History Characters / MadMen

* [[Characters/MadMenTheMainCharacters The Main Characters]] [[note]]Don Draper, Peggy Olson, Joan Holloway, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, Bert Cooper, Lane Pryce, Betty Draper, Sally Draper[[/note]]
* [[Characters/MadMenSterlingCooper Sterling Cooper]][[note]]Harry Crane, Ken Cosgrove, Paul Kinsey, Sal Romano, Duck Phillips, Freddy Rumsen, Allison, Lois Sadler, Kurt Smith and Smitty, John Hooker[[/note]]
* [[Characters/MadMenSterlingCooperDraperPryce Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce]][[note]]Stan Rizzo, Faye Miller, Megan Draper, Michael Ginsberg, Dawn Chambers, Bob Benson, Lou Avery, Meredith, Caroline, Clara, Shirley, Scarlet, Johnny Mathis[[/note]]

* [[Characters/MadMenOtherCharacters Other Characters]][[note]]Carla, Bobbie Barrett, Jimmy Barrett, Ed Baxter, Glen Bishop, Manolo Colon, Midge Daniels, Lt. Don Draper, Suzanne Farrell, Lee Garner, Jr., Father John Gill, Francine Henson, Conrad Hilton, Jim Hobart, Stephanie Horton, Mack Johnson, Guy [=McKendrick=], Rachel Menket, St. John Powell, Kitty Romano, Dr. Arnold Rosen, Sylvia Rosen[[/note]]

* [[Characters/MadMenOtherCharacters Other Characters]][[note]]Carla, Bobbie Barrett, Jimmy Barrett, Ed Baxter, Glen Bishop, Manolo Colon, Midge Daniels, Lt. Don Draper, Suzanne Farrell, Lee Garner, Jr., Father John Gill, Francine Henson, Conrad Hilton, Jim Hobart, Stephanie Horton, Mack Johnson, Guy McKendrick, Rachel Menket, St. John Powell, Kitty Romano, Dr. Arnold Rosen, Sylvia Rosen[[/note]]

* [[Characters/MadMenTheMainCharacters The Main Characters]]
* [[Characters/MadMenSterlingCooper Sterling Cooper]]
* [[Characters/MadMenSterlingCooperDraperPryce Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce]]
* [[Characters/MadMenCutlerGleasonChaough Cutler Gleason Chaough]]
* [[Characters/MadMenFamilies Families]]
* [[Characters/MadMenOtherCharacters Other Characters]]

Due to the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters extensive]] list of the characters in ''Series/MadMen'', the character sheet has been split between the main ensemble and the supporting cast. Beware of spoilers.

* [[Characters/MadMenSterlingCooperDraperPyce Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce]]

* [[Characters/MadMenOtherCharacters Other Characters]]

* [[Characters/MadMenOtherCharacters Other Characters]]
[[/index]]

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%% There is NEVER a correct reason to put the name of a trope in spoiler tags. If the trope name itself is a spoiler, either don't add the example to begin with or embed it as a pothole from another trope entry. See Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers for further details.
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[[foldercontrol]]

!Other characters

[[folder:Carla]]
->'''Played By''': Deborah Lacey

The Drapers' housekeeper and sort-of nanny. The show's most prominent black character in the first four seasons, not that that's saying very much.

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* KindlyHousekeeper: Very kind. She takes care of what Betty needs during the divorce and whenever Betty is hungover after a party where Don humiliated her.
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Parental Figure]]: Served as this to Bobby and Sally, being the only adult in their household who isn't having an affair, an alcoholic, depressed, narcissistic, childish, nor possessing any other dysfunctional behavior.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Sally and Bobby, often. Especially during Betty's brief collapse during season 2, where Carla would take virtually complete care of the kids with Betty only bothering to say goodbye to them on their way to school. And during season 3 when she is shown to take care of the kids for 6 weeks while both parents are away.
* PutOnABus: Betty fired her at the end of the fourth season for letting Glen come to see Sally, though it's strongly implied that Betty just used it as a convenient excuse to get rid of what she saw as both a challenge to her authority as a mother, and one of the last major remnants of her marriage to Don.
* SatelliteCharacter: We never see any of her life outside the Draper household, and she rarely discusses it. When she starts to, Betty usually changes the subject rather abruptly.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Glen Bishop]]
->'''Played By''': Marten Weiner

The son of Helen Bishop, a divorced woman who moves into the Drapers' neighborhood in season one. Betty develops a rapport with him due to their mutual loneliness. We don't see him again until after Betty has divorced and remarried; he befriends Sally.

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* SeventiesHair: Has curly [[Series/TheBradyBunch Greg Brady]] hair in the last season.
* CreepyChild: He purposely walks in on Betty in the bathroom when she's babysitting him. After she gets him to apologize, he asks for a lock of her hair, and it's a mark of how twisted the basis of their friendship is that she agrees to it. By the time of Season 5, he has a much more normal personality, though he is still a little socially awkward. [[spoiler:He still has his creepy crush on Betty, though.]]
* ForbiddenFriendship: With Betty, and later in season 4 with Sally. Ironically, it's Betty who forbids Sally to be friends with him.
* GorgeousPeriodDress: Averted(!) in ''Commissions and Fees'' - he manages to look both awkwardly adolescent and rumpled in his prep-school uniform. Picture [[Series/MyBabysittersAVampire Ethan Morgan]] in one of [[Series/SixtyMinutes Andy Rooney's]] suits.
** Though by season six, he seems to have grown a bit out of his awkward phase, and his teenage jacket covered in buttons is a pretty impressive display of "cool kid" fashion.
** In season 7B, he's 18 and has hair and wears clothes that make him resemble Greg Brady. Betty doesn't even recognize him at first.
* [[SheIsAllGrownUp He Is All Grown Up]]: He returns in Season 7 all slimmed down and [[Series/TheBradyBunch Greg Brady-esque]], Betty couldn't recognize him.
* IntergenerationalFriendship
* JustFriends: He seemed to have a bit of a crush on Sally, and in season five tells guys in school he's dating her. But he claims it's just so they won't bully him more than they already do for being friends with a girl, and Sally says she doesn't see him that way.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: He says it himself that he considers Sally a sister to him.
* LonelyTogether
* OffToBoardingSchool: His fate in Season 5. He and Sally maintain a long-distance relationship via secret phone calls late at night.
* PutOnABus: In "The Forecast", [[spoiler:we learn that he has enlisted in the army and is about to be sent to Vietnam.]]
* PrecociousCrush: On Betty. [[spoiler:He tries to act on it once he turns 18, but Betty turns him down.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rachel Menken]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_rachel_menken.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Maggie Siff

The daughter of a Jewish department-store owner and heir to the business, who comes to Sterling Cooper in the first episode. She and Don have an affair, which she ends when she realizes he keeps coming to her when he's in trouble and wants to run away. Smart and self-possessed, making her one of his more interesting relationships.

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* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler:She appears as an illusion to Don in the premiere of Season 7B. We then find out that she passed away shortly before the events of the episode.]] Given how this was the first time she was seen since the very beginning of Season 2, it's also an interesting case of BackForTheFinale.
* CareerVersusMan: When she appears again in Season Two, she is seen married to a man named Tilden Katz [[spoiler: and after she died, it is revealed she kept leading her store even during her marriage and while she had her children, only to quit because she had gotten sick]].
* DeathByChildbirth: Her mother, one of the things that makes Don see her as a kindred spirit.
* LonelyTogether: With Don.
* MatzoFever: Lampshaded. Particularly in the first season, ''Mad Men'' acted like Jews were a distant and exotic tribe to the main cast of the show, who, while mostly conservative [=WASPs=], were after all New Yorkers in the advertising business and probably wouldn't have been ''that'' befuddled and bedazzled by them. When SC does business with Israel's ministry of tourism, Don arranges lunch with Rachel to pick her brain, and she asks if she's the only Jew he knows in New York. (She is.)
* MissingMom: She grew up without a mother. [[spoiler:She is revealed to have died of leukemia in "Severence" and left behind a few young children]].
* PutOnABus: She resurfaces in season two just long enough to let us know that she's married some guy named Tilden Katz, i.e. that we won't be seeing her anymore. Many fans were disappointed. (In a BrickJoke on the night of Freddy Rumsen's firing, Don uses "Tilden Katz" as his alias when the guys are trying to get into a seedy club.)
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: She wants love, especially with a man that appreciates her as a person, and seems to get that with Tilden Katz.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Midge Daniels]]

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_midge_daniels.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Rosemarie [=DeWitt=]

The very first woman we see Don sleep with, a commercial artist with a circle of racially mixed, pot-smoking, counterculture friends. Don stops seeing her when he comes to believe that she's in love with one of them.

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* {{Beatnik}}: She lives in Greenwich Village and is of that set, and dresses unconventionally for a woman of her age and generation.
* TheBusCameBack: She's another character who reappears in season four, [[spoiler:now a heroin addict]].
* DrugsAreBad: Well, heroin is, anyway.
* StarvingArtist: By 1965, she is a lot scrawnier and strung out on heroin, far from the more comfortable artist she was in 1960.
* TooMuchAlike: Aside from her disregard for him and their differences (he an Ad Man and her a bohemian artist), she and Don are both self-centered (she doesn't care to hear about his wife because it makes her feel bad)in contrast to the other women who cared for him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lee Garner, Jr.]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_lee_garner_jr_3.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Darren Pettie


The boisterous and possibly insane member of the family that owns North American Tobacco, which owns Sterling Cooper's most lucrative account, Lucky Strike. At first seemingly a friend of Roger's -- they're certainly rather similar -- he proves to be too much for everyone.

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* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Though moreso in his private life than in his professional capacity; the former bleeds over into the latter, however, so it counts.
* DepravedBisexual: His demand that Sal sleep with him leads to Sal's departure the next morning.
* GoodOlBoy
* JerkAss: Oh, yes. It eventually becomes clear that Roger's chief contribution to Sterling Cooper and SCDP is the ability to put up with Lee's abuse.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Conrad "Connie" Hilton]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_conrad_hilton.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Chelcie Ross

RealLife hotelier who befriends Don in Season 3.

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* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He calls Don up at odd hours and is genuinely upset to learn that Sterling Cooper can't literally put an ad on the moon.
* CoolOldGuy: Despite being a client from hell, Connie has Don's back, and he alerts Don to the upcoming sell-off of Sterling Cooper early enough that Don and the others are able to strip-mine the agency and set up SCDP.
* MistakenForServant: The first time we see him is during a wedding, where he is standing behind a counter at the bar. It wasn't until later that Don realized the old man he was chatting up with who he thought was the bartender was actually one of the wealthiest potential clients they've had.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Whitmans]]

!Archibald "Archie" Whitman

Don Draper's father.

* AbusiveParent: Don tells Betty his father beat the hell out of him as a child.
* TheAlcoholic: Archie loved himself some moonshine.
* PosthumousCharacter: He died when Don was only ten years old, way before the series begins. He only shows up via flashbacks to Don's youth, and in one occasion as a hallucination of sorts to Don when he's under the influence of drugs.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Violet flavored chewing gum, according to Don in ''Three Sundays''. This is later touched on as him having gifted Peggy a pack of them for a good luck charm.
* UndignifiedDeath: Peggy assumes Don was joking when he says his father was kicked to death by a horse while drunk. Nope.

!Abigail Whitman

Don's stepmother.

* AbusiveParent: She was heavily emotionally abusive to Don, calling him a "whorechild". It's to the point Don altogether refuses to acknowledge her as being any sort of mother to him.
* DoubleStandard: She beat young Dick with a spoon when she learned that he was molested by a prostitute, blaming him for it.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Only took Don in because she wanted a child and her own had all been stillbirths.
* PosthumousCharacter: Adam reveals that she died some years before the series began. Don is untroubled by this news.
* WickedStepmother: Though it's debatable whether she was any more evil than Don's actual father.

!Adam Whitman

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_adam_whitman.jpg]]
->'''Played by''': Jay Paulson

Don's half-brother.

* DrivenToSuicide: A combination of his desire to keep his past a secret, and his contempt for his old family led to Don turning him away after everyone Adam knew was now dead. He didn't handle it well.
* NiceGuy: He is only ever shown to interact much with Don, but he's portrayed as a very warm, friendly if somewhat awkward guy who really did care for his half-brother, and probably the only member of the family that ever truly loved him. Unfortunately, Don was never able to really love him back due to his resentment of the family as a whole.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jim Hobart]]

[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_jim_hobart.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': H. Richard Greene

The head of [=McCann=] Erickson.

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* AscendedExtra: He first appears in Season 1, trying to convince Don to join [=McCann=] by offering Betty a modelling job with Coca-Cola, as well as offering Don large accounts such as Pan Am and Esso. He doesn't appear again until the final season, where [=McCann=] plays a much larger role.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Initially appears to be very congenial when dealing with Don and the partners of SC&P, but he ultimately reveals himself as quite sexist and petty when dealing with Joan's frustrations.
* ChekhovsGunman: He appears once in season one, then disappears from the show entirely for six seasons only to play a major role in season 7.
* {{Determinator}}: Tries to get Don Draper to work in [=McCann=] over the course of a decade. [[spoiler:He succeeds, but is frustrated with Don's tendency to leave the office without word. When he complains to Roger about it, Roger only shrugs and says "he does that".]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:He never gets his comeuppance for his sexism. But then, [=McCann=] is a firm stuck in old attitudes at that point -- who knows what TheSeventies hold?]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jimmy Barrett]]
->'''Played By''': Patrick Fischler

A foul-mouthed (by 1960s standards) comedian, who frequently appears in Sterling Cooper's TV adverts.

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* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: He's ''very'' good at pulling off the JerkWithAHeartOfGold act whenever the need arises, but privately confides to Betty that he can't recall ever giving an apology and actually meaning it.
* MotorMouth: Seeing how he's a comedian, and an acerbic one at that, this is to be expected. It also gets him into trouble, and nearly costs Sterling Cooper an account.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: While he has less screentime than his wife does, he winds up being the person who tells Betty that Don is cheating on her. Previously they had been entirely HappilyMarried, but [[spoiler:Don's and Betty's relationship never really recovers from this revelation, and it leads to their eventual divorce]].
* YourCheatingHeart: Downplayed; he's certainly not above actively flirting with other women, even in the presence of his wife, but he has more class than to actually cheat on her. However, she doesn't have any such quandaries, and he knows it, much to his annoyance.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lt. Donald Draper]]
->'''Played By''': Troy Ruptash

The ''real'' Don Draper, a soldier who served in the Korean War with Dick Whitman, until being killed in a bombing raid. Following a chance misunderstanding, Dick assumes his identity.

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* BodyHorror: His body is absolutely ''mutilated'' by the blast that kills him. It's no wonder that his corpse was mistaken for Dick's.
* IdenticalStranger: Downplayed; he and Dick don't really look all that much alike, but their height, build and hair color are all similar enough that his body is mistaken for Dick's after his face gets blown off.
* PosthumousCharacter: Is killed a decade or so before the series gets underway.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Despite clearly being peeved at only being assigned one soldier instead of an entire unit, he doesn't take it out on Dick, and shows himself to be a reasonable man.
* WithThisHerring: He and Dick are assigned to set up a field hospital with just a few tents and shovels.

[[/folder]]
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!Families


[[folder:Bobby Draper and Gene Draper]]
->'''Bobby Played By''': Maxwell Huckabee, Aaron Hart, Jared Gilmore, and Mason Vale Cotton

Don and Betty's sons. Much more in the background than Sally.

* ADayInTheLimelight: For Bobby in "The Flood" and "Field Trip"; both dealing with his relationship with his parents.
* TheCutie: Bobby. Gene in Season 7B.
* DeadGuyJunior: Gene [[BirthDeathJuxtaposition is born soon after Betty's father dies]], and she names the baby after him, much to the dismay of Don (who couldn't stand her father and vice versa) and Sally (who is having a hard enough time dealing with her grandfather's death without a ReplacementGoldfish coming along).
* TheKlutz: As a young child, Bobby accidentally hurts himself and breaks a lot of things around the house. It's not that unusual, but Betty comes down on him hard over it.
* ParentalFavoritism: While Sally is more of a frustrating mystery to him, the few times we see him interact alone with Bobby have always been rather emotionally significant to Don, as his own baggage related to his father causes him to see a certain connection to him.
** Gene is the one child Betty constantly holds next to her and treats tenderly.
* LivingProp: Well, Gene is still a baby, but Bobby has been able to talk since we've known him and rarely avails himself of this ability.
** This looks like it could change for Bobby as of the Season 6 episode, "The Flood."
* SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: Inverted in Bobby's case. Due to multiple recastings (see below) he was somehow no younger than four or five in 1960 but not yet a teenager by 1970.
* TheOtherDarrin: There have been ''four'' Bobbys so far. With Mason Vale Cotton's PromotionToOpeningTitles, it looks like this has come to an end. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the episode "The Better Half" where Bobby mentions that ([[InUniverse at his summer camp]]) he's known as "Bobby five" because there's so many, and that "Bobby one" left.

[[folder:Henry Francis]]
[[quoteright:153:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Henry-Francis-001_7404.png]]
->'''Played By''': Christopher Stanley

An acquaintance of Roger Sterling's, Henry is a Republican political operative in New York State first for Governor Nelson Rockefeller, then for New York Mayor John Lindsay,[[note]]Both Rockefeller and Lindsay were noted liberal Republicans, and Francis is no different[[/note]] whom Betty meets at a party. After her marriage to Don starts to founder, she begins an affair with him and eventually divorces Don to marry him. He himself is already divorced, with a daughter. He is eventually elected to the New York State Senate from a safe GOP seat in Westchester County.

* FiftiesHair: As he is a politician, he maintains this conservative look into 1970.
* MamasBoy: Implied, his mother is a very terrifying and domineering woman that looks down at Betty and he's more mild-mannered compared to her. He's shown to be in some denial after a heavier Betty dyes her hair black, resembling a younger version of his Mother.
* MayDecemberRomance: He's a good fifteen years older than Betty and while they aren't without problems, it's clear they love each other very much.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: Having been through a divorce before, Henry tries to be the voice of reason with Betty to try to get along better with Don for the kids sake and her own future, but tends to be terse with Don every time they communicate in early years. By later seasons, he generally shrugs it off.
** The one real flash of anger toward Don featured Henry passive aggressively nudging his car forward into boxes of Don's stuff after an argument with Betty, and while requesting he move his items in a later conversation, requesting Don not come on Sunday because that is the day of Don's son Gene's birthday party. [[spoiler:Don shows up anyway and Betty lets him because he'd not risk losing contact with the kids for the sake of the fight.]]
* NiceGuy: Betty seems to consider him this, in contrast to Don. He may not be so much of one.
* NotSoAboveItAll: "The Runaways" has him display some [[StayInTheKitchen chauvinistic]] attitudes towards Betty, with him even referring to both her and a teenage Sally as [[FreudianSlip "Girls! Girls!"]]
* OnlySaneMan: Usually is, but his old-fashioned ways do clash with Betty's CharacterDevelopment in late seasons.
* ParentalSubstitute: {{Justified}} since he's more around than Don and has far less issues than him. Don gets a little jealous of his good parenting skills.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He might be the best parent on the show. In spite of this, Betty takes his advice about everything ''except'' when it comes to Sally.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Defied, he doesn't invoke his clout to dodge petty things like car tickets and doesn't like it when his relatives try to. He explains to his Mother that his approach to dealing with a speeding ticket is "to pay it".
* SilverFox
* StandardFiftiesFather: In the most ironic way possible, given the context.

[[folder:Mona Sterling]]
->'''Played By:''' Talia Balsam

Roger Sterling's first wife, who he divorces and leaves for Jane, a secretary at SCDP.

* FiftiesHair: Starts off with very conservative hair until she loosens up towards the end of the decade.
* DeadpanSnarker: Hmmm, so that's what they saw in each other....
* FootDraggingDivorcee: She refuses to divorce Roger until she gets a lot of money from him after 20 years of marriage.
* GrandeDame: Oh so much.
* HiddenDepths: "The Monolith" points out that she struggled with drinking and depression while raising Margaret as a young mom and that she was often lonely, likely when Roger was at War or when he came back and spent most of his time at the agency or with mistresses.
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Family Member]]: A mediator for both her ex-husband and daughter, this is well shown in the 3rd season when Margaret's wedding was being prepared.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: With Jane Sterling, even after Roger and Jane are divorced, Mona makes sure to be more poised in comparison to Jane and has a hard time being neutral during the wedding plans in regards to Jane.
** Played with in scenes with her and Joan, as she isn't aware of the relationship between Joan and Roger and respects Joan's beauty and fashion know-how.
* RichBitch: Her first appearance shown her to not show any sympathy to Betty when she mentions that she still is reeling from the death of her mother, Roger complained about her being judgmental; she is a more sympathetic example than most.

[[folder:Margaret Hargrove (née Sterling)]]
->'''Played By:''' Elizabeth Rice

Roger and Mona Sterling's only daughter. She is married and has one child. She later leaves her husband and son to live in a Hippie commune and changes her name to "Marigold".

* FiftiesHair: Has a ponytail later cut into a bob in Season One and maintains wavy hair and beehives.
* SeventiesHair: Her hair gets looser as the show goes on and ends up a hippie with long, loose hair.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: That doesn't change much even when she is over 20.
* CallingTheOldManOut: After being asked how she could live with abandoning her family by her father, she brutally points out the hypocrisy in that, considering how he was a distant, incapable, apathetic parent who abandoned his wife and kids to marry his secretary, so why can't she do the same as him.
* [[LikeFatherLikeSon Like Father, Like Daughter]]: Lampshaded in the first season when Roger complains about how bratty she is, with Joan pointing out that she's only taking after Roger; she also turns out to be as self-centered as him.
* MissingMom: Becomes this to her son when she runs off to a commune.

[[folder:Anna Draper]]
[[quoteright:155:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Anna-Draper-001_3999.png]]
->'''Played By''': Melinda Page Hamilton

The wife of the real Don Draper, who lives in California. Through flashbacks, we find out that she tracked "Don" down after he came back from the war and demanded an explanation, but was very forgiving when she got one. She and this Don never had a romantic relationship; instead she was, as they both said at different times, the only person who knew all about him. [[spoiler:She dies of cancer in season four.]]

