Don Draper Biography

Don Draper is the mysterious, brusque, womanizing advertising genius at the heart of the TV show Mad Men. A super-stylish look at the culture of mass-market advertising in the early 1960s, Mad Men premiered on the cable channel AMC in 2007 and was an immediate hit. As the series begins, Don Draper is the creative director at the Sterling Cooper advertising agency in New York City. As played by Jon Hamm, Draper is charismatic and creative, a heavy smoker and drinker, a wearer of sharp business suits, a steely-eyed boss, and a champion adulterer who sleeps around aggressively despite being married (at first) to the beautiful Betty Draper (played by January Jones). He's also hiding a secret: he was born as Dick Whitman, was later orphaned, and then remade himself as Don Draper after he secretly switched identities with a fellow soldier who was killed next to him during the Korean War. The show follows Don Draper's creative triumphs and personal dramas as he juggles his job, his affairs, his wife and kids, his divorce and remarriage, and his secret identity.