The obituaries department has been called upon again… And again it is a character I knew and respected from ‘the good old days.’ Gordon Marks was a director of Phonographic Equipment, the biggest distributor of amusement and AWP machines in the UK, if not Europe at the time.
We are talking the late 1960s, around or just after the UK’s 1968 Gaming Act came into effect and made amusement with prizes (AWP) games legal in pubs.
Gordon, who passed aged 90 last week in hospital in London, was one of a unique team of irrepressible characters, led by Cyril Shack who grew the Phonographic business and took the industry through some of its most formative, and combative years.
Their team included other well-known characters from the time, Basil Marks, Gordon’s brother, Max Fine, Ralph Mandell and a fledgling Michael Green. They certainly did as much as anyone to help build the industry and in so doing fell foul of the national press.
I can remember the great court case that occupied the headlines from the early 1970s when Cyril sued The Daily Mail for accusing him and Phonographic of dealing with the American Mafia. Gordon was one of those senior Phonographic people who were called into court to give evidence, as I remember. The newspaper’s case was built on sand – a somewhat shady character who was a sometime FBI agent was their main witness. The case was so dodgy, as I recall, that the newspaper offered to settle out of court.
I may have some of this (or indeed, all!) wrong, but I am sure that more specialist historians than I, folk like Norman Mandell, Michael Green and Freddy Bailey, will correct me if I err…
Cyril, deeply wounded by the accusations and aware of the growing negativity coming from the nationals towards our industry, insisted on his day in court; and of course it went the wrong way, the court choosing to believe the spurious evidence of the newspaper. Should have settled when the chance was there? We all said that, but Cyril, Gordon and the rest of the Phonographic board were intent on clearing their good names and it all went pear-shaped.
Ah well, the gaming machine industry has ever been the whipping boy for the national press in general and the Daily Mail in particular.
I don’t think Gordon ever got over it; I am sure Cyril never stopped shaking his head in disbelief, but there it is…
And Gordon Marks, with his ever-present fat cigar and jovial bonhomie, was one of those memorable characters from a memorable period in the industry’s history. From what others said, Gordon had a streak of often illogical business decisions mixed with a sheer brilliance for carrying off a deal – even if it wasn’t exactly good business. But for entertainment value, he was sheer class.