* FiftiesHair: When a flashback shows her confronting Don, she has very late 1940s-early 1950s hair, complete with the shiny lower bun and the suit with the shoulder pads. Later flashbacks and current appearances show her with longer, looser hair.
* BlitheSpirit[=/=]ManicPixieDreamGirl
* TheConfidant
* MoralityPet: To Don.
* RomancingTheWidow: Averted. One of the few attractive women Don wouldn't try to stick his Dick Whitman in.
* YourDaysAreNumbered: [[spoiler:But she doesn't know it.]]

[[folder:Trudy Campbell]]
[[quoteright:145:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Trudy-Campbell-001_8730.png]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AlisonBrie

Pete Campbell's wife, from a NouveauRiche family. They had a rocky start, but have grown into one of the most stable and loving couples on the show for a brief period of time.

* FiftiesHair: Starts the series with chic updos of the later 1950s and early 1960s, only to loosen to bouffants as the series goes on.
* SeventiesHair: When she isn't wearing her hair up, she wears her hair lose and when we see her again in 1969 and 1970, her hair is long and loose with some curls. The finale sees her traveling with long, loose but styled hair.
* AmicableExes: She settles in this kind of relationship with Pete in late seasons, for their daughter's sake. [[spoiler: And eventually rekindling their marriage.]]
* BrainyBrunette: A cunning, witty, vivacious brown-haired woman who coaches her husband through his career and reads "the Classics" as opposed to modern short stories and paperback novels.
* DaddysGirl: She's her father little princess, and nothing is ever too much for her (which her husband resents, given [[TheUnfavourite his upbringing]]). [[spoiler: To the point of throwing out of the window a years-long partnership with Pete when his father-in-law finds out he cheats on his daughter.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:Having had enough of Peter's lies and adultery, Trudy unleashes a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech before kicking him out of the house in season 6. A completely unintimidated Pete then bites back himself, stating "You're going to sleep alone tonight. And you will realize you don't know anything for sure." In this show, he's right.]]
* HappilyMarried: Played with.
** Pete and Trudy's marriage takes work (and isn't always so happy), but as pointed out above, it's on much solider ground than most of the other SCDP marriages. However, she eventually becomes quite naggy (see entry on her husband.)
** [[spoiler:They're in the process of divorcing by Season 7 and then call it off in 7B before moving to Wichita.]]
* HiddenDepths: Trudy can dance a mean Charleston and apparently ''really'' loves watching boxing.
** It was also shown that she is known among the office as a notoriously adamant party host, who won't take no for an answer when inviting people. She was even able to force Don to attend a party he wanted out of, and Betty couldn't even get the guy to show up to his kid's birthday party.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Gets pregnant just as she and Pete decide to adopt, after trying for three years with no luck she gives birth to their daughter. In Season 2, her inability to conceive is also framed in contrast to Peggy's unwanted pregnancy in Season 1 (by Pete, no less) and Betty's at the end of season 2.
* NiceHat: Has a wide collection of hats for her going-out outfits, the image shown is just one of many.
* NouveauRiche: Her father is a SelfMadeMan of humble background, and she married into an old money but impoverished family.
* SilkHidingSteel: Appears to be a young, bubbly, sociable upper-middle class housewife with classy manners and a fashionable wardrobe, she always proves herself to be tougher than what her husband expects.
* SocialClimber: Much of the earlier season has her courting the attention of more established women and planning dinner parties, she doesn't abandon this activity but focuses more on their daughter Tammy.
* SpoilerSweet: She is a only child and her parents' little princess. She is usually kind and considerate but later seasons shows that she is used to get what she wants. Hers and Pete's biggest crisis starts when they move out of Manhattan and she really can't see that Pete is deeply unhappy with living in suburbs.
* StepfordSmiler: Downplayed. She has a habit of hiding negative emotions behind a bubbly smile, but is still capable of putting her foot down and asserting herself when she feels the need to.
* WomenAreWiser: She is sometimes more adult than Pete. Other times she can be naive or overly optimistic, and Pete needs to tell her what's what.
** In 7B she clearly tells him that she looks back and sees things as they are rather than how she wants to see them as, so she has grown a lot from the young, wide-eyed bride she was in the early 60s.

[[folder:Emile and Marie Calvet]]
->'''Played By''': Ronald Guttman and Julia Ormond

Megan's French-Canadian parents, whose marriage is decaying from the inside out.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Emile seemed amused at Pete fooling him about admiring his work on Marxism.
* TheAlcoholic: Marie is rarely seen very far from a glass, and in "For Immediate Release" she pulls out a wine glass and then chooses to just drink out of the bottle.
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Two [[FunnyForeigner funny foreigners]] who argue in French. One is a communist KnightTemplar and the other a LadyDrunk with a tongue sharp like a guillotine.
* BrutalHonesty: Marie tends to be amazingly blunt (see above). [[spoiler: Another thing Roger likes about her.]]
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Emile is a Marxist. Megan is married to Don Draper, who does advertising (the epitome of capitalism) for a living.
* DirtyCommunist: Roger has this reaction when he hears about Emile's political affiliations.
* EvilParentsWantGoodKids: Not "evil", per se, but both Emile and Marie are both very spiteful and unhappy people, who nonetheless have raised a happy and functional daughter.
* FreudianSlip: After seeing Sally dressed up for dinner in a very Megan-esque outfit...
-->'''Emile:''' There is nothing you can do, Don. One day your daughter will spread her legs and fly away.
-->'''Roger:''' ''(laughs)''
-->'''Megan:''' Wings, Daddy. You mean wings.
* HappilyMarried: Marie [[spoiler:to Roger]] in "Person to Person".
* JerkassHasAPoint: They each have their moments, in "At the Codfish Ball" and "The Phantom", respectively. In the former, Emile convinces Megan to quit her unsatisfying job at SCDP and follow her dream. In the latter, when Megan has hit a wall in her efforts to pursue an acting career, Marie convinces her to use Don's influence to get work through nepotism. Thanks to this advice, she is a famous soap opera star by the beginning of Season 6.
* MamaBear: Marie [[spoiler:takes all of Don's furniture in retaliation for divorcing Megan.]]
* NiceHat: Marie has quite a number of them to match her outfits.
* PetTheDog: Emile, who has spent the entirety of the episode "At the Codfish Ball" wallowing pathetically in self-pity and resentment for all those around him, finally has a one-on-one conversation with his daughter in the final sequence, convincing her to follow her dreams.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Marie, not that she's so much a senior (she's younger than Roger) but she is a piece of work, a grandmother, and she does insult people in French, as seen when she dines out with Don and Megan when they met with Mr. and Mrs. Rennet.
* SilverVixen: Marie looks young for her age and is fiercely attractive and sensual.
* YourCheatingHeart: Emile was caught crying to a female college student on the phone, though it's never made explicit the exact nature of their relationship. It's suggested that Mari knows about his occasional indiscretions and doesn't much care, but that him going to someone besides her for ''emotional'' support really hurt her. [[spoiler:Marie sleeps with Roger.]]

[[folder:Greg Harris]]
[[quoteright:149:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Greg-Harris-001_5362.png]]
->'''Played By''': Samuel Page

Joan's fiancé and then husband, a doctor. In the first episode in which he is featured (he is seen before briefly), he rapes her on the floor of Don's office, which she keeps a secret and hasn't mentioned since. He fails to get his residency when they planned, then joins the Army instead. [[spoiler:In Season Five, he and Joan have a huge fight and he files for divorce.]]

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Harris -- like Miller and Siegel -- is sometimes but not always a Jewish name; Joan says he's not Jewish, but Roger thinks he "used to be."
* DisappearedDad: He hasn't been seen since "Mystery Date" and Joan stated that if she died, Kevin would live with Greg's parents or her mom; "Person To Person" reveals that he met a nurse, married her, and had twins and hasn't bothered to visit Kevin... and he's still unaware that he isn't the boy's biological father.
* {{Jerkass}}: He seldom thinks about anyone other than himself.
---> '''Joan:''' ''(about why he doesn't see Kevin anymore and if he knows about Joan and Roger)'' No. He's just a terrible person.
* HappilyMarried: The scene that's hardest to watch may not be the one in which he sexually assaults Joan and then acts like nothing happened, but rather the ones later on where they have every appearance of a normal loving relationship. The marriage does have more mundane low points. Joan's contempt for him for sucking at his job and {{wangst}}ing about it, a huge contrast to the professional life ''she'''s giving up to marry him -- which he doesn't even seem to realize. In Season 5, [[spoiler:this is finally subverted when Joan kicks him out of her apartment for good after he volunteers for a second tour of duty in Vietnam without her approval. While doing this, she also calls him out on raping her.]]
* MaritalRapeLicense: Takes Joan against her will whilst she's his fiancee.
* MarriedToTheJob: In season 4, he [[spoiler:signs up for another year in Vietnam without discussing it with Joan first]]; she is is less than happy.
* PetTheDog: He does have a few moments where he's quite nice and sweet to Joan, like in season 3 when he treats her cut. It's not enough to take the sting out of him being a rapist though.

[[folder:Katherine Olson]]
->'''Played By''': Myra Turley

Peggy's widowed mother.

* ApronMatron: A tough, middle-aged, stout, Irish Catholic, take no fools woman who can be harsh and critical of her daughters.
* BeehiveHairdo: Wears her hair in a similar style, was chosen for her by her hairdresser.
* BasementDweller: Some dialogue stated that she and her husband lived with Peggy's grandparents (likely implied to be her parents) until after Anita was born, judging by the ages of Anita and Peggy, it was UsefulNotes/TheGreatDepression and would have been harder for Mr. Olson to afford a house.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She is unpleasant and is responsible for her daughters' insecurities, but she really does love them.
* MyBelovedSmother: Has more than enough guilt for her daughters to partake in, she even made Peggy feel bad about wanting to move to Manhattan, acting like Peggy was moving to Nairobi rather than a train ride away.
* RacistGrandma: Might appear to be this when she expresses surprise that the Jewish Abe eats pork and might have a problem with Swedish people; she is very amiable to Abe up until he and Peggy announce they are cohabiting and she was an Irish Catholic who married a Norwegian Protestant with half-Italian grandsons and really likes Nat King Cole.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: It's lot easier to bathe a cat than to try to get any approval from Katherine.

[[folder:Anita Olson Respola]]
->'''Played By''': Audrey Wasilewski

Peggy's homemaker older sister.

* ApronMatron: She's pretty young for the trope [[YoungerThanTheyLook (despite her matronly look, she is about the same age as Betty and Joan who were born in the earlier part of the 1930s)]] but she has the strong-mindedness, well-knowing attitude, the homemaking and cooking skills, and the figure for the trope; however a few episodes imply that the toll of raising three boys, having a husband in and out of employment, and being a hostess to impress the priest and the neighbors can be hard on her.
* AwfulWeddedLife: Her marriage to Gerry looks to be that way in the Second Season and she is implied to envy her sister's single life, her marriage has seemed to have gotten better.
* {{Foil}}: To Megan's sister Marie-France, both are devout Catholic mothers with dissatisfying marriages and look down on their sisters' life choices. But Anita has evolved past her resentment of her sister, while Marie-France gets called out for being a "ghoul" who cannot see anyone make radical choices to gain happiness.
** To Joan, both have flaming-colored updos and wonder (often out loud) why Peggy is not following their line of choices. But Anita's path is less glamorous, more domestic, and the marriage is dissatisfying while Joan champions a more sophisticated, sensual, stylish femininity.
** To Betty, both are young housewives in dead end marriages with disapproving parents and have moments of resentment towards more modern women. But Anita lacks Betty's wealthy background, education, and [[HollywoodHomely isn't compared to movie stars]] like Betty (or even referred to as having a pretty face like their mother refers to Peggy), she does however learn to get past her resentment of Peggy and seems to be slightly more assertive to their mother, trying to carve out her own point of view rather than ape her mom.
* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Has this with Peggy, who works in Madison Avenue and lives the more "glamorous" single girl life and is a professional success while Anita stays home with three boys and a husband who is on the mend.
* GreenEyedMonster: Is very jealous and resentful of any (sometimes positive) attention Katherine and Father Gill give to Peggy, in retaliation, she tells Father Gill about Peggy being pregnant and even embellishes the story.
* {{Housewife}}: A more realistic one for that time. She stays home with three young boys at the house and hosts Sunday dinners; her day to day life is not very glamorous, with a husband with chronic back problems.
* KarmaHoudini: Anita never faces any sort of punishment for what she did to Peggy, but truth told only Father Gill and herself know it.
* MayDecemberRomance: Her husband Gerry looks a lot older than her.
* TheResenter: Is resentful to the point of hatred in Season Two of Peggy, because Peggy isn't as beholden to the repressive attitudes of their family and community, she gets over this by Season Three and is more supportive of Peggy and stands up to their mother.
* TheUnfavorite: In her way, while Peggy's choices are the subject of their mother's scorn, it seems to be implied that Anita [[WellDoneSonGuy doesn't receive positive feedback for her life choices]] and the look she makes when Katherine comments on Peggy's beauty seems to imply that she never got the same attention.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gayle Holloway]]
->'''Played By''': Christine Estabrook

Joan's mother.

* ApronMatron: Played with. She's a lot kookier and more glammed up than the usual trope but her background implies she was TheAlcoholic who raised Joan mostly by herself and she worked outside the home while being a domestic goddess; she also has old-fashioned standards for Joan's behavior.
* CoolOldLady: Has a camaraderie with the hippie-styled babysitter of Kevin and with Joan's childhood friend.
* {{Foil}}: To Katherine Olson and the late Ruth Hofstadt, she does stress Joan out and is responsible for how Joan uses her looks to operate throughout the world and for submitting to men in relationships, but her relationship with Joan has grown enough for her to see that Joan is a grown woman who can take care of herself while Peggy and Betty have clearly been scarred by their Mother's disapproving behavior.
* TheGadfly: Joan says Gayle loves to "stir the shit" and Gayle seems to find ways to manipulate Joan into obeying her or trip over her insecurities, for instance the SCDP ad to take the piss at Y&R.
* IAmNotPretty: She raised Joan to put care and attention to her appearance, to be the most beautiful woman in the room and is implied to feel she isn't so attractive. When Joan's friend Kate gives her a Mary Kay makeover, Kate remarks "if you look at little rusty, it's because I'm a little rusty" and Gail replies "I need all the help I can get".
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Is meddling and messes with Joan's mind, but she is very supportive of her daughter and her career; Gail is even welcoming to Joan's friends and later [[spoiler: helps start a production company with Joan]].
* MenAreStrongWomenArePretty: She raised Joan to be "admired", as in for being beautiful and subservient to men, rather than for any personal and professional merits Joan can achieve.
* MyBelovedSmother: She is one of the few people who can try to make Joan waver in confidence, it seems her influence has been slipping somewhat with Joan as an adult woman who is learning to live life the way it makes her happy. Implied she is competitive with Joan about attracting men and is the reason Joan attaches a great value to her looks.
-->'''Gayle:''' You aren't at your fighting weight
--> '''Joan:''' Try Me.
* SilverVixen: Clearly wants to be this, inviting the plumber in to enjoy his company (deliberately putting a lemon peel in the garbage disposal, and plays stupid when Joan tells her she can ask him out and she states he is married with four children. Later on his wife refuses him into Joan's apartment because of Gayle's behavior.
* StayInTheKitchen: She has these ambitions for Joan, urges her to be submissive to men especially her husband, despite having to had to work when Joan was growing up.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: She is even surprised herself that she is more proud of her daughter being a Madison Avenue agency partner than for her being a Surgeon's wife.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pauline Francis]]
->'''Played By''': Pamela Dunlap

Henry's Mother and Betty's new mother-in-law.

* AbusiveParents: Her father once kicked her clear across the room and said "that's for nothing".
* AccentuateTheNegative: She tends to have a negative opinion of everything and plenty of people. Heavy traffic on Thanksgiving? The country is being run to the ground because of divorce. Her new daughter-in-law trying to please her? She's a silly woman. One episode had Sally try to trick her into voicing her true, negative opinions of Betty and the Draper children.
* FatBitch: Very unpleasant and obese.
* GrandeDame: Upper-class, older, and serious.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Very unpleasant but she really cares for Henry and even for her step-grandchildrens' welfare.
* JerkassHasAPoint: She is not a pleasant person but her instincts about Betty are right on point.
* MyBelovedSmother: She is very involved in Henry's business and family, is implied to have been a controlling mother.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: She doesn't think very well of Betty, to say the least. She even had the gall to criticize Betty about gaining weight even though she is heavy herself.
--> She's a silly woman

[[/folder]]

!Other characters

[[folder:Carla]]
->'''Played By''': Deborah Lacey

The Drapers' housekeeper and sort-of nanny. The show's most prominent black character in the first four seasons, not that that's saying very much.

----

* KindlyHousekeeper: Very kind. She takes care of what Betty needs during the divorce and whenever Betty is hungover after a party where Don humiliated her.
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Parental Figure]]: Served as this to Bobby and Sally, being the only adult in their household who isn't having an affair, an alcoholic, depressed, narcissistic, childish, nor possessing any other dysfunctional behavior.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Sally and Bobby, often. Especially during Betty's brief collapse during season 2, where Carla would take virtually complete care of the kids with Betty only bothering to say goodbye to them on their way to school. And during season 3 when she is shown to take care of the kids for 6 weeks while both parents are away.
* PutOnABus: Betty fired her at the end of the fourth season for letting Glen come to see Sally, though it's strongly implied that Betty just used it as a convenient excuse to get rid of what she saw as both a challenge to her authority as a mother, and one of the last major remnants of her marriage to Don.
* SatelliteCharacter: We never see any of her life outside the Draper household, and she rarely discusses it. When she starts to, Betty usually changes the subject rather abruptly.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Glen Bishop]]
->'''Played By''': Marten Weiner

The son of Helen Bishop, a divorced woman who moves into the Drapers' neighborhood in season one. Betty develops a rapport with him due to their mutual loneliness. We don't see him again until after Betty has divorced and remarried; he befriends Sally.

----

* SeventiesHair: Has curly [[Series/TheBradyBunch Greg Brady]] hair in the last season.
* CreepyChild: He purposely walks in on Betty in the bathroom when she's babysitting him. After she gets him to apologize, he asks for a lock of her hair, and it's a mark of how twisted the basis of their friendship is that she agrees to it. By the time of Season 5, he has a much more normal personality, though he is still a little socially awkward. [[spoiler:He still has his creepy crush on Betty, though.]]
* ForbiddenFriendship: With Betty, and later in season 4 with Sally. Ironically, it's Betty who forbids Sally to be friends with him.
* GorgeousPeriodDress: Averted(!) in ''Commissions and Fees'' - he manages to look both awkwardly adolescent and rumpled in his prep-school uniform. Picture [[Series/MyBabysittersAVampire Ethan Morgan]] in one of [[Series/SixtyMinutes Andy Rooney's]] suits.
** Though by season six, he seems to have grown a bit out of his awkward phase, and his teenage jacket covered in buttons is a pretty impressive display of "cool kid" fashion.
** In season 7B, he's 18 and has hair and wears clothes that make him resemble Greg Brady. Betty doesn't even recognize him at first.
* [[SheIsAllGrownUp He Is All Grown Up]]: He returns in Season 7 all slimmed down and [[Series/TheBradyBunch Greg Brady-esque]], Betty couldn't recognize him.
* IntergenerationalFriendship
* JustFriends: He seemed to have a bit of a crush on Sally, and in season five tells guys in school he's dating her. But he claims it's just so they won't bully him more than they already do for being friends with a girl, and Sally says she doesn't see him that way.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: He says it himself that he considers Sally a sister to him.
* LonelyTogether
* OffToBoardingSchool: His fate in Season 5. He and Sally maintain a long-distance relationship via secret phone calls late at night.
* PutOnABus: In "The Forecast", [[spoiler:we learn that he has enlisted in the army and is about to be sent to Vietnam.]]
* PrecociousCrush: On Betty. [[spoiler:He tries to act on it once he turns 18, but Betty turns him down.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rachel Menken]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_rachel_menken.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Maggie Siff

The daughter of a Jewish department-store owner and heir to the business, who comes to Sterling Cooper in the first episode. She and Don have an affair, which she ends when she realizes he keeps coming to her when he's in trouble and wants to run away. Smart and self-possessed, making her one of his more interesting relationships.

----

* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler:She appears as an illusion to Don in the premiere of Season 7B. We then find out that she passed away shortly before the events of the episode.]] Given how this was the first time she was seen since the very beginning of Season 2, it's also an interesting case of BackForTheFinale.
* CareerVersusMan: When she appears again in Season Two, she is seen married to a man named Tilden Katz [[spoiler: and after she died, it is revealed she kept leading her store even during her marriage and while she had her children, only to quit because she had gotten sick]].
* DeathByChildbirth: Her mother, one of the things that makes Don see her as a kindred spirit.
* LonelyTogether: With Don.
* MatzoFever: Lampshaded. Particularly in the first season, ''Mad Men'' acted like Jews were a distant and exotic tribe to the main cast of the show, who, while mostly conservative [=WASPs=], were after all New Yorkers in the advertising business and probably wouldn't have been ''that'' befuddled and bedazzled by them. When SC does business with Israel's ministry of tourism, Don arranges lunch with Rachel to pick her brain, and she asks if she's the only Jew he knows in New York. (She is.)
* MissingMom: She grew up without a mother. [[spoiler:She is revealed to have died of leukemia in "Severence" and left behind a few young children]].
* PutOnABus: She resurfaces in season two just long enough to let us know that she's married some guy named Tilden Katz, i.e. that we won't be seeing her anymore. Many fans were disappointed. (In a BrickJoke on the night of Freddy Rumsen's firing, Don uses "Tilden Katz" as his alias when the guys are trying to get into a seedy club.)
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: She wants love, especially with a man that appreciates her as a person, and seems to get that with Tilden Katz.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Midge Daniels]]

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_midge_daniels.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Rosemarie [=DeWitt=]

The very first woman we see Don sleep with, a commercial artist with a circle of racially mixed, pot-smoking, counterculture friends. Don stops seeing her when he comes to believe that she's in love with one of them.

