Don Draper
Donald Francis "Don" Draper, originally Richard "Dick" Whitman, is a fictional advertising executive and the protagonist of the AMC drama series Mad Men (2007–2015), portrayed by Jon Hamm.[1] Born into poverty to a prostitute in rural Illinois and orphaned young, Whitman assumed Draper's identity after the lieutenant's death during the Korean War by switching dog tags, enabling his escape from a traumatic past marked by abuse and desertion.[2] As creative director at the Sterling Cooper agency in 1960s Manhattan, he excels in crafting persuasive campaigns, such as the Kodak Carousel pitch that reframes a technological device as a vessel for sentimental nostalgia—"It's not called the Wheel; it's called the Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels: around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved"—securing client loyalty through emotional resonance over mere utility.[3] Draper's professional triumphs, including revitalizing brands like Lucky Strike with the slogan "It's Toasted" by highlighting a mundane process as a unique selling point, contrast sharply with his personal failings: chronic alcoholism, serial infidelity leading to three divorces, and existential alienation stemming from his fabricated persona.[4][5] These traits portray him as a cynical yet brilliant ad man whose cynicism and arrogance fuel innovative insights into consumer desire while eroding his relationships and self-worth, embodying the era's masculine ideals amid cultural upheaval.[5] His character arc explores themes of identity and reinvention, with rare moments of vulnerability revealing the enduring scars of his origins, though habitual self-sabotage precludes lasting redemption.[6]
Creation and Development
Origins in Mad Men
Don Draper, the central protagonist of the AMC television series Mad Men, was conceived by creator Matthew Weiner in the early 1990s as a proto-character for an envisioned feature film. Journal entries from 1992 describe a hard-drinking, sexually voracious advertising executive raised amid post-Depression optimism, exhibiting apathy toward history, politics, and money while grappling with inner conflicts, family transience, and a fear of death masked by indulgence and cruelty.[7] A 1993 entry further detailed this figure's adult arc, including multiple wives, children, a long-lost brother, and relocations from New York to Rome and California, spanning themes of sexual proclivities, existential dread, and the passage of time into the 1980s.[8] These sketches outgrew the film format, evolving into the expansive narrative of Mad Men.[8] An earlier screenplay by Weiner, titled The Horseshoe and completed around 1996, laid foundational elements of Draper's backstory, depicting a Korean War soldier named Dick Whitman who assumes the identity of a deceased comrade named Don Draper after an explosion, leaving the body at a train station—an origin central to the character's secrecy and reinvention.[6] Weiner formalized the Mad Men pilot script in spring 2001, writing it over six days while working on the sitcom Becker; at age 35, he aligned his own midlife reflections on success and dissatisfaction with Draper's, though emphasizing the character's disadvantaged origins as "born with a lot less."[6][9] The name "Don Draper" draws from Draper Daniels, a real Chicago advertising executive at Leo Burnett who pioneered the Marlboro Man campaign in the 1950s, symbolizing the rugged masculinity Weiner sought to evoke in his fictional ad man.[10] While not a direct biography of Daniels or any single figure, Draper's persona composites traits from mid-century Madison Avenue archetypes—creative geniuses navigating cultural shifts, personal vices, and professional ambition—researched by Weiner from 1999 onward through period artifacts and accounts of 1960s agency life.[6] The pilot, pitched to AMC in 2005 after rejections elsewhere, was filmed in 2006 for $3.3 million and premiered on July 19, 2007, establishing Draper as an enigmatic anti-hero whose identity fraud propels the series' exploration of American reinvention.[6]Casting and Performance Considerations
The casting of Don Draper demanded an actor who could capture the character's blend of magnetic confidence, hidden trauma, and existential unease, set against the 1960s advertising milieu. Creator Matthew Weiner prioritized an unknown talent to sustain the enigma of Draper's assumed identity, rejecting established stars like Rob Lowe to prevent audience preconceptions from undermining the narrative.[11][12]
Jon Hamm, a 35-year-old actor with limited television credits, emerged from over 40 initial candidates through a grueling process of six to eight auditions spanning weeks, including early-morning reads in adverse weather and a pivotal New York meeting with AMC executives.[13] Initial reservations from Weiner and director Alan Taylor centered on Hamm's conventional attractiveness potentially eclipsing Draper's inner fragility, yet his audition tapes and in-person vulnerability ultimately convinced the team of his fit.[13]
A key factor in Hamm's selection was a perceived personal resonance with Draper: a innate "resting kind of melancholy" Hamm attributed to echoes of his own father's demeanor, enabling a nuanced depiction of the character's unspoken grief and reinvention.[11] AMC's reluctance to anchor their inaugural scripted series on an unproven lead was overridden by Weiner's insistence that Hamm's obscurity preserved Draper's inscrutability, finalized after Hamm's final audition on July 19, 2007.[11]
Performance considerations emphasized sustaining Draper's duality—outward poise masking profound alienation—over 92 episodes from 2007 to 2015, with Hamm drawing on improvisational restraint to convey restraint amid moral lapses and identity crises.[13] Hamm later reflected that Draper's acclaim as an aspirational figure overlooked the intentional critique of unchecked masculinity and its costs, underscoring the role's demand for layered ambiguity rather than heroic gloss.[14]