go buy a car with it and walks out.

Also during Season One, Don begins an affair with Rachel Menken. She is Jewish and the daughter of Abraham Menken, the elderly founder of Menken's department store, which "shares a wall with Tiffany's." Rachel, 28, is educated, sophisticated, and business savvy. She is helping her father run the family's stores (he has no sons). Draper's firm is hired to update the failing and out-of-date Menken stores. Despite not getting along during initial business meetings, Draper begins an affair with her that continues through Episodes 3, 6, 10, 11 and 12. She ends their affair on November 8, 1960, the night the 1960 Presidential election results are being tabulated ("Nixon vs. Kennedy," Season 1, Episode 12) and leaves on a long cruise to Europe.

With his relationships with both Midge and Rachel finished, Draper, in Season Two, turns to an older woman, Bobbie Barrett. She is the wife of Jimmy Barrett, a comedian and TV personality that Sterling Cooper is working with. Don and Bobbie have business meetings at Sterling Cooper and also with clients at a restaurant. Don does not like Bobbie's demanding and often, unprofessional behavior. However, she is very sexually aggressive and Don caves in to her during a severe hail storm in his car (Episode 3, "The Benefactor"). During Episode 5 ("The New Girl"), while having drinks with Bobbie at Sardi's, Draper runs into Rachel Menken, whom he has not seen in many months, and her new husband. Draper and Bobbie continue their torrid affair until Episode 6 ("Maidenform"). However, when Bobbie lets slip that Draper's previous mistresses have been talking about his sexual skills, Draper ends their relationship.

Don still has to conduct business with Bobbie and Jimmy and the four of them (including Betty) meet up at The Stork Club for a night out on the town. It is at the end of the night (Season 2, Episode 7, "The Gold Violin") that Jimmy sits next to Betty and tells her that their respective spouses are having an affair. Betty is shocked and sickened. Jimmy finishes the night by telling Draper off (while Betty overhears this in the background).

A distraught Betty confronts Don (Episode 8, "A Night to Remember), but he repeatedly denies any cheating. This makes Betty question her sanity again, as she did in Season One, when her hands would go numb and she saw doctors and a psychiatrist. Later however, Betty is home alone, making dinner, and sees Jimmy's Utz Nuts television commercial air for the first time. The commercial was filmed weeks before Jimmy found out about his wife's adultery with Draper. Coincidentally Jimmy's lines are: "Imagine my horror when a night on the town turned ugly . . . "am I crazy? I don't think so." This commercial dialogue, could also refer to their Stork Club dinner that also "turned ugly." Furthermore, Betty is also thinking "Am I crazy?" because she is not sure, or can't admit to herself, that Don has been cheating on her for years. This commercial triggers something in Betty. She finally realizes she is not crazy, and she calls her husband at work, telling him not to come home. This begins many months of Don living in hotel rooms, sleeping in his office, and him disappearing for weeks during a Los Angeles business trip with Pete Campbell.

Betty's father has another stroke (Episode 10, "The Inheritance") and to keep up appearances, the two of them pretend to be a happily married couple while staying at her widowed father's home for a few days. Betty is upset because of her ailing father's memory loss and his new live-in girlfriend (Betty's mother died of cancer only a few months prior). Betty surprises Don on the floor (Betty is sleeping in the bed while she orders Don to sleep on the floor) of her childhood bedroom, with a sexual encounter in the middle of the night. Don believes, because of this one night of passion, initiated by Betty, that she has now forgiven him (although he still has not admitted to any infidelity). When they arrive back at their home however, Betty tells a confused Don not to move back in. Weeks later, the consequence of this sexual encounter surprises Betty, and not in a positive way.

Don is an emotional wreck and decides to suddenly join Pete Campbell on a business trip to sunny Los Angeles (Episode 11, "The Jet Set"). It is here that Don meets a mysterious European Viscount with a beautiful 21-year-old daughter named Joy. Despite telling Pete that the trip is strictly business and that he (Pete) won't even have time to swim in the hotel pool, Don does not show up for an important pool-side meeting with potential clients. Pete then takes over and for the first time, we see that a more mature Pete can handle clients on his own. Don instead joins Joy and her "Euro-trash" family at their lavish vacation home in Palm Springs. Like Bobbie, Joy is also sexually aggressive and pursues Don, even in front of her father. Joy is nude in the pool one night, trying to seduce Don again, despite being surrounded by other relatives and even small children, in and around their large pool. Draper then realizes, despite his numerous affairs, that this "sexual freedom" is way too much, even for him. Don then seeks out his confidant, Anna Draper, who lives by the beach in San Pedro, California (Episode 12, "The Mountain King.")

Despite Don's numerous affairs, he does at times reject the advances of women. In Season 1, he rejects Peggy's advance, saying "I'm your boss, not your boyfriend." In Episode 10 of the same season ("Long Weekend") Draper rejects Eleanor Ames, the sister of Mirabelle Ames, who Roger has just hired to advertise aluminum siding. While they wait in Draper's office at night, Mirabelle has sex with Roger Sterling, in his office. Roger then suffers a heart attack. In Season 2, Episode 2 ("Flight 1"), Don rejects the advances of a young, beautiful Asian waitress. In Episode 9 ("Six Month Leave"), Don ignores the advances of a woman at a secret, high-class, basement casino where he and Roger Sterling are celebrating Freddy Rumsen's last day on the job.

Trivia

On the April 23, 2009 episode of 30 Rock, "The Ones," NBC page Kenneth, while suffering from an allergic reaction to strawberries and believing he was about to die, exclaimed that his true name is really "Dick Whitman." This is an "inside joke" as Jon Hamm, who plays Dick Whitman/Don Draper on AMC's Mad Men, guest starred on NBC's 30 Rock as Tina Fey's perfect boyfriend earlier in 2009.

• Don Draper's favourite cocktail is an Old Fashioned. His favorite drink is rye.