----

* {{Beatnik}}: She lives in Greenwich Village and is of that set, and dresses unconventionally for a woman of her age and generation.
* TheBusCameBack: She's another character who reappears in season four, [[spoiler:now a heroin addict]].
* DrugsAreBad: Well, heroin is, anyway.
* StarvingArtist: By 1965, she is a lot scrawnier and strung out on heroin, far from the more comfortable artist she was in 1960.
* TooMuchAlike: Aside from her disregard for him and their differences (he an Ad Man and her a bohemian artist), she and Don are both self-centered (she doesn't care to hear about his wife because it makes her feel bad)in contrast to the other women who cared for him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lee Garner, Jr.]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_lee_garner_jr_3.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Darren Pettie


The boisterous and possibly insane member of the family that owns North American Tobacco, which owns Sterling Cooper's most lucrative account, Lucky Strike. At first seemingly a friend of Roger's -- they're certainly rather similar -- he proves to be too much for everyone.

----

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Though moreso in his private life than in his professional capacity; the former bleeds over into the latter, however, so it counts.
* DepravedBisexual: His demand that Sal sleep with him leads to Sal's departure the next morning.
* GoodOlBoy
* JerkAss: Oh, yes. It eventually becomes clear that Roger's chief contribution to Sterling Cooper and SCDP is the ability to put up with Lee's abuse.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Conrad "Connie" Hilton]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_conrad_hilton.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Chelcie Ross

RealLife hotelier who befriends Don in Season 3.

----

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He calls Don up at odd hours and is genuinely upset to learn that Sterling Cooper can't literally put an ad on the moon.
* CoolOldGuy: Despite being a client from hell, Connie has Don's back, and he alerts Don to the upcoming sell-off of Sterling Cooper early enough that Don and the others are able to strip-mine the agency and set up SCDP.
* MistakenForServant: The first time we see him is during a wedding, where he is standing behind a counter at the bar. It wasn't until later that Don realized the old man he was chatting up with who he thought was the bartender was actually one of the wealthiest potential clients they've had.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Whitmans]]

!Archibald "Archie" Whitman

Don Draper's father.

* AbusiveParent: Don tells Betty his father beat the hell out of him as a child.
* TheAlcoholic: Archie loved himself some moonshine.
* PosthumousCharacter: He died when Don was only ten years old, way before the series begins. He only shows up via flashbacks to Don's youth, and in one occasion as a hallucination of sorts to Don when he's under the influence of drugs.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Violet flavored chewing gum, according to Don in ''Three Sundays''. This is later touched on as him having gifted Peggy a pack of them for a good luck charm.
* UndignifiedDeath: Peggy assumes Don was joking when he says his father was kicked to death by a horse while drunk. Nope.

!Abigail Whitman

Don's stepmother.

* AbusiveParent: She was heavily emotionally abusive to Don, calling him a "whorechild". It's to the point Don altogether refuses to acknowledge her as being any sort of mother to him.
* DoubleStandard: She beat young Dick with a spoon when she learned that he was molested by a prostitute, blaming him for it.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Only took Don in because she wanted a child and her own had all been stillbirths.
* PosthumousCharacter: Adam reveals that she died some years before the series began. Don is untroubled by this news.
* WickedStepmother: Though it's debatable whether she was any more evil than Don's actual father.

!Adam Whitman

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_adam_whitman.jpg]]
->'''Played by''': Jay Paulson

Don's half-brother.

* DrivenToSuicide: A combination of his desire to keep his past a secret, and his contempt for his old family led to Don turning him away after everyone Adam knew was now dead. He didn't handle it well.
* NiceGuy: He is only ever shown to interact much with Don, but he's portrayed as a very warm, friendly if somewhat awkward guy who really did care for his half-brother, and probably the only member of the family that ever truly loved him. Unfortunately, Don was never able to really love him back due to his resentment of the family as a whole.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jim Hobart]]

[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_jim_hobart.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': H. Richard Greene

The head of [=McCann=] Erickson.

----

* AscendedExtra: He first appears in Season 1, trying to convince Don to join [=McCann=] by offering Betty a modelling job with Coca-Cola, as well as offering Don large accounts such as Pan Am and Esso. He doesn't appear again until the final season, where [=McCann=] plays a much larger role.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Initially appears to be very congenial when dealing with Don and the partners of SC&P, but he ultimately reveals himself as quite sexist and petty when dealing with Joan's frustrations.
* ChekhovsGunman: He appears once in season one, then disappears from the show entirely for six seasons only to play a major role in season 7.
* {{Determinator}}: Tries to get Don Draper to work in [=McCann=] over the course of a decade. [[spoiler:He succeeds, but is frustrated with Don's tendency to leave the office without word. When he complains to Roger about it, Roger only shrugs and says "he does that".]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:He never gets his comeuppance for his sexism. But then, [=McCann=] is a firm stuck in old attitudes at that point -- who knows what TheSeventies hold?]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jimmy Barrett]]
->'''Played By''': Patrick Fischler

A foul-mouthed (by 1960s standards) comedian, who frequently appears in Sterling Cooper's TV adverts.

----

* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: He's ''very'' good at pulling off the JerkWithAHeartOfGold act whenever the need arises, but privately confides to Betty that he can't recall ever giving an apology and actually meaning it.
* MotorMouth: Seeing how he's a comedian, and an acerbic one at that, this is to be expected. It also gets him into trouble, and nearly costs Sterling Cooper an account.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: While he has less screentime than his wife does, he winds up being the person who tells Betty that Don is cheating on her. Previously they had been entirely HappilyMarried, but [[spoiler:Don's and Betty's relationship never really recovers from this revelation, and it leads to their eventual divorce]].
* YourCheatingHeart: Downplayed; he's certainly not above actively flirting with other women, even in the presence of his wife, but he has more class than to actually cheat on her. However, she doesn't have any such quandaries, and he knows it, much to his annoyance.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lt. Donald Draper]]
->'''Played By''': Troy Ruptash

The ''real'' Don Draper, a soldier who served in the Korean War with Dick Whitman, until being killed in a bombing raid. Following a chance misunderstanding, Dick assumes his identity.

----

* BodyHorror: His body is absolutely ''mutilated'' by the blast that kills him. It's no wonder that his corpse was mistaken for Dick's.
* IdenticalStranger: Downplayed; he and Dick don't really look all that much alike, but their height, build and hair color are all similar enough that his body is mistaken for Dick's after his face gets blown off.
* PosthumousCharacter: Is killed a decade or so before the series gets underway.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Despite clearly being peeved at only being assigned one soldier instead of an entire unit, he doesn't take it out on Dick, and shows himself to be a reasonable man.
* WithThisHerring: He and Dick are assigned to set up a field hospital with just a few tents and shovels.

[[/folder]]

!Cutler Gleason Chaough

[[folder:Ted Chaough]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tedchaough_5457.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Kevin Rahm

->''"Teddy Chaough! Thanks for sticking my name in there with the big boys. A full-page ad in The Times. What did that run you?"''

Partner and Creative Director at Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough, one of SCDP's competitors.

* SeventiesHair: His hair goes from a slightly Mod short style and the Dry Look to swooped bangs, longer sideburns, and a mustache at the end of the series.
* TheAce: A very talented creative who even pilots planes.
* ArchEnemy: Sees himself as one for Don, the latter of whom doesn't take him very seriously until they start working together.
* BenevolentBoss: He treats Peggy with far more respect than Don ever did. When one of his partners reveals that he has cancer, Chaough is genuinely concerned and is irritated that the ill partner thought that Chaough would be more concerned with the loss of revenue for the agency than for his health. He also apologizes to Peggy when he kisses her after she cheers him up.
* BerserkButton: Hates it when people compare him unfavorably with Don. One employee who credits Don as being "a genius" gets a vicious tongue lashing for his troubles.
* CantHoldHisLiquor: Don drinks with him in "Man With a Plan." He passes out on the flight.
* TheChainsOfCommanding: By the end of the series, he is sick of being a boss and just wants to do creative work.
* DeathSeeker: He's so miserable in California that he starts to contemplate suicide.
* DemotedToExtra: After serving as a primary counterpart to Don and potential LoveInterest to Peggy throughout Season 6, Ted's role is greatly reduced in Season 7. He doesn't even appear in the last two episodes of the series.
* FireForgedFriends: Ted and Don spend most of the show locked in a bitter rivalry with each other. Their later collaborations allow their initial animosity to develop into mutual respect.
* {{Foil}}: To Don. They are opposites in virtually every trait save their dedication to and love for their work.
* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:He and Don agree to merge their agencies to get the GM account]] in "For Immediate Release".
* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: In his early appearances, his last name was pronounced "Shaw". As of season 6, more characters have been pronouncing the "ch".
* MayDecemberRomance: He's in his late 30s to early 40s and dated the much younger Peggy in Season 6 (who was then 29).
* MarriedToTheJob: His domestic life suffers from it.
* NiceGuy: Probably second only to Ken Cosgrove in this trait among the cast. Despite being a workaholic and getting annoyed with people, Ted genuinely tries to be as nice and fair with people as possible and tries his best to mend bridges with people when they butt heads.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Ted has been appearing on a recurring basis since season 4; Peggy's move to CGC and later the merger in season 6 brought him into the main cast.
* TheRival: To Don. Less so in the final season.
* YourCheatingHeart: He's infatuated with Peggy and plans to leave his wife, but he eventually cuts the affair short, for the sake of his family.

[[folder:Jim Cutler]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_harry_hamlin_jim_cutler.jpg]]
->'''Played by''': Creator/HarryHamlin

->''"Unless this works, I'm against it."''

Another partner and Head of Accounts at CGC; he has a hard-edged, media-focused and (''avant le lettre'') data-driven approach to advertising.

* BigBad: He more or less evolves into this over the course of Season 7's first half, albeit with his fair share of JerkassHasAPoint moments concerning Don's bad behavior. Roger's proposal to [=McCann=] seemed to spell Cutler's end, but as of the mid-season finale, it appears he's decided to cooperate with the regime change.
* DirtyOldMan: He watches Stan and Wendy (the daughter of the recently deceased Frank Gleason) getting it on on the couch.
* DiskOneFinalBoss: Acts as the main antagonistic force during the first half of the final season. After accepting the buyout, he is replaced by Jim Hobart and the others at [=McCann=] Erickson.
* EveryoneHasStandards: He's very ruthless at business, but even he's taken aback by Harry Crane lying outright to a client about SCDP's media department having a state of the art computer.
-->"You have stiff competition, but I believe [[TheFriendNobodyLikes you]] to be the most dishonest man I've ever worked with."
* {{Foil}}: To Roger Sterling. He was CGC's equivalent, and unlike the constantly-distracted, increasingly out-of-the-loop Roger, Cutler has a single-minded dedication to gaining power that gives him an upper hand on Roger after the agencies merge.
* HangingSeparately: He still views SC&P as being divided into "our guys" and "their guys". He's been doing everything in his power to undermine "their guys", even though this is harming the agency.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Listening to the Democratic National Convention when you are supposed to be working is bad. Getting the entire office high thus preventing anyone from getting anything done is good.
* ItsPersonal: It's pretty obvious that his crusade to oust Don from the agency is more than just a business matter for him. It's implied that he blames Don for Ted's depression.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm[=/=]EveryManHasHisPrice: Forgoes his vendetta against Don in order to comply with the buyout by [=McCann=].
--> '''Roger:''' Really?
--> '''Jim:''' It's a lot of money.
* MayDecemberRomance: It's implied that he is carrying on an affair with Ted's secretary Moira, to the point that they were seen coming out of an elevator together during the afternoon.
--> Is that Shalimar?
* MeetTheNewBoss: Shares a lot of Duck Phillips' philosophies about the ad business, in particular that good creative isn't nearly as important as strong media presence. He's a lot more cunning (and less of an alcoholic) than Duck, though.
* PutOnABus: He leaves the agency after selling it to [=McCann=].
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Lays out a particularly brutal one on Don in the mid-season finale:
--> You know, Ted and I, whenever we would hear that your agency was involved, we'd always be so intimidated. What was that man up to? Such a cloud of mystery! Now that I've been backstage, I'm deeply unimpressed Don. You're just a bully and a drunk; a football player in a suit. The most eloquent I've ever heard you was when you were blubbering like a little girl about your impoverished childhood. Oh, you want to take a swing at me? It would save us all a lot of trouble!

[[folder:Frank Gleason]]

[[quoteright:231:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_frank_gleason.jpg]]
->'''Played by''': Craig Anton

The third partner and Art Director at CGC. He and Ted are old friends and part of one of those copywriter/artist pairs that occur occasionally in advertising. He dies from cancer shortly after being introduced.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: He only appeared in two episodes and died an episode after his second appearance.
* YourDaysAreNumbered: He has terminal cancer.

!Families



[[folder:Bobby Draper and Gene Draper]]
->'''Bobby Played By''': Maxwell Huckabee, Aaron Hart, Jared Gilmore, and Mason Vale Cotton

Don and Betty's sons. Much more in the background than Sally.

* ADayInTheLimelight: For Bobby in "The Flood" and "Field Trip"; both dealing with his relationship with his parents.
* TheCutie: Bobby. Gene in Season 7B.
* DeadGuyJunior: Gene [[BirthDeathJuxtaposition is born soon after Betty's father dies]], and she names the baby after him, much to the dismay of Don (who couldn't stand her father and vice versa) and Sally (who is having a hard enough time dealing with her grandfather's death without a ReplacementGoldfish coming along).
* TheKlutz: As a young child, Bobby accidentally hurts himself and breaks a lot of things around the house. It's not that unusual, but Betty comes down on him hard over it.
* ParentalFavoritism: While Sally is more of a frustrating mystery to him, the few times we see him interact alone with Bobby have always been rather emotionally significant to Don, as his own baggage related to his father causes him to see a certain connection to him.
** Gene is the one child Betty constantly holds next to her and treats tenderly.
* LivingProp: Well, Gene is still a baby, but Bobby has been able to talk since we've known him and rarely avails himself of this ability.
** This looks like it could change for Bobby as of the Season 6 episode, "The Flood."
* SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: Inverted in Bobby's case. Due to multiple recastings (see below) he was somehow no younger than four or five in 1960 but not yet a teenager by 1970.
* TheOtherDarrin: There have been ''four'' Bobbys so far. With Mason Vale Cotton's PromotionToOpeningTitles, it looks like this has come to an end. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the episode "The Better Half" where Bobby mentions that ([[InUniverse at his summer camp]]) he's known as "Bobby five" because there's so many, and that "Bobby one" left.

[[folder:Henry Francis]]
[[quoteright:153:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Henry-Francis-001_7404.png]]
->'''Played By''': Christopher Stanley

An acquaintance of Roger Sterling's, Henry is a Republican political operative in New York State first for Governor Nelson Rockefeller, then for New York Mayor John Lindsay,[[note]]Both Rockefeller and Lindsay were noted liberal Republicans, and Francis is no different[[/note]] whom Betty meets at a party. After her marriage to Don starts to founder, she begins an affair with him and eventually divorces Don to marry him. He himself is already divorced, with a daughter. He is eventually elected to the New York State Senate from a safe GOP seat in Westchester County.

* FiftiesHair: As he is a politician, he maintains this conservative look into 1970.
* MamasBoy: Implied, his mother is a very terrifying and domineering woman that looks down at Betty and he's more mild-mannered compared to her. He's shown to be in some denial after a heavier Betty dyes her hair black, resembling a younger version of his Mother.
* MayDecemberRomance: He's a good fifteen years older than Betty and while they aren't without problems, it's clear they love each other very much.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: Having been through a divorce before, Henry tries to be the voice of reason with Betty to try to get along better with Don for the kids sake and her own future, but tends to be terse with Don every time they communicate in early years. By later seasons, he generally shrugs it off.
** The one real flash of anger toward Don featured Henry passive aggressively nudging his car forward into boxes of Don's stuff after an argument with Betty, and while requesting he move his items in a later conversation, requesting Don not come on Sunday because that is the day of Don's son Gene's birthday party. [[spoiler:Don shows up anyway and Betty lets him because he'd not risk losing contact with the kids for the sake of the fight.]]
* NiceGuy: Betty seems to consider him this, in contrast to Don. He may not be so much of one.
* NotSoAboveItAll: "The Runaways" has him display some [[StayInTheKitchen chauvinistic]] attitudes towards Betty, with him even referring to both her and a teenage Sally as [[FreudianSlip "Girls! Girls!"]]
* OnlySaneMan: Usually is, but his old-fashioned ways do clash with Betty's CharacterDevelopment in late seasons.
* ParentalSubstitute: {{Justified}} since he's more around than Don and has far less issues than him. Don gets a little jealous of his good parenting skills.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He might be the best parent on the show. In spite of this, Betty takes his advice about everything ''except'' when it comes to Sally.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Defied, he doesn't invoke his clout to dodge petty things like car tickets and doesn't like it when his relatives try to. He explains to his Mother that his approach to dealing with a speeding ticket is "to pay it".
* SilverFox
* StandardFiftiesFather: In the most ironic way possible, given the context.

[[folder:Mona Sterling]]
->'''Played By:''' Talia Balsam

Roger Sterling's first wife, who he divorces and leaves for Jane, a secretary at SCDP.

* FiftiesHair: Starts off with very conservative hair until she loosens up towards the end of the decade.
* DeadpanSnarker: Hmmm, so that's what they saw in each other....
* FootDraggingDivorcee: She refuses to divorce Roger until she gets a lot of money from him after 20 years of marriage.
* GrandeDame: Oh so much.
* HiddenDepths: "The Monolith" points out that she struggled with drinking and depression while raising Margaret as a young mom and that she was often lonely, likely when Roger was at War or when he came back and spent most of his time at the agency or with mistresses.
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Family Member]]: A mediator for both her ex-husband and daughter, this is well shown in the 3rd season when Margaret's wedding was being prepared.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: With Jane Sterling, even after Roger and Jane are divorced, Mona makes sure to be more poised in comparison to Jane and has a hard time being neutral during the wedding plans in regards to Jane.
** Played with in scenes with her and Joan, as she isn't aware of the relationship between Joan and Roger and respects Joan's beauty and fashion know-how.
* RichBitch: Her first appearance shown her to not show any sympathy to Betty when she mentions that she still is reeling from the death of her mother, Roger complained about her being judgmental; she is a more sympathetic example than most.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Margaret Hargrove (née Sterling)]]
->'''Played By:''' Elizabeth Rice

Roger and Mona Sterling's only daughter. She is married and has one child. She later leaves her husband and son to live in a Hippie commune and changes her name to "Marigold".

* FiftiesHair: Has a ponytail later cut into a bob in Season One and maintains wavy hair and beehives.
* SeventiesHair: Her hair gets looser as the show goes on and ends up a hippie with long, loose hair.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: That doesn't change much even when she is over 20.
* CallingTheOldManOut: After being asked how she could live with abandoning her family by her father, she brutally points out the hypocrisy in that, considering how he was a distant, incapable, apathetic parent who abandoned his wife and kids to marry his secretary, so why can't she do the same as him.
* [[LikeFatherLikeSon Like Father, Like Daughter]]: Lampshaded in the first season when Roger complains about how bratty she is, with Joan pointing out that she's only taking after Roger; she also turns out to be as self-centered as him.
* MissingMom: Becomes this to her son when she runs off to a commune.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anna Draper]]
[[quoteright:155:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Anna-Draper-001_3999.png]]
->'''Played By''': Melinda Page Hamilton

The wife of the real Don Draper, who lives in California. Through flashbacks, we find out that she tracked "Don" down after he came back from the war and demanded an explanation, but was very forgiving when she got one. She and this Don never had a romantic relationship; instead she was, as they both said at different times, the only person who knew all about him. [[spoiler:She dies of cancer in season four.]]

* FiftiesHair: When a flashback shows her confronting Don, she has very late 1940s-early 1950s hair, complete with the shiny lower bun and the suit with the shoulder pads. Later flashbacks and current appearances show her with longer, looser hair.
* BlitheSpirit[=/=]ManicPixieDreamGirl
* TheConfidant
* MoralityPet: To Don.
* RomancingTheWidow: Averted. One of the few attractive women Don wouldn't try to stick his Dick Whitman in.
* YourDaysAreNumbered: [[spoiler:But she doesn't know it.]]

[[folder:Trudy Campbell]]
[[quoteright:145:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Trudy-Campbell-001_8730.png]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AlisonBrie

Pete Campbell's wife, from a NouveauRiche family. They had a rocky start, but have grown into one of the most stable and loving couples on the show for a brief period of time.

* FiftiesHair: Starts the series with chic updos of the later 1950s and early 1960s, only to loosen to bouffants as the series goes on.
* SeventiesHair: When she isn't wearing her hair up, she wears her hair lose and when we see her again in 1969 and 1970, her hair is long and loose with some curls. The finale sees her traveling with long, loose but styled hair.
* AmicableExes: She settles in this kind of relationship with Pete in late seasons, for their daughter's sake. [[spoiler: And eventually rekindling their marriage.]]
* BrainyBrunette: A cunning, witty, vivacious brown-haired woman who coaches her husband through his career and reads "the Classics" as opposed to modern short stories and paperback novels.
* DaddysGirl: She's her father little princess, and nothing is ever too much for her (which her husband resents, given [[TheUnfavourite his upbringing]]). [[spoiler: To the point of throwing out of the window a years-long partnership with Pete when his father-in-law finds out he cheats on his daughter.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:Having had enough of Peter's lies and adultery, Trudy unleashes a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech before kicking him out of the house in season 6. A completely unintimidated Pete then bites back himself, stating "You're going to sleep alone tonight. And you will realize you don't know anything for sure." In this show, he's right.]]
* HappilyMarried: Played with.
** Pete and Trudy's marriage takes work (and isn't always so happy), but as pointed out above, it's on much solider ground than most of the other SCDP marriages. However, she eventually becomes quite naggy (see entry on her husband.)
** [[spoiler:They're in the process of divorcing by Season 7 and then call it off in 7B before moving to Wichita.]]
* HiddenDepths: Trudy can dance a mean Charleston and apparently ''really'' loves watching boxing.
** It was also shown that she is known among the office as a notoriously adamant party host, who won't take no for an answer when inviting people. She was even able to force Don to attend a party he wanted out of, and Betty couldn't even get the guy to show up to his kid's birthday party.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Gets pregnant just as she and Pete decide to adopt, after trying for three years with no luck she gives birth to their daughter. In Season 2, her inability to conceive is also framed in contrast to Peggy's unwanted pregnancy in Season 1 (by Pete, no less) and Betty's at the end of season 2.
* NiceHat: Has a wide collection of hats for her going-out outfits, the image shown is just one of many.
* NouveauRiche: Her father is a SelfMadeMan of humble background, and she married into an old money but impoverished family.
* SilkHidingSteel: Appears to be a young, bubbly, sociable upper-middle class housewife with classy manners and a fashionable wardrobe, she always proves herself to be tougher than what her husband expects.
* SocialClimber: Much of the earlier season has her courting the attention of more established women and planning dinner parties, she doesn't abandon this activity but focuses more on their daughter Tammy.
* SpoilerSweet: She is a only child and her parents' little princess. She is usually kind and considerate but later seasons shows that she is used to get what she wants. Hers and Pete's biggest crisis starts when they move out of Manhattan and she really can't see that Pete is deeply unhappy with living in suburbs.
* StepfordSmiler: Downplayed. She has a habit of hiding negative emotions behind a bubbly smile, but is still capable of putting her foot down and asserting herself when she feels the need to.
* WomenAreWiser: She is sometimes more adult than Pete. Other times she can be naive or overly optimistic, and Pete needs to tell her what's what.
** In 7B she clearly tells him that she looks back and sees things as they are rather than how she wants to see them as, so she has grown a lot from the young, wide-eyed bride she was in the early 60s.

