Much to the delight of Mad Men fans worldwide, the show will be making a triumphant return to AMC this Sunday for its fifth season after a long 17-month hiatus. Most St. Louisans know that the leading man of the series, Jon Hamm, is from St. Louis (we, of course, included him in SLM‘s January cover feature “My Hometown”), but here are some things you might not know about the handsome celeb:
1. Hamm, a John Burroughs School graduate, was an athlete in high school, playing on the football, baseball, and swim teams.
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2. He played Judas in the 1988 John Burroughs School production of Godspell, in which he wore a Sgt. Pepper-inspired coat and his signature look at the time: a backwards baseball hat.
3. He also tried his hand at dancing in the chorus of the school’s production of Carousel. “I’ve been in the theater forever, and he is one of the five nicest guys I have ever worked with. Although he can’t tap dance,” his former drama teacher Wayne Salomon told SLM.
4. After graduating from high school, Hamm first went to the University of Texas, but transferred to the University of Missouri to be closer to home after his father’s death.
5. Hamm is a Mizzou alum and a big supporter of the university. In 2010, he appeared in a Mizzou commercial, ending it with a dramatic, “Z-O-U, Forever.” He was also pictured with SNL star Jason Sudeikis, a KU alum, earlier this year in Mizzou gear after the basketball team lost to KU.
6. He was a day-care teacher in college. “Kids don’t let you bullshit. They stay on top of you. So that was at least one good way to maintain focus,” he told us in 2007.
7. After graduating from Mizzou, Hamm returned to John Burroughs School for a year, interning in the drama department, where he taught another St. Louis celeb, The Office‘s Ellie Kemper. “When he taught theater, we had a few weeks of improv, and he taught that portion,” recalled Kemper. “I remember him saying this thing that I think is sort of the key to improv and maybe all of acting, which is just listen and then react. It’s so simple, but it gives you over to the scene, so you’re serving the whole scene and not just doing what you need to do. He was the person to say that. And he’s very handsome.”
8. During nights after college, he worked as a waiter at Cardwell’s and acted in small productions.
9. He knows St. Louis well. In an interview right before the show’s premier in 2007, he told us “There isn’t a place in St. Louis that you could drop me where I’d get lost.” He lived in Florissant until about age 4, Creve Coeur from 4 to 10, Normandy from 10 to 18, and then, after college, he lived in U. City.
10. He molded his interpretation of Don Draper after his father, who was a business executive in St. Louis during the time Mad Men takes place, he explained during an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2008. “While I was literally just looking through family photos, I could see this man, who was a sort of the master of his domain, and the sort of ease with which he moved through this world—St. Louis is obviously a much smaller pond than Madison Avenue in New York City—but that kind of largess and ease was a big part of what informed my interpretation of Don,” he explained.
