Ray Gordon died of acute leukemia at home in Chilmark on Jan. 4. He was 87.

An actor, artist, theatre director, drama therapist and writer, Mr. Gordon graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. There, in addition to studying graphic and commercial arts, he had his first experience of performing on stage.

During World War II, Mr. Gordon worked for the Office of War Information before joining the U.S. Army. He attended Officers Training School, graduating as a first lieutenant. After the war, he moved to New York city where he worked as a commercial artist and also performed in radio drama and live television.

Mr. Gordon was a member of the Actors’ Studio during its heyday under the direction of Lee Strasberg. At that time, candidates for admission had to prepare scenes and perform them on stage for studio members and for Mr. Strasberg himself, who let no mindless or insincere move escape comment.

Mr. Gordon’s film acting credits include Putney Swope, The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, and The Great Gatsby. His original film, Intrusion, shot in the Netherlands, won a prize at the Oberhausen Film Festival before its theatrical run in New York.

In the 1970s, Mr. Gordon founded and directed Cell Block Theatre, a resocialization program for felony ex-offenders. The program combined theatre training for post-release participants in New York city with workshops and theatrical productions in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut prisons. At a time when the national recidivism rate for former prisoners hovered around 85 per cent, only 15 per cent of the program’s graduates returned to prison.

Mr. Gordon also wrote and lectured about the therapeutic use of drama, and was a founding member of the National Association for Drama Therapy.

In 1981, in recognition of the United Nations Year of the Disabled Person, Mr. Gordon wrote and directed Disabled Genius, a play about creative geniuses of history who happened to be disabled. The play was performed by disabled actors whose disabilities were not those of the characters they played. It was produced in several U.S. cities and included disabled actors from each community in which it appeared.

Mr. Gordon first came to the Vineyard in 1949 on his honeymoon with Suzanne Noble Gordon, who since has died. He returned seasonally year after year for longer and longer periods, eventually designing the Chilmark house in which he died.

His contributions to the Vineyard Playhouse included directing Eileen Wilson’s production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives and M. J. Munafo’s production of Lie Down In Darkness, which Mr. Gordon adapted from William Styron’s novel. His Vineyard friends remember fondly the evenings of live music and dramatic readings held in recent years at his Chilmark home.

Throughout his life, Mr. Gordon maintained a passion for the visual arts, especially for drawing and painting the female nude. He taught classes in figure drawing on the Vineyard, and his own work has been displayed at Vineyard galleries.

Survivors include his children, Rebecca Gordon and Joshua Gordon, both of San Francisco, and his longtime companion, Ellinor Mitchell.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.