[[folder:Emile and Marie Calvet]]
->'''Played By''': Ronald Guttman and Julia Ormond

Megan's French-Canadian parents, whose marriage is decaying from the inside out.

----

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Emile seemed amused at Pete fooling him about admiring his work on Marxism.
* TheAlcoholic: Marie is rarely seen very far from a glass, and in "For Immediate Release" she pulls out a wine glass and then chooses to just drink out of the bottle.
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Two [[FunnyForeigner funny foreigners]] who argue in French. One is a communist KnightTemplar and the other a LadyDrunk with a tongue sharp like a guillotine.
* BrutalHonesty: Marie tends to be amazingly blunt (see above). [[spoiler: Another thing Roger likes about her.]]
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Emile is a Marxist. Megan is married to Don Draper, who does advertising (the epitome of capitalism) for a living.
* DirtyCommunist: Roger has this reaction when he hears about Emile's political affiliations.
* EvilParentsWantGoodKids: Not "evil", per se, but both Emile and Marie are both very spiteful and unhappy people, who nonetheless have raised a happy and functional daughter.
* FreudianSlip: After seeing Sally dressed up for dinner in a very Megan-esque outfit...
-->'''Emile:''' There is nothing you can do, Don. One day your daughter will spread her legs and fly away.
-->'''Roger:''' ''(laughs)''
-->'''Megan:''' Wings, Daddy. You mean wings.
* HappilyMarried: Marie [[spoiler:to Roger]] in "Person to Person".
* JerkassHasAPoint: They each have their moments, in "At the Codfish Ball" and "The Phantom", respectively. In the former, Emile convinces Megan to quit her unsatisfying job at SCDP and follow her dream. In the latter, when Megan has hit a wall in her efforts to pursue an acting career, Marie convinces her to use Don's influence to get work through nepotism. Thanks to this advice, she is a famous soap opera star by the beginning of Season 6.
* MamaBear: Marie [[spoiler:takes all of Don's furniture in retaliation for divorcing Megan.]]
* NiceHat: Marie has quite a number of them to match her outfits.
* PetTheDog: Emile, who has spent the entirety of the episode "At the Codfish Ball" wallowing pathetically in self-pity and resentment for all those around him, finally has a one-on-one conversation with his daughter in the final sequence, convincing her to follow her dreams.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Marie, not that she's so much a senior (she's younger than Roger) but she is a piece of work, a grandmother, and she does insult people in French, as seen when she dines out with Don and Megan when they met with Mr. and Mrs. Rennet.
* SilverVixen: Marie looks young for her age and is fiercely attractive and sensual.
* YourCheatingHeart: Emile was caught crying to a female college student on the phone, though it's never made explicit the exact nature of their relationship. It's suggested that Mari knows about his occasional indiscretions and doesn't much care, but that him going to someone besides her for ''emotional'' support really hurt her. [[spoiler:Marie sleeps with Roger.]]

[[folder:Greg Harris]]
[[quoteright:149:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Greg-Harris-001_5362.png]]
->'''Played By''': Samuel Page

Joan's fiancé and then husband, a doctor. In the first episode in which he is featured (he is seen before briefly), he rapes her on the floor of Don's office, which she keeps a secret and hasn't mentioned since. He fails to get his residency when they planned, then joins the Army instead. [[spoiler:In Season Five, he and Joan have a huge fight and he files for divorce.]]

----

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Harris -- like Miller and Siegel -- is sometimes but not always a Jewish name; Joan says he's not Jewish, but Roger thinks he "used to be."
* DisappearedDad: He hasn't been seen since "Mystery Date" and Joan stated that if she died, Kevin would live with Greg's parents or her mom; "Person To Person" reveals that he met a nurse, married her, and had twins and hasn't bothered to visit Kevin... and he's still unaware that he isn't the boy's biological father.
* {{Jerkass}}: He seldom thinks about anyone other than himself.
---> '''Joan:''' ''(about why he doesn't see Kevin anymore and if he knows about Joan and Roger)'' No. He's just a terrible person.
* HappilyMarried: The scene that's hardest to watch may not be the one in which he sexually assaults Joan and then acts like nothing happened, but rather the ones later on where they have every appearance of a normal loving relationship. The marriage does have more mundane low points. Joan's contempt for him for sucking at his job and {{wangst}}ing about it, a huge contrast to the professional life ''she'''s giving up to marry him -- which he doesn't even seem to realize. In Season 5, [[spoiler:this is finally subverted when Joan kicks him out of her apartment for good after he volunteers for a second tour of duty in Vietnam without her approval. While doing this, she also calls him out on raping her.]]
* MaritalRapeLicense: Takes Joan against her will whilst she's his fiancee.
* MarriedToTheJob: In season 4, he [[spoiler:signs up for another year in Vietnam without discussing it with Joan first]]; she is is less than happy.
* PetTheDog: He does have a few moments where he's quite nice and sweet to Joan, like in season 3 when he treats her cut. It's not enough to take the sting out of him being a rapist though.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Katherine Olson]]
->'''Played By''': Myra Turley

Peggy's widowed mother.

* ApronMatron: A tough, middle-aged, stout, Irish Catholic, take no fools woman who can be harsh and critical of her daughters.
* BeehiveHairdo: Wears her hair in a similar style, was chosen for her by her hairdresser.
* BasementDweller: Some dialogue stated that she and her husband lived with Peggy's grandparents (likely implied to be her parents) until after Anita was born, judging by the ages of Anita and Peggy, it was UsefulNotes/TheGreatDepression and would have been harder for Mr. Olson to afford a house.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She is unpleasant and is responsible for her daughters' insecurities, but she really does love them.
* MyBelovedSmother: Has more than enough guilt for her daughters to partake in, she even made Peggy feel bad about wanting to move to Manhattan, acting like Peggy was moving to Nairobi rather than a train ride away.
* RacistGrandma: Might appear to be this when she expresses surprise that the Jewish Abe eats pork and might have a problem with Swedish people; she is very amiable to Abe up until he and Peggy announce they are cohabiting and she was an Irish Catholic who married a Norwegian Protestant with half-Italian grandsons and really likes Nat King Cole.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: It's lot easier to bathe a cat than to try to get any approval from Katherine.

[[/folder]]

!SCDP New Additions

[[folder:Stan Rizzo]]
[[quoteright:184:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Stan-Rizzo-001_3356.png]]
[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/57b367f5cd424e796885d80d71d0d7fa.png]]
->'''Played By''': Jay Ferguson

The new artistic director at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Seen at first as a ReplacementScrappy for Sal Romano, his cocky mannerisms and political grandstanding dies down as the firm nears disaster. Much of his obnoxious behavior is tolerated because he's quite good at his job.

* SeventiesHair: By the end of the series he grew from a crewcut to a fuller mane and beard.
* AmbiguouslyJewish: He has a large poster of a man who appears to be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Dayan Moshe Dayan]] hanging over his bed. On the other hand, his name is stereotypically Italian.
* BadassBeard: Literally and figuratively grows the beard in Season 6, underscoring his maturation into a senior creative member of SCDP.
* BigBeautifulMan: He's always been tall and built, but later put on some weight with a visible belly along with facial hair; nobody complains and he's found sexy.
* BigBrotherInstinct: Revealed to have this for his late cousin Robbie, when the latter died in Vietnam, Stan really took it hard.
* BigThinShortTrio: The Big to Michael's Thin and Peggy's Short.
* BunnyEarsLawyer
* CasanovaWannabe
* CharacterDevelopment: He goes from being chauvinistic and rather full of himself, to being understanding and caring towards his co-workers, especially Peggy.
* DeadpanSnarker
* [[HugeGuyTinyGirl Huge Guy]]: Portrayed by the 5'11" Ferguson, and as of "Person to Person" [[spoiler:gets together with the more petite Peggy]].
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Given the events of ''Person To Person'', one can see Stan encouraging Peggy to go to Paris with Mathis's brother-in-law in ''Severance'' just for her to loosen up, as this trope.
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Peggy would be the first to say he does have an ego and ''New Business'' reveals him to wrestle with that and a crippling insecurity about his work, one that a client is able to use for getting the upper hand on him.
* {{Jerkass}}: At first, but not so much in later seasons.
* JerkJock: At least in appearance.
* LadykillerInLove: Is a CasanovaWannabe and had some one night stands, yet is revealed to be in love with [[spoiler:Peggy]].
* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: While high on the energy booster given to him by Cutler's doctor, he has the others try to hit a piece of paper with a picture of an apple on it that's above his head with their pens. Michael tries and ends up hitting his arm with a craft razor that was in the pen-cup. Stan responds with an "Aw Crap" that sounds more like he spilled water on himself.
* OddCouple: His officemate is Peggy. They even keep in touch after Peggy hops over to Ted Chaough's firm; later after the merger and a few breakups between them, [[spoiler:they can arguably be called an [[OfficialCouple Official Odd Couple]]]].
* OnlySaneMan: Is a Creative with co-workers like the irreverent and unprofessional Mathis, a few other immature copywriter guys, a stressed out Peggy who lives for work, a few bosses who've been here and there, and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Michael Ginsberg.
* RagingStiffie: In his introductory episode, when Peggy challenges him to put his money where his mouth is and work, alongside her, in the nude.
* TheStoner: In season six, he's constantly seen smoking marijuana in the SCDP offices. He gets away with it because he claims to do better work when stoned.
* TeamDad: Became this; Michael calls him "a Mother Hen" and pretty much keeps his own wits together in the face of an alcoholic boss, a boss with a SmallNameBigEgo, a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} colleague, and a copy chief [[spoiler: he's in love with]] who tends to get nervous and is MarriedToTheJob.
* TookALevelInKindness: While he still has some very brash moments, Stan is unquestionably much more kind-hearted and noble than the loud obnoxious fratboy he started as. (Discovering pot seems to have helped.)
* UnderstandingBoyfriend: Been the platonic and non-fantasy sort for Peggy and finally [[spoiler: officially her romantic partner at the end of the series]].
* VitriolicBestBuds: Stan and Peggy settle into this relationship [[spoiler:until they declare their love for each other in the series finale]].

[[folder:Faye Miller]]
[[quoteright:191:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Faye-Miller-001_7760.png]]
->'''Played By''': Cara Buono

A marketing researcher hired by SCDP, and probably the healthiest of Don's post-divorce relationships, until he screws it up.

* CareerVersusMan: She is strictly a business woman. She has no real interest in raising a family, and is absolutely terrible at understanding and talking to children, which, given her career, is something that she's deeply self-conscious about.
* ConflictingLoyalty: She has to build the proverbial Chinese wall to insulate her clients and remain professional, but Don's irresistible charms manage to tear it down.
* DroppedABridgeOnHer: Don dumps her over the phone, because she refuses his invitation to discuss bad news face to face.
* {{Foil}}: To both of Don's wives Betty and Megan. While Betty was a traditional housewife who was very harsh with her children and judgemental of others, Faye is awkward yet patient with Sally and encourages Don to perform the hardwork of self-improvement. Faye also accepts Don for all his flaws and encourages that work while Megan sees Don the way he wants to be seen.
* InformedJudaism
* NiceGirl: She's quite kind and understanding, and believes in the value of kindness and understanding in dealing with people as opposed to force.
* SchiffOneLiner: Her last line is a spot-on definition of Don.
-->I hope she knows you only like the beginning of things.

[[folder:Megan Calvet Draper]]
[[quoteright:173:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Megan-Calvet-001_7078.png]]
->'''Played By''': Jessica Paré

Don's latest secretary, to whom he takes a shine quite suddenly. He cheats on Faye with her, he asks her to accompany him to California to help watch his kids... and then ''he proposes to her''. She later joins the SCDP Creative team as a copywriter... only to leave to pursue her dream of becoming an actress.

* SeventiesHair: Her hair is looser and longer by the end of the series, she is even compared to Creator/BrigitteBardot and [[Film/LoveStory Ali Mac Graw]].
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Her father is a Marxist university professor who disapproves of capitalism in general and the advertising industry in particular. Her ''Maman'' seems much nicer and more supportive, but [[spoiler:after overhearing her husband having a suspicious phone conversation with one of his students, she accuses him of cheating on her in front of Don and at the American Cancer Society reception, she cheats on him with Roger.]]
* AmbiguouslyBi: She's definitely attracted to men and it's been implied that she's attracted to women as well. When her female boss propositions her, Megan's only objection appears to be that she does not want to cheat on Don. [[spoiler:In Season 7, she has a threesome with Don and a female friend while high.]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: She has a tendency to turn into this when she's upset, which became very clear in "The Phantom:" After rudely dismissing her mother's advice, she pretends to help a friend and fellow actress get a part in a commercial by one of Don's clients but goes to him wanting the job for herself.
* BrainyBrunette: ''Don'' thinks so at least, as he said that she reminds him of Peggy, the resident Brainy Brunette in-chief. How true this is remains to be seen, although her idea for Heinz does seem to have worked out quite well.
* CanadaEh: She's French-Canadian from Montreal. Her nationality is alluded to/joked about a few times, though language lessons have hidden her accent.
* CharacterShilling: People constantly remark how beautiful and talented Megan is.
* ChekhovsGunman: She's introduced early in season 4, and although she doesn't play any important role in the plot, she is repeatedly included in scenes and mentioned by name. Viewers may wonder why this is, right up to the point that Don falls in love with her and asks her to marry him.
* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: How ''will'' people who've heard [[Series/{{Degrassi}} Zig Novak's]] [[CringeComedy rendition]] [[HotForTeacher of]] Zou Bisou Bisou before hers react to her version...
* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: She's French-Canadian, and we hear her speak it once or twice, plus she teaches the Draper kids a French song. In the opening of season 5, she throws a surprise party for Don and sings [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFOzG3GYqo "Zou Bisou Bisou"]] to him.
* TheFashionista: Especially in later seasons, Megan is one of the most fashion-forward characters, always impeccably dressed and keeps up with the trends.
* FootDraggingDivorcee: She drags her feet regarding the divorce, until she gets a million dollars.
* FourthDateMarriage: And four is pushing it. The defining moment happens during a trip to California when Sally drops a milkshake and Megan is incredibly nice and cool about it, instead of being a DramaQueen as the Drapers had come to expect after being accustomed to Betty. Deconstructed in that it gradually becomes evident that she's not really compatible with Don, but then again, who is.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: She discusses this with Sylvia after she has a miscarriage, as they were both RaisedCatholic.
* MagicalNanny: She's really good with kids. Don even calls her [[Film/TheSoundOfMusic Maria Von Trapp]].
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Deconstructed. Reinvigorates Don for a while, but it doesn't last too long, as he only likes beginnings; it turns out that no matter how fun and sweet she is, that Don will always be an unhappy adulterer.
* MistakenForGay: Megan invites one of her (female) bosses over to her apartment for dinner while Don is away and discusses the problems she and Don are having with their marriage. Her boss takes this as a cue to kiss her on the lips. Megan takes it in stride after her boss assures her that turning her down won't get her fired.
* MsFanservice: She shows the most flesh of any of the female cast, frequently wearing miniskirt outfits to just about any occasion, including the workplace.
* {{Nepotism}}: Several of her coworkers are convinced that the only reason that she was made a copywriter was as a reward for marrying Don. She subverts this by actually being competent. In "The Phantom" [[spoiler:this is played straight, when Don uses his influence to get her cast in a commercial.]]
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:She exits the series after she finalizes her divorce with Don in "New Business".]]
* ThePollyanna: She doesn't seem to understand that she can't do everything she wants to do.
* RaisedCatholic: She is from Quebec, after all. She has a miscarriage and feels guilt about wanting to have an abortion before the decision was taken from her.
* SecretKeeper: [[spoiler:In between seasons, Don told her he's really Dick Whitman.]]
* SexySecretary: A coquettish form, one that is more youthful than say Joan, she did wear bright-colored, tight clothes that show off her legs; she loses the secretary part after marrying Don and becoming a copywriter.
* ShesGotLegs: Long slender legs that she shows off as hemlines start getting higher.
* SiblingYinYang: She's a modern, liberated aspiring actress, but her sister is a repressed, devout Catholic.
* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: Megan has a habit of doing this. (Though given the repression of the times and the unhappiness this leads to for so many characters, maybe that just makes her the smart one.)
** This also helps to differentiate her from Betty, who often bottled up her feelings when she was married to Don.
* TrophyWife: A borderline example. The age difference between her and Don, while referenced in the show, is only 14 years (slightly larger than the real nine year age gap between Jon Hamm and Jessica Pare), and Megan wants to work with Don in advertising rather than merely look pretty on his arm. When she decides she wants to go back to acting rather than continue as a copywriter, Don is upset — not just because he likes having his wife at work with him (though he does, and he also thinks that having her around all the time will help him keep his impulses under control), but because he thinks she has a better future in advertising than acting.
* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler:When she divorces Don, tells him off, walks away with a lot of money and then tells off her whiny sister for blaming her for the ending of their parents' dysfunctional marriage.]]
* WaitingForABreak: She gets one at the start of Season 6, being cast on a SoapOpera called "To Have and To Hold".

[[folder:Michael Ginsberg]]
[[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Michael-Ginsberg-001_726.png]]
[[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad-men-ginsberg-s6-e1_3721.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/BenFeldman

->'''Michael:''' ''"LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair!"''
->'''Stan:''' ''"Should read the rest of that poem, ya boob."''

A Jewish copywriter hired in Season 5. He's good at his job, but rather eccentric.

* AmbiguouslyGay: He has never been in an on-screen relationship, has repeatedly turned down women (even bluntly telling them that he's not interested) and has been questioned multiple times by other characters about whether or not he likes girls. He also admits to Peggy that the office computer's data waves were making him "excited" looking at Stan's shoulders.
* BigThinShortTrio: The Thin to Stan's Big and Peggy's Short.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Despite generally being polite to people's faces, he has a habit of insulting them behind their backs.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Subverted. His eccentricity initially made Peggy refuse to hire him.
* CelibateHero: Still a virgin by choice.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Although he can turn it off. [[spoiler:He ultimately turns out to be a deconstruction when he cuts off his nipple to prove his love for Peggy and gets carted off, most likely to an institution.]]
* ConspiracyTheorist: He becomes convinced that the IBM computer is turning everyone gay.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: [[spoiler:He was born in a concentration camp.]]
* DeadpanSnarker
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]], Stan and Peggy care for him, but he tends to insult them to their faces or act like he doesn't like them.
* GeniusDitz: Don realizes most of SCDP's recent campaigns came from Ginsberg. Ted calls him "lightning in a bottle."
* MenCantKeepHouse: The apartment he keeps with his father is a mess.
---> '''Morris Ginsberg:''' You can't sew... Cook... Clean. You don't think there's a reason you have all these flaws? You need a girl.
* MotorMouth: He never shuts up.
* NewTechnologyIsEvil: He's convinced that the IBM machine is plotting to replace all the humans at SC&P.
* NoSocialSkills
* SanitySlippage: Ginsberg's neurotic tics and paranoia are mostly played for laughs, but in hindsight were clearly the early symptoms of very serious mental illness. He ends the series being dragged away to be institutionalized.
* TokenMinority: Roger ordered Peggy to hire him against her better judgment simply because Roger believed that [[YouHaveToHaveJews every ad agency needs a Jew.]]

