Actor Pat Hingle died at his home in North Carolina on 3 January 2009 of myelodysplasia (a blood disorder), according to his wife, Julia Wright. Born Martin Patterson Hingle on 19 July 1924 in Miami, Florida, he played Commissioner Gordon in four Batman movies, and Benjamin Franklin in the 1997 revival of Broadway’s 1776 (with Brent Spiner as John Adams).
Hingle’s first critical success came on Broadway in 1953’s End as a Man; his first film role (uncredited) was in 1954’s On the Waterfront. He also played Oscar in The Odd Couple on stage, and a gay J. Edgar Hoover in the 1992 film Citizen Cohn. “I can be a truck driver, a doctor, a lawyer, a hanging judge, whatever. And looking like I do has allowed me to make a good living in all kinds of media. It’s a blessing and I’m aware of it,” the New York Times quotes him from a previous interview in its obituary. The Times then goes on to note that, though Hingle had “an imposing physical presence,” his acting abilities were “probably enhanced by the jobs he had while trying to break into show business—shoe salesman, playground attendant, rather unsuccessful purveyor of Bibles, farmhand, usher, waiter, and even file clerk at Bloomingdale’s.”
Hingle’s genre roles include: Undoing Time (2008), Muppets from Space (1999), Touched by an Angel (1999), Batman & Robin (1997), The Shining (1997), American Gothic (1996), Batman Forever (1995), Batman Returns (1992), Not of This World (1991), Batman (1989), The Land Before Time (1988), Maximum Overdrive (1986), Amazing Stories (1985), Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (1977), The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), Nightmare Honeymoon (1973), Sweet, Sweet Rachel (1971), The Invaders (1967), Carol for Another Christmas (1964), and The Twilight Zone (1963).
Hingle attended the University of Texas, dropping out to join the Navy during World War II (he was a fireman aboard a destroyer), and then returning to school in 1946, when he joined the drama club. He graduated in 1949, and was recalled to the Navy during the Korean War. He arrived in New York in 1952 and started acting on stage and in films. He once said he preferred the stage because movies “are not the actor’s medium.”
Hingle married Alyce F. Dorsey in 1947 (they later divorced), and he married Wright in 1979. He is survived by his three children from his first marriage, as well as his second wife, two stepchildren, two sisters, and eleven grandchildren.