[[folder:Dawn Chambers]]
->'''Played By''': Teyonah Parris

An African-American secretary hired in Season 5. So far seems to be doing just fine in the world of SCDP. Worked for Don, which for awhile led to some jokes. Then after Don was (temporarily) on leave, she worked for Lou and became Office Manager after Joan left for Accounts

----

* BrainyBrunette: Has dark hair and is a very competent, observant, and intelligent character who knows how to navigate the office politics of SC&P.
* FunWithHomophones: Dawn sounds just like Don, her boss. The RunningGag about their names [[NeverHeardThatOneBefore gets old really fast]] to Don.
-->'''Harry Crane:''' I don't know how I'll be able to tell you apart.
-->'''Dawn:''' Everybody keeps saying that, but it really hasn't been a problem.
* GenerationXerox: Can be seen as this for Peggy (despite being around the same age): both come from working class backgrounds with a mother and sibling, both dress rather simply with rarely any frills, and both are observant participants that started working for Don and grew more of a backbone.
* KickedUpstairs: While Dawn is competent enough, the real reason why she is promoted to office manager is because Joan has nowhere else to put her and will not fire Dawn for something that is other people's fault. The promotion is also Joan's way of getting back at Avery and Cooper for making her job difficult for petty reasons. [[{{Squee}} Dawn does not mind]].
* NonPromotion: After reluctantly helping to instigate some office drama in "To Have and to Hold", Dawn is nominally punished by Joan with some new responsibilities: Joan places her in charge of the stockroom and time cards. Dawn, however, seems to take this in a more positive light. In season seven, this comes back to help her, as it gives her the qualifications to be promoted to Joan's old role as office manager after Joan switches to being an account executive.
* OnlySaneEmployee: Notes in "Mystery Date" that everyone at SCDP drinks a lot. Later in "To Have and to Hold" she tells a friend:
-->"Everyone's scared there. Women crying in the ladies’ room. Men crying in the elevator. It’s like New Year’s Eve when they empty the garbage there. There’s so many bottles!"
* PluckyOfficeGirl: Peggy was thrown off guard upon hearing that Dawn has no intention of trying to become a copy writer, and is happy with being a secretary. As of "To Have And To Hold", she is put in charge of the keys and a season later, she becomes the Office Manager after Joan moves to Accounts.
* PutOnABus: The last we see of her was when she walked off with her co-workers after the agency has been absorbed.
* SourPrude: Not pronounced, she tends to be very friendly with flashier co-workers and enjoys a deep bond with sexy Shirley, but one episode had her lamenting her dating life since it's hard to stand out with all the "harlots" at her church.
* TokenMinority: One of ''four'' African-Americans to even have a speaking role on the show.
** Discussed in an episode which pointed a bit of spotlight onto her, where she tells her other black friends that she is terrified of taking any sort of risks at the office because she is the only black person there, and feels like she is at risk of being fired any moment.
* TookALevelInBadass: Starts off as a unfailingly polite and obedient secretary that's afraid to rock the boat at work; Season 7 shows her telling off Lou for his sexist, rude, and racist behavior and getting promoted to Office Manager and telling off Roger for attempting to fire her, Shirley, and Caroline over an oversight. [[spoiler:She then, along with the rest of the staff, turn their backs on the partners and walk off after they make the announcement that the agency has been "absorbed" into [=McCann=] Erickson.]]

[[folder:Bob Benson]]
->'''Played By''': James Wolk

An accounts man hired in season 6, and the show's biggest brown-noser since Pete in the first season.

* AbortedArc: The story arc about him [[spoiler:being an impostor like Don]] is never mentioned after Season 6.
* TheBusCameBack: He returns from Detroit in "The Strategy" [[spoiler:and leaves the agency the same episode.]]
* HiddenDepths:
** In the office, he seems totally indiscriminate (and pretty obvious) about currying favor with the higher-ups, but during the hospital scene in "Man with a Plan", Bob shows he can actually put his self-effacing charms to good use, tactfully maneuvering the nurse into sending in an agonized Joan right away.
** "The Quality of Mercy" reveals that he can speak Spanish.
** [[spoiler:He seems to be genuinely horrified to learn that Manolo killed Pete's mother. Not that it stops him from taking petty revenge against Pete for accusing him of being an accomplice to murder.]]
* ManipulativeBastard:
** In "The Quality of Mercy", [[spoiler:Pete learns that Benson's references are all lies. He relies on his charm to deter anyone from investigating his past so he can have jobs he is completely unqualified for. In other words, he's a younger Don Draper.]]
** In "The Strategy", it's implied that the reason he's always been so friendly with Joan -- though he genuinely does like her as a person -- is because he was setting her up to eventually become TheBeard for him. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for him, she immediately sees through this when he tries to propose, and becomes extremely pissed off when it turns out that the reason he made his move when he did was to help him secure an exec's job at General Motors.]]
* NiceGuy: To all appearances. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out he's a conman.]]
* ProfessionalButtKisser: Good lord, he even offered to pay for Pete's visit to a brothel. Subverted, since it's strongly implied in "Favors" that [[spoiler:he is in love with Pete.]]
* PutOnABus: He moves to Detroit to handle [=SC&P=]'s accounts there in between Seasons 6 and 7.
* StraightGay: Like Sal before him, Bob avoids gay stereotypes at all costs because of the institutionalized homophobia of the 60s.

[[folder:Lou Avery]]
->'''Played By''': Allan Havey

The new head of Creative in season 7, replacing Don after his suspension.

* BoringButPractical: Why he got hired, more or less. His entire philosophy is basically "does it make the client happy? Good, then we're done," which is death to most of the other creatives at SC&P, but to business-oriented people like Cutler and Bert makes him the perfect hire.
* TheDragon: Essentially becomes one for Jim Cutler during the final season, as they both want to force Don out of the agency.
* EnemyMine: Despite having a mutual dislike of each other, Lou and Jim Cutler are willing to collaborate to undermine Don's place in the company.
* {{Foil}}: He's the anti-Don Draper in quite a few ways; Lou is uncreative, completely straightforward, and guileless at nearly all times and a teetotaler. He's a hack and a jerk, but he's not prone to the drama and implosions of someone like Don.
* ItsAllAboutMe: He refuses to nominate anyone else's work for the CLIO awards. Also insists that Dawn be reassigned because he wants one that he's not "sharing" due to her still taking messages for Don, though that's a reasonable complaint.
* {{Jerkass}}: One of the biggest in the series. Alongside being racist and sexist, he's also incredibly selfish and egotistical, as noted with the CLIO and with anything related to his comic Scout's Honor. It's no wonder that he was sent to California.
* KickTheDog: After Sally Draper appears in his office looking for her father, he condescendingly shoos her away and blames Dawn (because she wasn't there; he'd sent her to do a personal errand for him) and demands that Joan move her to another desk. [[spoiler:Joan ends up appointing Dawn as the new office manager out of spite.]]
* NotSoHarmlessVillain:
** Lou finally manages to become a legitimate threat to Don when [[spoiler:Lou starts to pursue Phillip Morris as a client. Since Phillip Morris is still upset about Don's anti-cigarette editorial, the only way the company will agree to hire SC&P is if they fire Don. The plan only fails because Harry accidentally tips off Don.]]
** He also very, very nearly gets Don to implode and lose his job immediately after his return by forcing him to work on Burger Chef with Peggy Olson as his superior, after having given Peggy a raise in order to get her on his side instead of Don's.
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:In Season [=7B=], he convinces a Japanese studio to adapt "Scout's Honor" and moves to Tokyo.]]
* PointyHairedBoss: Lou is an incompetent hack and a sexist, racist asshole.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: After the events of the season 7 midseason finale, Lou has been sent off to run SCP's west coast office, presumably so the rest of them no longer have to share an office with him.

[[folder:Meredith]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_meredith.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Stephanie Drake


The receptionist at SCDP, temporarily Lou Avery's secretary until replaced by Shirley. Seems sweet and a bit clumsy at her job.

* BewareTheSillyOnes: She's usually very dense about when people insult her, but she isn't afraid to tell Joan off for talking rudely to her and throwing the model plane at her; in Season 7, she tells Don off for withholding information and joins her co-workers in their walk out.
* ButtMonkey: Tends to be the butt of jokes in the show due to her childlike demeanor and subject to rudeness by others.
* TheDitz: Pretty much everything she says comes out sounding like she heard it somewhere else and is hoping it fits the situation she's in at that moment.
* DumbBlonde: She has blond hair and is not very bright.
* DumbassHasAPoint: In "The Christmas Waltz", she may have needed to pick up the pace, but as she points out, Joan can't just throw a model airplane at her and later points out that [=McCann=] is an awful place to work at.
* DumbassNoMore: "Severance" shows her more competent and efficient than ever; she is still naive and childish, though.
* EatingTheEyecandy: She develops a crush on Don in Season 7 and spends most of their scenes together staring at him lecherously.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Blonde and a cheerful sweetheart that proves helpful to Don.
* IdiotHoudini: Somehow, even after several mistakes, she never got fired.
** What's more, in season 7, she becomes Lou Avery's secretary temporarily after he decides that Dawn needs to be punished for her loyalty to Don Draper. The next episode, she's Peggy's secretary, and when Don returns to SC&P, becomes '''his''' secretary.
* {{Kawaiiko}}
* MilitaryBrat: She tells Don in "Lost Horizon" that she's an army brat, after helping put together a mood board for decorating ideas for a new apartment.
* OneOfTheKids: Peggy tells Joan that Meredith has the mind of a child. Pointed out so brilliantly by [[http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2012/05/mad-style-christmas-waltz Tom and Lorenzo at their blog]] in comparison to the more womanly Joan.
* PluckyGirl: Not as brainy and quick on the draw as Peggy and Dawn, yet she's cheerfully optimistic and proves competent at her job overtime. Then later [[spoiler:when Roger had to fire her, as he can't support two secretaries and assures her she'll land on her feet, she replies "I always do"]].
* SnarkBait: Living, breathing, and walking in-universe and by viewers.
* TookALevelInBadass: By Season 7B, she's more competent at her job and tells Don that he can't be withholding important information from her regarding her employment.

[[folder:Caroline]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_caroline.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Beth Hall

Roger Sterling's secretary, hired sometime around Season 4. Married and older than the other secretaries.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Has a Brooklyn or Queens accent and was [[http://23ejn74ajhew3v6c2o3b0xx713lp.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Mad-Men-Mad-Style-Season-7-Episode-4-Tom-Loenzo-Site-TLO-13.jpg seen wearing a Star of David pin]].
* ButtMonkey: Only a few times, with some jokes pointing out how she isn't as gorgeous as the other women in the office.
* CoolOldLady: As pointed out by [[http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2012/03/mad-style-a-little-kiss-part-2 Tom and Lorenzo]], she is very funny and she is also seen playing with Roger's grandson Ellery.
* {{Foil}}: To Shirley. She's more emotional, older, and not a stylish dresser.
** To Joan, who is also "old and married", Caroline is a image of what Joan doesn't want to become and while Caroline is frumpy and silly, she is very good-natured and doesn't take herself too seriously.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: In ''Lost Horizon'', Roger remarks to Shirley that he doesn't care much for Caroline.
* GirlFriday: Goes beyond the calling of being a secretary due to her interest in the well-being of Roger and his family. She even wept when Roger's mother died and played around with Roger's grandson along with informing Joan that she's afraid Roger will have a very lonely Thanksgiving.
* NiceGirl: Friendly, warm, welcoming and enthusiastic of her co-workers and even cares for her employers' relatives.
* ProneToTears: While competent at her job, she is very sensitive to what's going on other peoples' lives (enlightening both Roger and Joan about what the other is dealing with in separate occasions) and tends to cry when grieving or stressed out.

[[folder:Clara]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_clara.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Alexandra Ella

A secretary hired sometime around Season 4, who works for Pete.

* TheCutie: Despite taking some of the most hostile venting of all the secretaries, she still seems to maintain a rather positive tune.
* TheFashionista: Later shown to be quite the clotheshorse, with several late 60s looks being paraded when she appears; even her maternity dress is fashionably short and bright colored and patterned.
* HiddenDepths: Apparently knows more about guns than Pete does, and points out to him that his little hunting rifle he's had since Season 1 is a squirrel-shooter at best.
* PutOnABus: In the Season 7B premiere, Ken mentions to Pete that Clara left after becoming "big as a house" after being pregnant out of wedlock by a co-worker.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The actress playing Clara became pregnant in Season 7A and it was written in.
* TheStoic: Doesn't let Pete's abuse or the ups and downs of the office get to her.

[[folder: Shirley]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_shirley.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Sola Bamis

First Peggy Olson's secretary before becoming Lou Avery's (and then temporarily Ken's and then later Roger's second secretary). First appears in Season 7.

----

* SeventiesHair: In her first appearance (in 1969), she is the first main character with an Afro, that she maintains into the next year.
* BrainyBrunette: Dark-haired, sharp, and witty.
* CareerVersusMan: She lampshades that her fiancee wouldn't agree to her working after they get married.
* DeadpanSnarker: About Peggy:
---> '''Shirley:''' Who the hell is sending her flowers?
** And Meredith:
---> '''Shirley:''' My goodness, Meredith. We should put a bell on you.
* TheFashionista: Wears the latest in late 60s and early 70s styles and works them just as well.
* {{Foil}}: To Caroline. She's young, stylish, and more composed in her manner than the older woman.
* GenerationXerox: Could be seen as this to Joan (even dresses sexy with the sass to match) and Peggy in when with Dawn; however, both are friendlier to one another and Shirley is unsure about giving up her job for marriage to her soon-to-be husband.
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]]: Becomes this when she works as Roger's second secretary and with Caroline, being the more composed and mature of the three.
* PutOnABus: Or rather, she put herself on the track to a career in insurance, voicing that "advertising isn't for everyone".
* SassyBlackWoman: Compared to the more demure Dawn, yet doesn't behave that way towards her superiors.
* SassySecretary: Averted in that she doesn't act so with her bosses. In "Lost Horizon", she's a bit playful with Roger.
* SexySecretary: Oh yes! She may not flirt with guys in the office, but she has a very sassy demeanor and wears skirts revealing her legs.
* ShesGotLegs: And she isn't shy to showcase them.
* ZettaiRyouiki: Wears very short skirts.

[[folder: Scarlett]]
Harry Crane's secretary. First appears in Season 5.

----

* GenerationXerox: She was clad with hair done in a way that mirrored Joan's style, only with a more Mod flavor and she's likely about a decade younger; like Joan, she is having an affair with her boss who is not known for being quiet about it.
* SexySecretary: It's hinted that she and Harry are having an affair.
** In "A Day's Work", Joan comments that Scarlett and Harry might as well be married.
* ZettaiRyouiki: She rather sticks out in the office during Season 6, as she goes to work in go-go boots and miniskirts.

!Cutler Gleason Chaough

[[folder:Ted Chaough]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tedchaough_5457.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Kevin Rahm

->''"Teddy Chaough! Thanks for sticking my name in there with the big boys. A full-page ad in The Times. What did that run you?"''

Partner and Creative Director at Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough, one of SCDP's competitors.

----

* SeventiesHair: His hair goes from a slightly Mod short style and the Dry Look to swooped bangs, longer sideburns, and a mustache at the end of the series.
* TheAce: A very talented creative who even pilots planes.
* ArchEnemy: Sees himself as one for Don, the latter of whom doesn't take him very seriously until they start working together.
* BenevolentBoss: He treats Peggy with far more respect than Don ever did. When one of his partners reveals that he has cancer, Chaough is genuinely concerned and is irritated that the ill partner thought that Chaough would be more concerned with the loss of revenue for the agency than for his health. He also apologizes to Peggy when he kisses her after she cheers him up.
* BerserkButton: Hates it when people compare him unfavorably with Don. One employee who credits Don as being "a genius" gets a vicious tongue lashing for his troubles.
* CantHoldHisLiquor: Don drinks with him in "Man With a Plan." He passes out on the flight.
* TheChainsOfCommanding: By the end of the series, he is sick of being a boss and just wants to do creative work.
* DeathSeeker: He's so miserable in California that he starts to contemplate suicide.
* DemotedToExtra: After serving as a primary counterpart to Don and potential LoveInterest to Peggy throughout Season 6, Ted's role is greatly reduced in Season 7. He doesn't even appear in the last two episodes of the series.
* FireForgedFriends: Ted and Don spend most of the show locked in a bitter rivalry with each other. Their later collaborations allow their initial animosity to develop into mutual respect.
* {{Foil}}: To Don. They are opposites in virtually every trait save their dedication to and love for their work.
* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:He and Don agree to merge their agencies to get the GM account]] in "For Immediate Release".
* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: In his early appearances, his last name was pronounced "Shaw". As of season 6, more characters have been pronouncing the "ch".
* MayDecemberRomance: He's in his late 30s to early 40s and dated the much younger Peggy in Season 6 (who was then 29).
* MarriedToTheJob: His domestic life suffers from it.
* NiceGuy: Probably second only to Ken Cosgrove in this trait among the cast. Despite being a workaholic and getting annoyed with people, Ted genuinely tries to be as nice and fair with people as possible and tries his best to mend bridges with people when they butt heads.
* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Ted has been appearing on a recurring basis since season 4; Peggy's move to CGC and later the merger in season 6 brought him into the main cast.
* TheRival: To Don. Less so in the final season.
* YourCheatingHeart: He's infatuated with Peggy and plans to leave his wife, but he eventually cuts the affair short, for the sake of his family.

[[folder:Jim Cutler]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_harry_hamlin_jim_cutler.jpg]]
->'''Played by''': Creator/HarryHamlin

->''"Unless this works, I'm against it."''

Another partner and Head of Accounts at CGC; he has a hard-edged, media-focused and (''avant le lettre'') data-driven approach to advertising.

* BigBad: He more or less evolves into this over the course of Season 7's first half, albeit with his fair share of JerkassHasAPoint moments concerning Don's bad behavior. Roger's proposal to [=McCann=] seemed to spell Cutler's end, but as of the mid-season finale, it appears he's decided to cooperate with the regime change.
* DirtyOldMan: He watches Stan and Wendy (the daughter of the recently deceased Frank Gleason) getting it on on the couch.
* DiskOneFinalBoss: Acts as the main antagonistic force during the first half of the final season. After accepting the buyout, he is replaced by Jim Hobart and the others at [=McCann=] Erickson.
* EveryoneHasStandards: He's very ruthless at business, but even he's taken aback by Harry Crane lying outright to a client about SCDP's media department having a state of the art computer.
-->"You have stiff competition, but I believe [[TheFriendNobodyLikes you]] to be the most dishonest man I've ever worked with."
* {{Foil}}: To Roger Sterling. He was CGC's equivalent, and unlike the constantly-distracted, increasingly out-of-the-loop Roger, Cutler has a single-minded dedication to gaining power that gives him an upper hand on Roger after the agencies merge.
* HangingSeparately: He still views SC&P as being divided into "our guys" and "their guys". He's been doing everything in his power to undermine "their guys", even though this is harming the agency.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Listening to the Democratic National Convention when you are supposed to be working is bad. Getting the entire office high thus preventing anyone from getting anything done is good.
* ItsPersonal: It's pretty obvious that his crusade to oust Don from the agency is more than just a business matter for him. It's implied that he blames Don for Ted's depression.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm[=/=]EveryManHasHisPrice: Forgoes his vendetta against Don in order to comply with the buyout by [=McCann=].
--> '''Roger:''' Really?
--> '''Jim:''' It's a lot of money.
* MayDecemberRomance: It's implied that he is carrying on an affair with Ted's secretary Moira, to the point that they were seen coming out of an elevator together during the afternoon.
--> Is that Shalimar?
* MeetTheNewBoss: Shares a lot of Duck Phillips' philosophies about the ad business, in particular that good creative isn't nearly as important as strong media presence. He's a lot more cunning (and less of an alcoholic) than Duck, though.
* PutOnABus: He leaves the agency after selling it to [=McCann=].
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Lays out a particularly brutal one on Don in the mid-season finale:
--> You know, Ted and I, whenever we would hear that your agency was involved, we'd always be so intimidated. What was that man up to? Such a cloud of mystery! Now that I've been backstage, I'm deeply unimpressed Don. You're just a bully and a drunk; a football player in a suit. The most eloquent I've ever heard you was when you were blubbering like a little girl about your impoverished childhood. Oh, you want to take a swing at me? It would save us all a lot of trouble!

[[folder:Frank Gleason]]

[[quoteright:231:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_frank_gleason.jpg]]
->'''Played by''': Craig Anton

The third partner and Art Director at CGC. He and Ted are old friends and part of one of those copywriter/artist pairs that occur occasionally in advertising. He dies from cancer shortly after being introduced.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: He only appeared in two episodes and died an episode after his second appearance.
* YourDaysAreNumbered: He has terminal cancer.
[[/folder]]

!Families



[[folder:Bobby Draper and Gene Draper]]
->'''Bobby Played By''': Maxwell Huckabee, Aaron Hart, Jared Gilmore, and Mason Vale Cotton

Don and Betty's sons. Much more in the background than Sally.

* ADayInTheLimelight: For Bobby in "The Flood" and "Field Trip"; both dealing with his relationship with his parents.
* TheCutie: Bobby. Gene in Season 7B.
* DeadGuyJunior: Gene [[BirthDeathJuxtaposition is born soon after Betty's father dies]], and she names the baby after him, much to the dismay of Don (who couldn't stand her father and vice versa) and Sally (who is having a hard enough time dealing with her grandfather's death without a ReplacementGoldfish coming along).
* TheKlutz: As a young child, Bobby accidentally hurts himself and breaks a lot of things around the house. It's not that unusual, but Betty comes down on him hard over it.
* ParentalFavoritism: While Sally is more of a frustrating mystery to him, the few times we see him interact alone with Bobby have always been rather emotionally significant to Don, as his own baggage related to his father causes him to see a certain connection to him.
** Gene is the one child Betty constantly holds next to her and treats tenderly.
* LivingProp: Well, Gene is still a baby, but Bobby has been able to talk since we've known him and rarely avails himself of this ability.
** This looks like it could change for Bobby as of the Season 6 episode, "The Flood."
* SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: Inverted in Bobby's case. Due to multiple recastings (see below) he was somehow no younger than four or five in 1960 but not yet a teenager by 1970.
* TheOtherDarrin: There have been ''four'' Bobbys so far. With Mason Vale Cotton's PromotionToOpeningTitles, it looks like this has come to an end. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the episode "The Better Half" where Bobby mentions that ([[InUniverse at his summer camp]]) he's known as "Bobby five" because there's so many, and that "Bobby one" left.

[[folder:Henry Francis]]
[[quoteright:153:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Henry-Francis-001_7404.png]]
->'''Played By''': Christopher Stanley

An acquaintance of Roger Sterling's, Henry is a Republican political operative in New York State first for Governor Nelson Rockefeller, then for New York Mayor John Lindsay,[[note]]Both Rockefeller and Lindsay were noted liberal Republicans, and Francis is no different[[/note]] whom Betty meets at a party. After her marriage to Don starts to founder, she begins an affair with him and eventually divorces Don to marry him. He himself is already divorced, with a daughter. He is eventually elected to the New York State Senate from a safe GOP seat in Westchester County.

* FiftiesHair: As he is a politician, he maintains this conservative look into 1970.
* MamasBoy: Implied, his mother is a very terrifying and domineering woman that looks down at Betty and he's more mild-mannered compared to her. He's shown to be in some denial after a heavier Betty dyes her hair black, resembling a younger version of his Mother.
* MayDecemberRomance: He's a good fifteen years older than Betty and while they aren't without problems, it's clear they love each other very much.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: Having been through a divorce before, Henry tries to be the voice of reason with Betty to try to get along better with Don for the kids sake and her own future, but tends to be terse with Don every time they communicate in early years. By later seasons, he generally shrugs it off.
** The one real flash of anger toward Don featured Henry passive aggressively nudging his car forward into boxes of Don's stuff after an argument with Betty, and while requesting he move his items in a later conversation, requesting Don not come on Sunday because that is the day of Don's son Gene's birthday party. [[spoiler:Don shows up anyway and Betty lets him because he'd not risk losing contact with the kids for the sake of the fight.]]
* NiceGuy: Betty seems to consider him this, in contrast to Don. He may not be so much of one.
* NotSoAboveItAll: "The Runaways" has him display some [[StayInTheKitchen chauvinistic]] attitudes towards Betty, with him even referring to both her and a teenage Sally as [[FreudianSlip "Girls! Girls!"]]
* OnlySaneMan: Usually is, but his old-fashioned ways do clash with Betty's CharacterDevelopment in late seasons.
* ParentalSubstitute: {{Justified}} since he's more around than Don and has far less issues than him. Don gets a little jealous of his good parenting skills.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He might be the best parent on the show. In spite of this, Betty takes his advice about everything ''except'' when it comes to Sally.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Defied, he doesn't invoke his clout to dodge petty things like car tickets and doesn't like it when his relatives try to. He explains to his Mother that his approach to dealing with a speeding ticket is "to pay it".
* SilverFox
* StandardFiftiesFather: In the most ironic way possible, given the context.

[[folder:Mona Sterling]]
->'''Played By:''' Talia Balsam

Roger Sterling's first wife, who he divorces and leaves for Jane, a secretary at SCDP.

* FiftiesHair: Starts off with very conservative hair until she loosens up towards the end of the decade.
* DeadpanSnarker: Hmmm, so that's what they saw in each other....
* FootDraggingDivorcee: She refuses to divorce Roger until she gets a lot of money from him after 20 years of marriage.
* GrandeDame: Oh so much.
* HiddenDepths: "The Monolith" points out that she struggled with drinking and depression while raising Margaret as a young mom and that she was often lonely, likely when Roger was at War or when he came back and spent most of his time at the agency or with mistresses.
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Family Member]]: A mediator for both her ex-husband and daughter, this is well shown in the 3rd season when Margaret's wedding was being prepared.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: With Jane Sterling, even after Roger and Jane are divorced, Mona makes sure to be more poised in comparison to Jane and has a hard time being neutral during the wedding plans in regards to Jane.
** Played with in scenes with her and Joan, as she isn't aware of the relationship between Joan and Roger and respects Joan's beauty and fashion know-how.
* RichBitch: Her first appearance shown her to not show any sympathy to Betty when she mentions that she still is reeling from the death of her mother, Roger complained about her being judgmental; she is a more sympathetic example than most.

[[folder:Margaret Hargrove (née Sterling)]]
->'''Played By:''' Elizabeth Rice

Roger and Mona Sterling's only daughter. She is married and has one child. She later leaves her husband and son to live in a Hippie commune and changes her name to "Marigold".

* FiftiesHair: Has a ponytail later cut into a bob in Season One and maintains wavy hair and beehives.
* SeventiesHair: Her hair gets looser as the show goes on and ends up a hippie with long, loose hair.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: That doesn't change much even when she is over 20.
* CallingTheOldManOut: After being asked how she could live with abandoning her family by her father, she brutally points out the hypocrisy in that, considering how he was a distant, incapable, apathetic parent who abandoned his wife and kids to marry his secretary, so why can't she do the same as him.
* [[LikeFatherLikeSon Like Father, Like Daughter]]: Lampshaded in the first season when Roger complains about how bratty she is, with Joan pointing out that she's only taking after Roger; she also turns out to be as self-centered as him.
* MissingMom: Becomes this to her son when she runs off to a commune.

[[folder:Anna Draper]]
[[quoteright:155:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Anna-Draper-001_3999.png]]
->'''Played By''': Melinda Page Hamilton

The wife of the real Don Draper, who lives in California. Through flashbacks, we find out that she tracked "Don" down after he came back from the war and demanded an explanation, but was very forgiving when she got one. She and this Don never had a romantic relationship; instead she was, as they both said at different times, the only person who knew all about him. [[spoiler:She dies of cancer in season four.]]

* FiftiesHair: When a flashback shows her confronting Don, she has very late 1940s-early 1950s hair, complete with the shiny lower bun and the suit with the shoulder pads. Later flashbacks and current appearances show her with longer, looser hair.
* BlitheSpirit[=/=]ManicPixieDreamGirl
* TheConfidant
* MoralityPet: To Don.
* RomancingTheWidow: Averted. One of the few attractive women Don wouldn't try to stick his Dick Whitman in.
* YourDaysAreNumbered: [[spoiler:But she doesn't know it.]]

[[folder:Trudy Campbell]]
[[quoteright:145:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Trudy-Campbell-001_8730.png]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/AlisonBrie

Pete Campbell's wife, from a NouveauRiche family. They had a rocky start, but have grown into one of the most stable and loving couples on the show for a brief period of time.

* FiftiesHair: Starts the series with chic updos of the later 1950s and early 1960s, only to loosen to bouffants as the series goes on.
* SeventiesHair: When she isn't wearing her hair up, she wears her hair lose and when we see her again in 1969 and 1970, her hair is long and loose with some curls. The finale sees her traveling with long, loose but styled hair.
* AmicableExes: She settles in this kind of relationship with Pete in late seasons, for their daughter's sake. [[spoiler: And eventually rekindling their marriage.]]
* BrainyBrunette: A cunning, witty, vivacious brown-haired woman who coaches her husband through his career and reads "the Classics" as opposed to modern short stories and paperback novels.
* DaddysGirl: She's her father little princess, and nothing is ever too much for her (which her husband resents, given [[TheUnfavourite his upbringing]]). [[spoiler: To the point of throwing out of the window a years-long partnership with Pete when his father-in-law finds out he cheats on his daughter.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:Having had enough of Peter's lies and adultery, Trudy unleashes a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech before kicking him out of the house in season 6. A completely unintimidated Pete then bites back himself, stating "You're going to sleep alone tonight. And you will realize you don't know anything for sure." In this show, he's right.]]
* HappilyMarried: Played with.
** Pete and Trudy's marriage takes work (and isn't always so happy), but as pointed out above, it's on much solider ground than most of the other SCDP marriages. However, she eventually becomes quite naggy (see entry on her husband.)
** [[spoiler:They're in the process of divorcing by Season 7 and then call it off in 7B before moving to Wichita.]]
* HiddenDepths: Trudy can dance a mean Charleston and apparently ''really'' loves watching boxing.
** It was also shown that she is known among the office as a notoriously adamant party host, who won't take no for an answer when inviting people. She was even able to force Don to attend a party he wanted out of, and Betty couldn't even get the guy to show up to his kid's birthday party.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Gets pregnant just as she and Pete decide to adopt, after trying for three years with no luck she gives birth to their daughter. In Season 2, her inability to conceive is also framed in contrast to Peggy's unwanted pregnancy in Season 1 (by Pete, no less) and Betty's at the end of season 2.
* NiceHat: Has a wide collection of hats for her going-out outfits, the image shown is just one of many.
* NouveauRiche: Her father is a SelfMadeMan of humble background, and she married into an old money but impoverished family.
* SilkHidingSteel: Appears to be a young, bubbly, sociable upper-middle class housewife with classy manners and a fashionable wardrobe, she always proves herself to be tougher than what her husband expects.
* SocialClimber: Much of the earlier season has her courting the attention of more established women and planning dinner parties, she doesn't abandon this activity but focuses more on their daughter Tammy.
* SpoilerSweet: She is a only child and her parents' little princess. She is usually kind and considerate but later seasons shows that she is used to get what she wants. Hers and Pete's biggest crisis starts when they move out of Manhattan and she really can't see that Pete is deeply unhappy with living in suburbs.
* StepfordSmiler: Downplayed. She has a habit of hiding negative emotions behind a bubbly smile, but is still capable of putting her foot down and asserting herself when she feels the need to.
* WomenAreWiser: She is sometimes more adult than Pete. Other times she can be naive or overly optimistic, and Pete needs to tell her what's what.
** In 7B she clearly tells him that she looks back and sees things as they are rather than how she wants to see them as, so she has grown a lot from the young, wide-eyed bride she was in the early 60s.

[[folder:Emile and Marie Calvet]]
->'''Played By''': Ronald Guttman and Julia Ormond

Megan's French-Canadian parents, whose marriage is decaying from the inside out.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Emile seemed amused at Pete fooling him about admiring his work on Marxism.
* TheAlcoholic: Marie is rarely seen very far from a glass, and in "For Immediate Release" she pulls out a wine glass and then chooses to just drink out of the bottle.
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Two [[FunnyForeigner funny foreigners]] who argue in French. One is a communist KnightTemplar and the other a LadyDrunk with a tongue sharp like a guillotine.
* BrutalHonesty: Marie tends to be amazingly blunt (see above). [[spoiler: Another thing Roger likes about her.]]
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Emile is a Marxist. Megan is married to Don Draper, who does advertising (the epitome of capitalism) for a living.
* DirtyCommunist: Roger has this reaction when he hears about Emile's political affiliations.
* EvilParentsWantGoodKids: Not "evil", per se, but both Emile and Marie are both very spiteful and unhappy people, who nonetheless have raised a happy and functional daughter.
* FreudianSlip: After seeing Sally dressed up for dinner in a very Megan-esque outfit...
-->'''Emile:''' There is nothing you can do, Don. One day your daughter will spread her legs and fly away.
-->'''Roger:''' ''(laughs)''
-->'''Megan:''' Wings, Daddy. You mean wings.
* HappilyMarried: Marie [[spoiler:to Roger]] in "Person to Person".
* JerkassHasAPoint: They each have their moments, in "At the Codfish Ball" and "The Phantom", respectively. In the former, Emile convinces Megan to quit her unsatisfying job at SCDP and follow her dream. In the latter, when Megan has hit a wall in her efforts to pursue an acting career, Marie convinces her to use Don's influence to get work through nepotism. Thanks to this advice, she is a famous soap opera star by the beginning of Season 6.
* MamaBear: Marie [[spoiler:takes all of Don's furniture in retaliation for divorcing Megan.]]
* NiceHat: Marie has quite a number of them to match her outfits.
* PetTheDog: Emile, who has spent the entirety of the episode "At the Codfish Ball" wallowing pathetically in self-pity and resentment for all those around him, finally has a one-on-one conversation with his daughter in the final sequence, convincing her to follow her dreams.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Marie, not that she's so much a senior (she's younger than Roger) but she is a piece of work, a grandmother, and she does insult people in French, as seen when she dines out with Don and Megan when they met with Mr. and Mrs. Rennet.
* SilverVixen: Marie looks young for her age and is fiercely attractive and sensual.
* YourCheatingHeart: Emile was caught crying to a female college student on the phone, though it's never made explicit the exact nature of their relationship. It's suggested that Mari knows about his occasional indiscretions and doesn't much care, but that him going to someone besides her for ''emotional'' support really hurt her. [[spoiler:Marie sleeps with Roger.]]

[[folder:Greg Harris]]
[[quoteright:149:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Greg-Harris-001_5362.png]]
->'''Played By''': Samuel Page

Joan's fiancé and then husband, a doctor. In the first episode in which he is featured (he is seen before briefly), he rapes her on the floor of Don's office, which she keeps a secret and hasn't mentioned since. He fails to get his residency when they planned, then joins the Army instead. [[spoiler:In Season Five, he and Joan have a huge fight and he files for divorce.]]

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Harris -- like Miller and Siegel -- is sometimes but not always a Jewish name; Joan says he's not Jewish, but Roger thinks he "used to be."
* DisappearedDad: He hasn't been seen since "Mystery Date" and Joan stated that if she died, Kevin would live with Greg's parents or her mom; "Person To Person" reveals that he met a nurse, married her, and had twins and hasn't bothered to visit Kevin... and he's still unaware that he isn't the boy's biological father.
* {{Jerkass}}: He seldom thinks about anyone other than himself.
---> '''Joan:''' ''(about why he doesn't see Kevin anymore and if he knows about Joan and Roger)'' No. He's just a terrible person.
* HappilyMarried: The scene that's hardest to watch may not be the one in which he sexually assaults Joan and then acts like nothing happened, but rather the ones later on where they have every appearance of a normal loving relationship. The marriage does have more mundane low points. Joan's contempt for him for sucking at his job and {{wangst}}ing about it, a huge contrast to the professional life ''she'''s giving up to marry him -- which he doesn't even seem to realize. In Season 5, [[spoiler:this is finally subverted when Joan kicks him out of her apartment for good after he volunteers for a second tour of duty in Vietnam without her approval. While doing this, she also calls him out on raping her.]]
* MaritalRapeLicense: Takes Joan against her will whilst she's his fiancee.
* MarriedToTheJob: In season 4, he [[spoiler:signs up for another year in Vietnam without discussing it with Joan first]]; she is is less than happy.
* PetTheDog: He does have a few moments where he's quite nice and sweet to Joan, like in season 3 when he treats her cut. It's not enough to take the sting out of him being a rapist though.

[[folder:Katherine Olson]]
->'''Played By''': Myra Turley

Peggy's widowed mother.

* ApronMatron: A tough, middle-aged, stout, Irish Catholic, take no fools woman who can be harsh and critical of her daughters.
* BeehiveHairdo: Wears her hair in a similar style, was chosen for her by her hairdresser.
* BasementDweller: Some dialogue stated that she and her husband lived with Peggy's grandparents (likely implied to be her parents) until after Anita was born, judging by the ages of Anita and Peggy, it was UsefulNotes/TheGreatDepression and would have been harder for Mr. Olson to afford a house.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She is unpleasant and is responsible for her daughters' insecurities, but she really does love them.
* MyBelovedSmother: Has more than enough guilt for her daughters to partake in, she even made Peggy feel bad about wanting to move to Manhattan, acting like Peggy was moving to Nairobi rather than a train ride away.
* RacistGrandma: Might appear to be this when she expresses surprise that the Jewish Abe eats pork and might have a problem with Swedish people; she is very amiable to Abe up until he and Peggy announce they are cohabiting and she was an Irish Catholic who married a Norwegian Protestant with half-Italian grandsons and really likes Nat King Cole.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: It's lot easier to bathe a cat than to try to get any approval from Katherine.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anita Olson Respola]]
->'''Played By''': Audrey Wasilewski

Peggy's homemaker older sister.

* ApronMatron: She's pretty young for the trope [[YoungerThanTheyLook (despite her matronly look, she is about the same age as Betty and Joan who were born in the earlier part of the 1930s)]] but she has the strong-mindedness, well-knowing attitude, the homemaking and cooking skills, and the figure for the trope; however a few episodes imply that the toll of raising three boys, having a husband in and out of employment, and being a hostess to impress the priest and the neighbors can be hard on her.
* AwfulWeddedLife: Her marriage to Gerry looks to be that way in the Second Season and she is implied to envy her sister's single life, her marriage has seemed to have gotten better.
* {{Foil}}: To Megan's sister Marie-France, both are devout Catholic mothers with dissatisfying marriages and look down on their sisters' life choices. But Anita has evolved past her resentment of her sister, while Marie-France gets called out for being a "ghoul" who cannot see anyone make radical choices to gain happiness.
** To Joan, both have flaming-colored updos and wonder (often out loud) why Peggy is not following their line of choices. But Anita's path is less glamorous, more domestic, and the marriage is dissatisfying while Joan champions a more sophisticated, sensual, stylish femininity.
** To Betty, both are young housewives in dead end marriages with disapproving parents and have moments of resentment towards more modern women. But Anita lacks Betty's wealthy background, education, and [[HollywoodHomely isn't compared to movie stars]] like Betty (or even referred to as having a pretty face like their mother refers to Peggy), she does however learn to get past her resentment of Peggy and seems to be slightly more assertive to their mother, trying to carve out her own point of view rather than ape her mom.
* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Has this with Peggy, who works in Madison Avenue and lives the more "glamorous" single girl life and is a professional success while Anita stays home with three boys and a husband who is on the mend.
* GreenEyedMonster: Is very jealous and resentful of any (sometimes positive) attention Katherine and Father Gill give to Peggy, in retaliation, she tells Father Gill about Peggy being pregnant and even embellishes the story.
* {{Housewife}}: A more realistic one for that time. She stays home with three young boys at the house and hosts Sunday dinners; her day to day life is not very glamorous, with a husband with chronic back problems.
* KarmaHoudini: Anita never faces any sort of punishment for what she did to Peggy, but truth told only Father Gill and herself know it.
* MayDecemberRomance: Her husband Gerry looks a lot older than her.
* TheResenter: Is resentful to the point of hatred in Season Two of Peggy, because Peggy isn't as beholden to the repressive attitudes of their family and community, she gets over this by Season Three and is more supportive of Peggy and stands up to their mother.
* TheUnfavorite: In her way, while Peggy's choices are the subject of their mother's scorn, it seems to be implied that Anita [[WellDoneSonGuy doesn't receive positive feedback for her life choices]] and the look she makes when Katherine comments on Peggy's beauty seems to imply that she never got the same attention.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gayle Holloway]]
->'''Played By''': Christine Estabrook

Joan's mother.

* ApronMatron: Played with. She's a lot kookier and more glammed up than the usual trope but her background implies she was TheAlcoholic who raised Joan mostly by herself and she worked outside the home while being a domestic goddess; she also has old-fashioned standards for Joan's behavior.
* CoolOldLady: Has a camaraderie with the hippie-styled babysitter of Kevin and with Joan's childhood friend.
* {{Foil}}: To Katherine Olson and the late Ruth Hofstadt, she does stress Joan out and is responsible for how Joan uses her looks to operate throughout the world and for submitting to men in relationships, but her relationship with Joan has grown enough for her to see that Joan is a grown woman who can take care of herself while Peggy and Betty have clearly been scarred by their Mother's disapproving behavior.
* TheGadfly: Joan says Gayle loves to "stir the shit" and Gayle seems to find ways to manipulate Joan into obeying her or trip over her insecurities, for instance the SCDP ad to take the piss at Y&R.
* IAmNotPretty: She raised Joan to put care and attention to her appearance, to be the most beautiful woman in the room and is implied to feel she isn't so attractive. When Joan's friend Kate gives her a Mary Kay makeover, Kate remarks "if you look at little rusty, it's because I'm a little rusty" and Gail replies "I need all the help I can get".
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Is meddling and messes with Joan's mind, but she is very supportive of her daughter and her career; Gail is even welcoming to Joan's friends and later [[spoiler: helps start a production company with Joan]].
* MenAreStrongWomenArePretty: She raised Joan to be "admired", as in for being beautiful and subservient to men, rather than for any personal and professional merits Joan can achieve.
* MyBelovedSmother: She is one of the few people who can try to make Joan waver in confidence, it seems her influence has been slipping somewhat with Joan as an adult woman who is learning to live life the way it makes her happy. Implied she is competitive with Joan about attracting men and is the reason Joan attaches a great value to her looks.
-->'''Gayle:''' You aren't at your fighting weight
--> '''Joan:''' Try Me.
* SilverVixen: Clearly wants to be this, inviting the plumber in to enjoy his company (deliberately putting a lemon peel in the garbage disposal, and plays stupid when Joan tells her she can ask him out and she states he is married with four children. Later on his wife refuses him into Joan's apartment because of Gayle's behavior.
* StayInTheKitchen: She has these ambitions for Joan, urges her to be submissive to men especially her husband, despite having to had to work when Joan was growing up.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: She is even surprised herself that she is more proud of her daughter being a Madison Avenue agency partner than for her being a Surgeon's wife.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pauline Francis]]
->'''Played By''': Pamela Dunlap

Henry's Mother and Betty's new mother-in-law.

* AbusiveParents: Her father once kicked her clear across the room and said "that's for nothing".
* AccentuateTheNegative: She tends to have a negative opinion of everything and plenty of people. Heavy traffic on Thanksgiving? The country is being run to the ground because of divorce. Her new daughter-in-law trying to please her? She's a silly woman. One episode had Sally try to trick her into voicing her true, negative opinions of Betty and the Draper children.
* FatBitch: Very unpleasant and obese.
* GrandeDame: Upper-class, older, and serious.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Very unpleasant but she really cares for Henry and even for her step-grandchildrens' welfare.
* JerkassHasAPoint: She is not a pleasant person but her instincts about Betty are right on point.
* MyBelovedSmother: She is very involved in Henry's business and family, is implied to have been a controlling mother.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: She doesn't think very well of Betty, to say the least. She even had the gall to criticize Betty about gaining weight even though she is heavy herself.
--> She's a silly woman

[[/folder]]

!Other characters

[[folder:Carla]]
->'''Played By''': Deborah Lacey

The Drapers' housekeeper and sort-of nanny. The show's most prominent black character in the first four seasons, not that that's saying very much.

----

* KindlyHousekeeper: Very kind. She takes care of what Betty needs during the divorce and whenever Betty is hungover after a party where Don humiliated her.
* [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Parental Figure]]: Served as this to Bobby and Sally, being the only adult in their household who isn't having an affair, an alcoholic, depressed, narcissistic, childish, nor possessing any other dysfunctional behavior.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Sally and Bobby, often. Especially during Betty's brief collapse during season 2, where Carla would take virtually complete care of the kids with Betty only bothering to say goodbye to them on their way to school. And during season 3 when she is shown to take care of the kids for 6 weeks while both parents are away.
* PutOnABus: Betty fired her at the end of the fourth season for letting Glen come to see Sally, though it's strongly implied that Betty just used it as a convenient excuse to get rid of what she saw as both a challenge to her authority as a mother, and one of the last major remnants of her marriage to Don.
* SatelliteCharacter: We never see any of her life outside the Draper household, and she rarely discusses it. When she starts to, Betty usually changes the subject rather abruptly.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Glen Bishop]]
->'''Played By''': Marten Weiner

The son of Helen Bishop, a divorced woman who moves into the Drapers' neighborhood in season one. Betty develops a rapport with him due to their mutual loneliness. We don't see him again until after Betty has divorced and remarried; he befriends Sally.

----

* SeventiesHair: Has curly [[Series/TheBradyBunch Greg Brady]] hair in the last season.
* CreepyChild: He purposely walks in on Betty in the bathroom when she's babysitting him. After she gets him to apologize, he asks for a lock of her hair, and it's a mark of how twisted the basis of their friendship is that she agrees to it. By the time of Season 5, he has a much more normal personality, though he is still a little socially awkward. [[spoiler:He still has his creepy crush on Betty, though.]]
* ForbiddenFriendship: With Betty, and later in season 4 with Sally. Ironically, it's Betty who forbids Sally to be friends with him.
* GorgeousPeriodDress: Averted(!) in ''Commissions and Fees'' - he manages to look both awkwardly adolescent and rumpled in his prep-school uniform. Picture [[Series/MyBabysittersAVampire Ethan Morgan]] in one of [[Series/SixtyMinutes Andy Rooney's]] suits.
** Though by season six, he seems to have grown a bit out of his awkward phase, and his teenage jacket covered in buttons is a pretty impressive display of "cool kid" fashion.
** In season 7B, he's 18 and has hair and wears clothes that make him resemble Greg Brady. Betty doesn't even recognize him at first.
* [[SheIsAllGrownUp He Is All Grown Up]]: He returns in Season 7 all slimmed down and [[Series/TheBradyBunch Greg Brady-esque]], Betty couldn't recognize him.
* IntergenerationalFriendship
* JustFriends: He seemed to have a bit of a crush on Sally, and in season five tells guys in school he's dating her. But he claims it's just so they won't bully him more than they already do for being friends with a girl, and Sally says she doesn't see him that way.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: He says it himself that he considers Sally a sister to him.
* LonelyTogether
* OffToBoardingSchool: His fate in Season 5. He and Sally maintain a long-distance relationship via secret phone calls late at night.
* PutOnABus: In "The Forecast", [[spoiler:we learn that he has enlisted in the army and is about to be sent to Vietnam.]]
* PrecociousCrush: On Betty. [[spoiler:He tries to act on it once he turns 18, but Betty turns him down.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rachel Menken]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_rachel_menken.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Maggie Siff

The daughter of a Jewish department-store owner and heir to the business, who comes to Sterling Cooper in the first episode. She and Don have an affair, which she ends when she realizes he keeps coming to her when he's in trouble and wants to run away. Smart and self-possessed, making her one of his more interesting relationships.

----

* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler:She appears as an illusion to Don in the premiere of Season 7B. We then find out that she passed away shortly before the events of the episode.]] Given how this was the first time she was seen since the very beginning of Season 2, it's also an interesting case of BackForTheFinale.
* CareerVersusMan: When she appears again in Season Two, she is seen married to a man named Tilden Katz [[spoiler: and after she died, it is revealed she kept leading her store even during her marriage and while she had her children, only to quit because she had gotten sick]].
* DeathByChildbirth: Her mother, one of the things that makes Don see her as a kindred spirit.
* LonelyTogether: With Don.
* MatzoFever: Lampshaded. Particularly in the first season, ''Mad Men'' acted like Jews were a distant and exotic tribe to the main cast of the show, who, while mostly conservative [=WASPs=], were after all New Yorkers in the advertising business and probably wouldn't have been ''that'' befuddled and bedazzled by them. When SC does business with Israel's ministry of tourism, Don arranges lunch with Rachel to pick her brain, and she asks if she's the only Jew he knows in New York. (She is.)
* MissingMom: She grew up without a mother. [[spoiler:She is revealed to have died of leukemia in "Severence" and left behind a few young children]].
* PutOnABus: She resurfaces in season two just long enough to let us know that she's married some guy named Tilden Katz, i.e. that we won't be seeing her anymore. Many fans were disappointed. (In a BrickJoke on the night of Freddy Rumsen's firing, Don uses "Tilden Katz" as his alias when the guys are trying to get into a seedy club.)
* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: She wants love, especially with a man that appreciates her as a person, and seems to get that with Tilden Katz.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Midge Daniels]]

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_midge_daniels.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Rosemarie [=DeWitt=]

The very first woman we see Don sleep with, a commercial artist with a circle of racially mixed, pot-smoking, counterculture friends. Don stops seeing her when he comes to believe that she's in love with one of them.

----

* {{Beatnik}}: She lives in Greenwich Village and is of that set, and dresses unconventionally for a woman of her age and generation.
* TheBusCameBack: She's another character who reappears in season four, [[spoiler:now a heroin addict]].
* DrugsAreBad: Well, heroin is, anyway.
* StarvingArtist: By 1965, she is a lot scrawnier and strung out on heroin, far from the more comfortable artist she was in 1960.
* TooMuchAlike: Aside from her disregard for him and their differences (he an Ad Man and her a bohemian artist), she and Don are both self-centered (she doesn't care to hear about his wife because it makes her feel bad)in contrast to the other women who cared for him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lee Garner, Jr.]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_lee_garner_jr_3.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Darren Pettie


The boisterous and possibly insane member of the family that owns North American Tobacco, which owns Sterling Cooper's most lucrative account, Lucky Strike. At first seemingly a friend of Roger's -- they're certainly rather similar -- he proves to be too much for everyone.

----

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Though moreso in his private life than in his professional capacity; the former bleeds over into the latter, however, so it counts.
* DepravedBisexual: His demand that Sal sleep with him leads to Sal's departure the next morning.
* GoodOlBoy
* JerkAss: Oh, yes. It eventually becomes clear that Roger's chief contribution to Sterling Cooper and SCDP is the ability to put up with Lee's abuse.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Conrad "Connie" Hilton]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_conrad_hilton.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Chelcie Ross

RealLife hotelier who befriends Don in Season 3.

----

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He calls Don up at odd hours and is genuinely upset to learn that Sterling Cooper can't literally put an ad on the moon.
* CoolOldGuy: Despite being a client from hell, Connie has Don's back, and he alerts Don to the upcoming sell-off of Sterling Cooper early enough that Don and the others are able to strip-mine the agency and set up SCDP.
* MistakenForServant: The first time we see him is during a wedding, where he is standing behind a counter at the bar. It wasn't until later that Don realized the old man he was chatting up with who he thought was the bartender was actually one of the wealthiest potential clients they've had.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Whitmans]]

!Archibald "Archie" Whitman

Don Draper's father.

* AbusiveParent: Don tells Betty his father beat the hell out of him as a child.
* TheAlcoholic: Archie loved himself some moonshine.
* PosthumousCharacter: He died when Don was only ten years old, way before the series begins. He only shows up via flashbacks to Don's youth, and in one occasion as a hallucination of sorts to Don when he's under the influence of drugs.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Violet flavored chewing gum, according to Don in ''Three Sundays''. This is later touched on as him having gifted Peggy a pack of them for a good luck charm.
* UndignifiedDeath: Peggy assumes Don was joking when he says his father was kicked to death by a horse while drunk. Nope.

!Abigail Whitman

Don's stepmother.

* AbusiveParent: She was heavily emotionally abusive to Don, calling him a "whorechild". It's to the point Don altogether refuses to acknowledge her as being any sort of mother to him.
* DoubleStandard: She beat young Dick with a spoon when she learned that he was molested by a prostitute, blaming him for it.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Only took Don in because she wanted a child and her own had all been stillbirths.
* PosthumousCharacter: Adam reveals that she died some years before the series began. Don is untroubled by this news.
* WickedStepmother: Though it's debatable whether she was any more evil than Don's actual father.

!Adam Whitman

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_adam_whitman.jpg]]
->'''Played by''': Jay Paulson

Don's half-brother.

* DrivenToSuicide: A combination of his desire to keep his past a secret, and his contempt for his old family led to Don turning him away after everyone Adam knew was now dead. He didn't handle it well.
* NiceGuy: He is only ever shown to interact much with Don, but he's portrayed as a very warm, friendly if somewhat awkward guy who really did care for his half-brother, and probably the only member of the family that ever truly loved him. Unfortunately, Don was never able to really love him back due to his resentment of the family as a whole.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jim Hobart]]

[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_jim_hobart.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': H. Richard Greene

The head of [=McCann=] Erickson.

----

* AscendedExtra: He first appears in Season 1, trying to convince Don to join [=McCann=] by offering Betty a modelling job with Coca-Cola, as well as offering Don large accounts such as Pan Am and Esso. He doesn't appear again until the final season, where [=McCann=] plays a much larger role.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Initially appears to be very congenial when dealing with Don and the partners of SC&P, but he ultimately reveals himself as quite sexist and petty when dealing with Joan's frustrations.
* ChekhovsGunman: He appears once in season one, then disappears from the show entirely for six seasons only to play a major role in season 7.
* {{Determinator}}: Tries to get Don Draper to work in [=McCann=] over the course of a decade. [[spoiler:He succeeds, but is frustrated with Don's tendency to leave the office without word. When he complains to Roger about it, Roger only shrugs and says "he does that".]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:He never gets his comeuppance for his sexism. But then, [=McCann=] is a firm stuck in old attitudes at that point -- who knows what TheSeventies hold?]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jimmy Barrett]]
->'''Played By''': Patrick Fischler

A foul-mouthed (by 1960s standards) comedian, who frequently appears in Sterling Cooper's TV adverts.

----

* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: He's ''very'' good at pulling off the JerkWithAHeartOfGold act whenever the need arises, but privately confides to Betty that he can't recall ever giving an apology and actually meaning it.
* MotorMouth: Seeing how he's a comedian, and an acerbic one at that, this is to be expected. It also gets him into trouble, and nearly costs Sterling Cooper an account.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: While he has less screentime than his wife does, he winds up being the person who tells Betty that Don is cheating on her. Previously they had been entirely HappilyMarried, but [[spoiler:Don's and Betty's relationship never really recovers from this revelation, and it leads to their eventual divorce]].
* YourCheatingHeart: Downplayed; he's certainly not above actively flirting with other women, even in the presence of his wife, but he has more class than to actually cheat on her. However, she doesn't have any such quandaries, and he knows it, much to his annoyance.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lt. Donald Draper]]
->'''Played By''': Troy Ruptash

The ''real'' Don Draper, a soldier who served in the Korean War with Dick Whitman, until being killed in a bombing raid. Following a chance misunderstanding, Dick assumes his identity.

----

* BodyHorror: His body is absolutely ''mutilated'' by the blast that kills him. It's no wonder that his corpse was mistaken for Dick's.
* IdenticalStranger: Downplayed; he and Dick don't really look all that much alike, but their height, build and hair color are all similar enough that his body is mistaken for Dick's after his face gets blown off.
* PosthumousCharacter: Is killed a decade or so before the series gets underway.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Despite clearly being peeved at only being assigned one soldier instead of an entire unit, he doesn't take it out on Dick, and shows himself to be a reasonable man.
* WithThisHerring: He and Dick are assigned to set up a field hospital with just a few tents and shovels.

[[/folder]]

!Sterling Cooper (later Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, even later Sterling Cooper & Partners)

[[folder:Harry Crane]]
[[quoteright:184:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Harry-001_6954.png]]
->'''Played By''': Rich Sommer

->''"Oooh, a Negro homosexual, Canadian sexpot, and unaccompanied redhead. This may be my key demographic."''

A media buyer at Sterling Cooper notable chiefly because everyone tends to overlook his existence, he eventually gets the agency into the television game, becoming Head of Television. He skips to SCDP to do the same job, where he finally has the resources to be effective... and somehow manages to end up even more of a schlemiel and a milquetoast (despite his good work).

* FiftiesHair: Starts off looking like a nerd from that era with slicked hair.
* SeventiesHair: Throughout the 60s he starts experimenting with the Peacock and Mod fashions of the era, even growing out his hair and ends the series with a very full hairdo with long side burns.
* AmbiguouslyBi: Harry Crane gives off vibes of this. On at least two separate occasions, he's talked about how a different character is "queer". His crass jokes about what he'd do to Megan reek of HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday, and in "Tea Leaves" he talks about how good Charlton Heston looks naked. On the other hand, he's definitely had drunken one-night stands with women (his wife exiles him to the couch for it), so it's fairly likely he has ''some'' natural inclination towards women.
** And then there's Joey's reaction to Harry's attempts to befriend him by telling him he could get him on Peyton Place:
-->'''Joey:''' "Everyplace I've worked, there's always some old fairy who comes on to me, but that was the weirdest by far."
* ButtMonkey: Very often.
* CasanovaWannabe: '''SO''' hard. In a series where EverybodyHasLotsOfSex, he's the guy who never, ever, manages it on his own merits. After his drunken, regretted one-night-stand in season 1, the only time we see him get any, [[spoiler:it was being used on him as a bargaining chip by Lakshmi to get him to back off from helping Paul.]]
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In the first two seasons, he was completely devoted to his wife, being legitimately repentant that he had a drunken one-night stand and cheated on her. In the more recent seasons, he TookALevelInJerkass and is an outright braggart over how often he cheats on his wife.
* TheChewToy: To the point where [[spoiler:Harry missing his chance at becoming a partner at the moment where being one would have made him a millionaire is played for laughs.]]
** [[HumiliationConga And then]] in the following episode, [[spoiler:he loses even more money in a messy divorce.]]
* DemotedToExtra: Despite still being technically a regular character in the second half of Season 7, his role is reduced to the point where he gets barely any more focus than the various secretaries. Even in the series finale, the only thing he gets to do is go to a farewell lunch with Pete.
* DudeWheresMyRespect: Harry constantly complains that he's passed over for a partnership, despite being indispensable to the firm. Heavily {{Lampshade}}d in the episode ''A Tale of Two Cities'', where he understands exactly how Hollywood works while Don and Roger are fish out of water -- but Don and Roger are convinced that all their errors are the fault of the people in California, not their unwillingness to listen to Harry.
** By season seven, he has given up on trying to earn respect and becomes a DeadpanSnarker who has no problem with calling out his bosses for ignoring the media department until it bites them in the behind.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Even Pete and Cutler can barely stand Harry and his smarminess.
* HappilyMarried: For the longest time, he fits this trope best out of the married men in the office -- he did cheat on his wife once, but it was a drunken one-night stand, he clearly regretted it immediately, and he must have told her, because it's doubtful she could have found out any other way. He was temporarily ExiledToTheCouch for it and then forgiven (between seasons). She also has a job of her own and he often takes her advice on work matters. Subverted in Season 4, where he is seen flirting with a model, and in Season 5 it is revealed that he has become unhappy with his marriage and cheats on his wife once more. In "Waterloo", he mentions that his wife is considering divorcing him.
* HiddenDepths: He's clearly succeeded despite having fewer advantages than Pete or Ken -- he didn't go to an Ivy League school, for instance, and doesn't seem to have their connections. He is ahead of his time on the importance of television. He was also a photographer in college.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Helps Kinsey out when Kinsey is at his lowest.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Harry spends the latter seasons trying desperately to assert himself as a pivotal member company, eventually chasing after a position as Partner. When he finally gets an offer, he dicks around trying to play hardball with the negotiations. [[spoiler:Naturally, at the halfway point of Season 7, he waits too long to sign the contract and misses an opportunity to make millions.]]
* NerdGlasses: Transitions in style from rounded browlines in the first half of the 1960s to a black and angular thick-framed variety post-Season 4.
* SkewedPriorities: He is upset at learning of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death not because a great man who brought hope to millions died, but because the media coverage of his death is preempting programs in which SCDP's commercials were supposed to air, costing the agency money. Pete, of all people, calls Harry out on his insensitive behavior.
** It's hinted that he had this as early as Season 3. Following JFK's death, Pete notes to Trudy that Harry was, of all things, checking his data to see what programs wouldn't be aired as a result.
* TookALevelInJerkass: At the beginning of the show he was one of the nicest guys in the office, but after his Television department takes off at SCDP, he starts to suffer from a massively inflated ego, not to mention becoming far more overtly sexist. By series' end, nearly ever major character seems to openly loathe him.
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Helped Kinsey out even though no one, not even Kinsey, would ever know the full extent of the help.
* YourCheatingHeart: He had a one-night-stand early in the show and was wracked with regret, but by the later seasons he was shamelessly using his TV connections to have sex with any women in eyeshot.

[[folder:Ken Cosgrove]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kencosgrove_3125.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I wanna stand and salute that."'']]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad_men_ken_cosgrove_eye_patch.jpg[[/labelnote]] Ken's appearance starting from "The Quality of Mercy".]]

->'''Played By''': Creator/AaronStaton

->''"Title"? I'm Ken!...Cosgrove...[[SatelliteCharacter Accounts.]]''

[[UsefulNotes/IvyLeague Columbia]]-educated WASP from Vermont and a major rival of Pete's, coming in as an account executive at about the same time as him. They eventually come to a truce.

* FiftiesHair: This is especially noticeable in the first three seasons; it loosens up into the late 60s "Dry Look" over time.
* TheAce: He can dance and write, in addition to being a good salesman.
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: In response to Roger's pirate crack when wearing the eye patch [[spoiler:after being accidentally shot by a couple of GM executives]], he says he'd laugh if he didn't hurt so much.
* AlmightyJanitor: Roger offers to promote Ken to partner in exchange for Ken getting his father-in-law to sign on as an account. Ken turns him down because he does not want to get involved with any of the office politics.
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: He's the target of envy from Pete, Harry, and Paul.
* BreakTheCutie: The Chevy execs drive him crazy, involving him in a car crash and later shooting him on a hunting trip -- enough to make him give the Chevy account to Pete.
* ButtMonkey: In Season 6, courtesy of some rowdy executives of General Motors. A car accident leaves him walking with a cane and shortly after he needs an eyepatch thanks to a hunting accident. Then he [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere calls it quits]] and hands the account to Pete.
* CharacterDevelopment: Actually done rather subtly, but Ken's has steadily changed over the course of the series. In the early series, he was a bit of a {{Jerkass}} Womanizer who had no problem taking advantage of the office politics. After settling down and getting married, Ken mellowed out, becoming faithful to his wife and transitioned to being an all around nice guy. By latter seasons, Ken is the only member of the office able to balance his work and personal life.
* ChivalrousPervert: In the early seasons, he's every bit the womanizer that his peers are, but unlike them, Ken is never shown to be manipulative or condescending towards the females he's hitting on. He treats Peggy with respect and tries ([[HopelessSuitor unsuccessfully]]) to court Jane before he finally gets engaged and remains faithful to his wife.
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Oh, poor Sal.
* EyeScream: He loses an eye to [[RecklessGunUsage a hunting accident]] in Season 6.
** EyepatchOfPower: His attempt to cover it up does make Ken look more distinctive.
* TheGenericGuy[=/=]SatelliteCharacter: Ken seems to exist primarily to act as a foil for other characters. Paul Kinsey and Pete Campbell are jealous of Ken's literary ability, Sal Romano is attracted to him, and Ken's refusal to mix SCDP business with his personal life in Season 4 serves to contrast with most of the other account men at SCDP. Early in season 1, Ken was also a Charismatic Womanizer while Harry was a stiff who kowtowed to his wife. In later seasons, Ken is now HappilyMarried while Harry callously cheats on his wife.
* HappilyMarried: To [[Series/TheSecretWorldOfAlexMack Alex Mack]].
* HiddenDepths: For all his bluster and inappropriate behavior, he respects Peggy and treats her relatively equally much faster than any of the other characters in his generation.
** It was already known that Ken had written and published one story, but Season 5 reveals he's published over 20 science fiction and fantasy stories under a pseudonym, something he's mildly embarrassed about but that both his wife and Peggy seem genuinely impressed by. When Roger finds out, he's less impressed, giving Ken a tongue lashing for dividing his focus.
* MostWritersAreWriters: During season one, he fiddled around with getting some of his writings published, much to the jealous fury of Pete. When it turns out he's succeeding, it's Roger's turn to be jealous.
* NiceGuy: Ken has a few obnoxious moments in early seasons, but eventually becomes the most decent, likable, and honest person in the office.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: In season 4, Ken quits his position at [=McCann=] when he's approached by the Partners to start working for SCDP. This ultimately comes back to bite him in Season 7 where [[spoiler:after [=McCann=] buys out SC&P, [=McCann=] makes it his first priority to fire Ken for previously quitting. The real kicker is [[WhatHaveYouDoneForMeLately Roger doesn't even try to fight for his job.]]]]
* OnlySaneEmployee: So far, Ken seems to be the only character whose work has never been affected by a secret personal life, blatant narcissism, excessive drinking, the inability to keep his pants on, spinelessness, or any of the other deep character flaws everyone else seems to have.
* PlatonicLifePartners: With Peggy in Season 5.
* TheReliableOne: Throughout the early seasons, the senior staff actually favored Ken over Pete Campbell. He doesn't advance like others because of his refusal to get involved in any of the office politics.
* TookALevelInJerkass: In "Time Zones", the stress from managing virtually every account in SC&P's New York office has done a number on Ken's temper.
** Though these are mostly restricted to times when he is under extreme duress. He seems more apologetic to Joan for his irritability later, and he's genuinely pleased to see Don in "Field Trips". He specifically notes how much the carousel in Central Park reminds him of Don, serving as a heartwarming CallBack to Don's speech way back in Season 1's "The Wheel" (which would've occurred almost a decade a go, in-universe).
* TranquilFury: In Season 7's "Severance," [[spoiler:in response to getting fired by Roger and [=McCann=], Ken takes over his father-in-law's position at Dow Chemicals and then tells Roger and Pete calmly that they will be needing to please ''him'' now.]]
** [[spoiler:After stringing them along for a few months, Ken gleefully fired them when doing so would kibosh SC&P's attempt to move to California and maintain autonomy from [=McCann=].]]

[[folder:Paul Kinsey]]
[[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Paul-Kinsey-001_5907.png]]
->'''Played By''': Michael Gladis

A wannabe Bohemian copywriter. [[PutOnABus He doesn't transfer to SCDP with the rest of the cast]].

* FiftiesHair: Starts off with a groomed look of the era, adds a goatee, and then ends up with no hair.
* BourgeoisBohemian: Grows a beard to put on the facade that he's "with it" among the righteous youth.
* ButtMonkey: More and more as Peggy rises through the ranks.
* TheChewToy: Is the butt of a lot of demeaning jokes. Even Lois, one of the more incompetent employees, tells him he's likely not going to get rehired post-merger due to redundancy.
* DeadpanSnarker: He has no problem making fun of things that annoy him.
* GiftedlyBad: Fancies himself a talented writer. The show is constantly providing evidence to the contrary.
** Compared to Peggy, his work as a copywriter is mediocre at best.
** His coworkers discover a play he has written and act it out. No one is impressed.
** His return, after being PutOnABus, reveals that he has been fired from a number of copywriter jobs at other agencies.
** He presents Harry with a spec script he has written for a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' episode. He is very proud of his work, calling it the best thing he has ever written. Harry, Peggy, and even Paul's girlfriend agree that it's terrible.
-->'''Harry:''' I think it was really hard for him.
-->'''Peggy:''' Then he shouldn't be doing it.
* GreenEyedMonster: He's jealous of Peggy's success (not that he does anything about it).
* HiddenDepths: Was a talented a capella singer at Princeton, and sung in their choir.
* {{Hipster}}: Of the period's definition of the word, although to be frank he'd fit right in with today's hipsters, too.
* HumiliationConga: After he is not invited to join SCDP, he works for [=McCann=] Erickson but is fired. He then goes through a series of jobs at other agencies until he is reduced to work as an in-house copywriter for A&P. Then he loses that job as well.
* {{Joisey}}: He apparently had a ''really'' thick accent before he went to Princeton. He still lives in New Jersey through the early seasons (Season 2 opens at a party at his apartment in Montclair).
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: He's very pretentious and arrogant, though it's repeatedly made clear that he's something of a dunce and everyone eventually comes to see that Peggy and Smitty are more talented copywriters.
* MoralityPet: In "Christmas Waltz", he becomes Harry's.
* MostWritersAreWriters: He tries, anyway.
* OldShame: It's revealed that he went to Princeton on a scholarship in season 3, implying he's from lower-class roots and he doesn't want anyone else to know.
* {{Pride}}: His inflated, sensitive ego makes him hard to get along with and contributes to his ButtMonkey status, but the really fatal example of this can be inferred from offscreen. When Crane asks Peggy why Kinsey was never brought on at SCDP, she responds that he never applied, suggesting that his pride was too bruised to consider that they might have given him a second shot. Contrast to Cosgrove, who was also left behind initially but made his way back to SCDP in short order.
* PutOnABus: He isn't hired by SCDP and thus leaves the cast after Season 3.
** TheBusCameBack: After being absent for the entirety of Season 4, he shows up once more in Season 5's "Christmas Waltz," where it is revealed that he has joined the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. At the end of that episode, he is put more literally and permanently on a bus, to Hollywood by Harry Crane.
* ShockValueRelationship: He dates a black woman to show how "progressive" he is. It doesn't take her long to figure it out.
* SmallNameBigEgo: A fairly frail ego at that.
* SoapboxSadie: Against the destruction of Penn Station.
* SomeOfMyBestFriendsAreX: In an attempt to show how progressive he is to his black girlfriend, Paul pretends he's on a first name basis with the African American elevator attendant.
* TheUnfavorite: Has very clearly become this compared to Peggy by mid-late Season 3, with Don considering him a spent force creatively and being thoroughly sick of his politics. Harry even admits privately to Pete in Season 5 that even if the [=McCann-Erickson=] buyout hadn't gone ahead, then sooner or later Don would probably have fired him anyway.

[[folder:Sal Romano]]
[[quoteright:169:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Sal-001_8317.png]]
->'''Played By''': Bryan Batt

Head art director at Sterling Cooper, and a closeted gay man. He leaves just before the end of Season 3 for reasons that have to do with Sterling Cooper's main client being a huge dick.

* FiftiesHair: Has a stylized, but slick and masculine look from that era.
* TheBeard: His wife, Kitty.
* ButNotTooGay: Justified given the time period, and the fact that Sal is extremely careful and conscientious. He's had his opportunities, but has turned (most of) them down.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: In a rare case of it, he's not killed off, but once Sal is outed, he gets sent his walking papers, and was never seen or mentioned again.
* {{Gayngst}}: Justified, given the period setting.
* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday
* LatinLover: His Italian heritage makes him automatically attractive to at least one doe-eyed secretary that we know of, and he plays this trope up for maximum cover. It probably also provides an explanation in the minds of his [=WASPy=] colleagues for his slight flamboyance.
* PutOnABus: In Season 3, when he's fired by SC.

[[folder:Herman "Duck" Phillips]]
[[quoteright:162:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Herman-001_613.png]]
->'''Played By''': Mark Moses

Brought into Sterling Cooper after his DarkAndTroubledPast at the London office of Young & Rubicam[[note]]A real firm, by the way.[[/note]]. His decisions result in frequent clashes with others (especially Don), but he gets the job done. Gets a job with agency Grey[[note]]Also real.[[/note]] after PPL sells Sterling Cooper to [=McCann=] Erickson[[note]]Real again. How did you guess?[[/note]]. He eventually becomes a headhunter that many of [=SC&P=]'s staff use.

* FiftiesHair: Has the StandardFiftiesFather look, then close cuts his hair, and then ends the series with slightly looser hair.
* AppropriatedAppelation: Implied:
-->'''Duck''': Please, call me "Duck".\\
'''Don''': I was told not to call you "Duck".
* BigBad: He, more or less, serves as this in season 2, becoming Don's ArchEnemy within Sterling Cooper. Most of the drama stems from their inability to agree on how to run the agency, working instead to outsmart and undermine each other.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: His career at Y&R was ruined by his alcoholism and an affair.
** He also killed seventeen men at Okinawa.
* IKnowKungFu: He can handle himself in a fight, as [[spoiler:Don]] learns in "The Suitcase".
* {{Jerkass}}: Probably the most ruthless in office politics while at Sterling Cooper, though he tries to camouflage it with a fatherly demeanor. It doesn't fool anybody.
* KickTheDog: When he lets his dog Chauncey go on the streets of New York because he's bothered by it looking at him while drinking. After the conversation with Pete earlier in the episode (where Pete says he loves having Chauncey around and wants a dog "for the office"), it's clearly done to show that Duck is not a nice person.
* MayDecemberRomance: With the decade or so younger Peggy.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: He persuades Sterling Cooper to get rid of their existing regional airline client in order to bring in American Airlines, which backfires horribly when his contact at the airline is fired right before the scheduled pitch, killing the deal there and then. Roger calls him out on this when he requests to be made partner, pointing out that thanks to the mess, the company is actually ''worse'' off than they were when he was brought in.
* OffTheWagon: As we later discover.
* SmokingHotSex: Of its many practitioners on the series, none is quite as avid as Duck, particularly during his affair with Peggy.
* SmugSnake: He's not nearly as good at office politics as he thinks, as Don effortlessly spoils his attempt to use the [=PPL=] merger to make himself company president.
* StandardFiftiesFather: Divorced though he may be, this is clearly an image he's cultivated for himself.
* StartOfDarkness: While he was never that nice of a person, he was at least no worse than Don, Roger or Bert were. The combination of his attempted deal with American Airlines being sunk by misfortune, along with his wife cutting off access to his children sends him down a dark path, and he goes FromBadToWorse after Roger scornfully turns down his request to be made a partner in the company.
* TyrantTakesTheHelm: For all of a couple of minutes.
* VillainousBreakdown: Gradually becomes more stressed out over his time at Sterling Cooper. It gets even worse when he [[OffTheWagon falls off the wagon.]] This culminates in his [[spoiler:ragequitting Sterling Cooper after Don effortlessly foils his plan to use the merger to become company president.]] It reaches its climax in Season 4, when he drunkenly disrupts the Clio award ceremony, then breaks into the SCDP office to take a crap on Don's chair (where Peggy finds him after he almost does it in Roger's office by mistake). He seems to have got his act together again by Season 6's "The Better Half".
* WeUsedToBeFriends: "Friends" is stretching it a bit, but he and Don were initially on much better terms. After all, it was Don who hired Duck in the first place.

[[folder:Freddy Rumsen]]
[[quoteright:174:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Freddy-Rumsen-001_8578.png]]
->'''Played By''': Joel Murray

An avuncular copywriter who, despite being a little old and behind the times, is generally open and fun-loving. He's a big supporter of Peggy, though they have their disagreements. Has had problems with alcohol, but is presently on the up-and-up.

* TheAlcoholic: Joan in Season One makes a snarky remark about his drinking habits after he expresses amazement at Peggy's wordplay ("Wouldn't you like to put that in a drink") and Season Two shows that his drinking led to him performing Mozart by unzipping his fly out in the steno pool and peeing his pants during a meeting. This leads to him getting fired and becoming freelance.
* TheBusCameBack: In Seasons 4, 5, and 7A.
* ChewToy: Pretty much exists to be the butt of Roger's (and Don, to a lesser extent) jokes.
* PlayingCyrano: In the Season 7 premiere, we find out that during his "leave of absence", Don gets Freddy to go into SC&P as a front to give pitches Don wrote so he can still work. Freddy [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this to Don later by calling it "This Cyrano routine".
* TokenGoodTeammate: Of the older and more conservative men in Sterling Cooper. He is faithfully married to his wife and stands for her honor when someone implies she's unattractive and he's awful in bed, he doesn't make degrading remarks about the secretarial pool during the focus group test for Belle Jolie lipstick, he was the first to notice Peggy's talent for words, and he is more involved with his family affairs all in contrast to men like Roger, Don, Lane, Pete, and Harry.

!SCDP New Additions

[[folder:Stan Rizzo]]
[[quoteright:184:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Stan-Rizzo-001_3356.png]]
[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/57b367f5cd424e796885d80d71d0d7fa.png]]
->'''Played By''': Jay Ferguson

The new artistic director at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Seen at first as a ReplacementScrappy for Sal Romano, his cocky mannerisms and political grandstanding dies down as the firm nears disaster. Much of his obnoxious behavior is tolerated because he's quite good at his job.

* SeventiesHair: By the end of the series he grew from a crewcut to a fuller mane and beard.
* AmbiguouslyJewish: He has a large poster of a man who appears to be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Dayan Moshe Dayan]] hanging over his bed. On the other hand, his name is stereotypically Italian.
* BadassBeard: Literally and figuratively grows the beard in Season 6, underscoring his maturation into a senior creative member of SCDP.
* BigBeautifulMan: He's always been tall and built, but later put on some weight with a visible belly along with facial hair; nobody complains and he's found sexy.
* BigBrotherInstinct: Revealed to have this for his late cousin Robbie, when the latter died in Vietnam, Stan really took it hard.
* BigThinShortTrio: The Big to Michael's Thin and Peggy's Short.
* BunnyEarsLawyer
* CasanovaWannabe
* CharacterDevelopment: He goes from being chauvinistic and rather full of himself, to being understanding and caring towards his co-workers, especially Peggy.
* DeadpanSnarker
* [[HugeGuyTinyGirl Huge Guy]]: Portrayed by the 5'11" Ferguson, and as of "Person to Person" [[spoiler:gets together with the more petite Peggy]].
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Given the events of ''Person To Person'', one can see Stan encouraging Peggy to go to Paris with Mathis's brother-in-law in ''Severance'' just for her to loosen up, as this trope.
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Peggy would be the first to say he does have an ego and ''New Business'' reveals him to wrestle with that and a crippling insecurity about his work, one that a client is able to use for getting the upper hand on him.
* {{Jerkass}}: At first, but not so much in later seasons.
* JerkJock: At least in appearance.
* LadykillerInLove: Is a CasanovaWannabe and had some one night stands, yet is revealed to be in love with [[spoiler:Peggy]].
* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: While high on the energy booster given to him by Cutler's doctor, he has the others try to hit a piece of paper with a picture of an apple on it that's above his head with their pens. Michael tries and ends up hitting his arm with a craft razor that was in the pen-cup. Stan responds with an "Aw Crap" that sounds more like he spilled water on himself.
* OddCouple: His officemate is Peggy. They even keep in touch after Peggy hops over to Ted Chaough's firm; later after the merger and a few breakups between them, [[spoiler:they can arguably be called an [[OfficialCouple Official Odd Couple]]]].
* OnlySaneMan: Is a Creative with co-workers like the irreverent and unprofessional Mathis, a few other immature copywriter guys, a stressed out Peggy who lives for work, a few bosses who've been here and there, and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Michael Ginsberg.
* RagingStiffie: In his introductory episode, when Peggy challenges him to put his money where his mouth is and work, alongside her, in the nude.
* TheStoner: In season six, he's constantly seen smoking marijuana in the SCDP offices. He gets away with it because he claims to do better work when stoned.
* TeamDad: Became this; Michael calls him "a Mother Hen" and pretty much keeps his own wits together in the face of an alcoholic boss, a boss with a SmallNameBigEgo, a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} colleague, and a copy chief [[spoiler: he's in love with]] who tends to get nervous and is MarriedToTheJob.
* TookALevelInKindness: While he still has some very brash moments, Stan is unquestionably much more kind-hearted and noble than the loud obnoxious fratboy he started as. (Discovering pot seems to have helped.)
* UnderstandingBoyfriend: Been the platonic and non-fantasy sort for Peggy and finally [[spoiler: officially her romantic partner at the end of the series]].
* VitriolicBestBuds: Stan and Peggy settle into this relationship [[spoiler:until they declare their love for each other in the series finale]].

[[folder:Faye Miller]]
[[quoteright:191:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Faye-Miller-001_7760.png]]
->'''Played By''': Cara Buono

A marketing researcher hired by SCDP, and probably the healthiest of Don's post-divorce relationships, until he screws it up.

* CareerVersusMan: She is strictly a business woman. She has no real interest in raising a family, and is absolutely terrible at understanding and talking to children, which, given her career, is something that she's deeply self-conscious about.
* ConflictingLoyalty: She has to build the proverbial Chinese wall to insulate her clients and remain professional, but Don's irresistible charms manage to tear it down.
* DroppedABridgeOnHer: Don dumps her over the phone, because she refuses his invitation to discuss bad news face to face.
* {{Foil}}: To both of Don's wives Betty and Megan. While Betty was a traditional housewife who was very harsh with her children and judgemental of others, Faye is awkward yet patient with Sally and encourages Don to perform the hardwork of self-improvement. Faye also accepts Don for all his flaws and encourages that work while Megan sees Don the way he wants to be seen.
* InformedJudaism
* NiceGirl: She's quite kind and understanding, and believes in the value of kindness and understanding in dealing with people as opposed to force.
* SchiffOneLiner: Her last line is a spot-on definition of Don.
-->I hope she knows you only like the beginning of things.

[[folder:Megan Calvet Draper]]
[[quoteright:173:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Megan-Calvet-001_7078.png]]
->'''Played By''': Jessica Paré

Don's latest secretary, to whom he takes a shine quite suddenly. He cheats on Faye with her, he asks her to accompany him to California to help watch his kids... and then ''he proposes to her''. She later joins the SCDP Creative team as a copywriter... only to leave to pursue her dream of becoming an actress.

* SeventiesHair: Her hair is looser and longer by the end of the series, she is even compared to Creator/BrigitteBardot and [[Film/LoveStory Ali Mac Graw]].
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Her father is a Marxist university professor who disapproves of capitalism in general and the advertising industry in particular. Her ''Maman'' seems much nicer and more supportive, but [[spoiler:after overhearing her husband having a suspicious phone conversation with one of his students, she accuses him of cheating on her in front of Don and at the American Cancer Society reception, she cheats on him with Roger.]]
* AmbiguouslyBi: She's definitely attracted to men and it's been implied that she's attracted to women as well. When her female boss propositions her, Megan's only objection appears to be that she does not want to cheat on Don. [[spoiler:In Season 7, she has a threesome with Don and a female friend while high.]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: She has a tendency to turn into this when she's upset, which became very clear in "The Phantom:" After rudely dismissing her mother's advice, she pretends to help a friend and fellow actress get a part in a commercial by one of Don's clients but goes to him wanting the job for herself.
* BrainyBrunette: ''Don'' thinks so at least, as he said that she reminds him of Peggy, the resident Brainy Brunette in-chief. How true this is remains to be seen, although her idea for Heinz does seem to have worked out quite well.
* CanadaEh: She's French-Canadian from Montreal. Her nationality is alluded to/joked about a few times, though language lessons have hidden her accent.
* CharacterShilling: People constantly remark how beautiful and talented Megan is.
* ChekhovsGunman: She's introduced early in season 4, and although she doesn't play any important role in the plot, she is repeatedly included in scenes and mentioned by name. Viewers may wonder why this is, right up to the point that Don falls in love with her and asks her to marry him.
* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: How ''will'' people who've heard [[Series/{{Degrassi}} Zig Novak's]] [[CringeComedy rendition]] [[HotForTeacher of]] Zou Bisou Bisou before hers react to her version...
* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: She's French-Canadian, and we hear her speak it once or twice, plus she teaches the Draper kids a French song. In the opening of season 5, she throws a surprise party for Don and sings [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFOzG3GYqo "Zou Bisou Bisou"]] to him.
* TheFashionista: Especially in later seasons, Megan is one of the most fashion-forward characters, always impeccably dressed and keeps up with the trends.
* FootDraggingDivorcee: She drags her feet regarding the divorce, until she gets a million dollars.
* FourthDateMarriage: And four is pushing it. The defining moment happens during a trip to California when Sally drops a milkshake and Megan is incredibly nice and cool about it, instead of being a DramaQueen as the Drapers had come to expect after being accustomed to Betty. Deconstructed in that it gradually becomes evident that she's not really compatible with Don, but then again, who is.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: She discusses this with Sylvia after she has a miscarriage, as they were both RaisedCatholic.
* MagicalNanny: She's really good with kids. Don even calls her [[Film/TheSoundOfMusic Maria Von Trapp]].
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Deconstructed. Reinvigorates Don for a while, but it doesn't last too long, as he only likes beginnings; it turns out that no matter how fun and sweet she is, that Don will always be an unhappy adulterer.
* MistakenForGay: Megan invites one of her (female) bosses over to her apartment for dinner while Don is away and discusses the problems she and Don are having with their marriage. Her boss takes this as a cue to kiss her on the lips. Megan takes it in stride after her boss assures her that turning her down won't get her fired.
* MsFanservice: She shows the most flesh of any of the female cast, frequently wearing miniskirt outfits to just about any occasion, including the workplace.
* {{Nepotism}}: Several of her coworkers are convinced that the only reason that she was made a copywriter was as a reward for marrying Don. She subverts this by actually being competent. In "The Phantom" [[spoiler:this is played straight, when Don uses his influence to get her cast in a commercial.]]
* PutOnABus: [[spoiler:She exits the series after she finalizes her divorce with Don in "New Business".]]
* ThePollyanna: She doesn't seem to understand that she can't do everything she wants to do.
* RaisedCatholic: She is from Quebec, after all. She has a miscarriage and feels guilt about wanting to have an abortion before the decision was taken from her.
* SecretKeeper: [[spoiler:In between seasons, Don told her he's really Dick Whitman.]]
* SexySecretary: A coquettish form, one that is more youthful than say Joan, she did wear bright-colored, tight clothes that show off her legs; she loses the secretary part after marrying Don and becoming a copywriter.
* ShesGotLegs: Long slender legs that she shows off as hemlines start getting higher.
* SiblingYinYang: She's a modern, liberated aspiring actress, but her sister is a repressed, devout Catholic.
* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: Megan has a habit of doing this. (Though given the repression of the times and the unhappiness this leads to for so many characters, maybe that just makes her the smart one.)
** This also helps to differentiate her from Betty, who often bottled up her feelings when she was married to Don.
* TrophyWife: A borderline example. The age difference between her and Don, while referenced in the show, is only 14 years (slightly larger than the real nine year age gap between Jon Hamm and Jessica Pare), and Megan wants to work with Don in advertising rather than merely look pretty on his arm. When she decides she wants to go back to acting rather than continue as a copywriter, Don is upset — not just because he likes having his wife at work with him (though he does, and he also thinks that having her around all the time will help him keep his impulses under control), but because he thinks she has a better future in advertising than acting.
* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler:When she divorces Don, tells him off, walks away with a lot of money and then tells off her whiny sister for blaming her for the ending of their parents' dysfunctional marriage.]]
* WaitingForABreak: She gets one at the start of Season 6, being cast on a SoapOpera called "To Have and To Hold".

[[folder:Michael Ginsberg]]
[[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Michael-Ginsberg-001_726.png]]
[[quoteright:163:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mad-men-ginsberg-s6-e1_3721.jpg]]
->'''Played By''': Creator/BenFeldman

->'''Michael:''' ''"LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair!"''
->'''Stan:''' ''"Should read the rest of that poem, ya boob."''

A Jewish copywriter hired in Season 5. He's good at his job, but rather eccentric.

* AmbiguouslyGay: He has never been in an on-screen relationship, has repeatedly turned down women (even bluntly telling them that he's not interested) and has been questioned multiple times by other characters about whether or not he likes girls. He also admits to Peggy that the office computer's data waves were making him "excited" looking at Stan's shoulders.
* BigThinShortTrio: The Thin to Stan's Big and Peggy's Short.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Despite generally being polite to people's faces, he has a habit of insulting them behind their backs.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Subverted. His eccentricity initially made Peggy refuse to hire him.
* CelibateHero: Still a virgin by choice.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Although he can turn it off. [[spoiler:He ultimately turns out to be a deconstruction when he cuts off his nipple to prove his love for Peggy and gets carted off, most likely to an institution.]]
* ConspiracyTheorist: He becomes convinced that the IBM computer is turning everyone gay.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: [[spoiler:He was born in a concentration camp.]]
* DeadpanSnarker
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]], Stan and Peggy care for him, but he tends to insult them to their faces or act like he doesn't like them.
* GeniusDitz: Don realizes most of SCDP's recent campaigns came from Ginsberg. Ted calls him "lightning in a bottle."
* MenCantKeepHouse: The apartment he keeps with his father is a mess.
---> '''Morris Ginsberg:''' You can't sew... Cook... Clean. You don't think there's a reason you have all these flaws? You need a girl.
* MotorMouth: He never shuts up.
* NewTechnologyIsEvil: He's convinced that the IBM machine is plotting to replace all the humans at SC&P.
* NoSocialSkills
* SanitySlippage: Ginsberg's neurotic tics and paranoia are mostly played for laughs, but in hindsight were clearly the early symptoms of very serious mental illness. He ends the series being dragged away to be institutionalized.
* TokenMinority: Roger ordered Peggy to hire him against her better judgment simply because Roger believed that [[YouHaveToHaveJews every ad agency needs a Jew.]]