[Deathwatch] Pat Hingle, actor, 84

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Character Actor Pat Hingle, 84; Starred in 'The Grifters,' 'Batman'
	
Pat Hingle had numerous roles on Broadway, including in 1955's
Pat Hingle had numerous roles on Broadway, including in 1955's "Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof," but he is also widely known for his role in four
"Batman" films. (By Tony Barnard -- Los Angeles Times)

Pat Hingle, 84, a pug-faced character actor who played Commissioner
Gordon in four "Batman" films and -- on the other side of the law --
roughed up Anjelica Huston as a bookie in "The Grifters," died Jan. 3
at his home in Carolina Beach, N.C. He had myelodysplasia, a blood
cancer.

His best-known role, as Commissioner James Gordon in Tim Burton's 1989
re-imagining of Batman, came more than 30 years after his breakthrough
in the 1955 Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof" as the greedy son Gooper. The play was directed by Elia
Kazan, his acting teacher, who also directed him in an uncredited role
as a bartender in his film debut, "On the Waterfront" (1954).

After "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," Mr. Hingle received a succession of
prominent Broadway roles. He was nominated for a Tony Award for best
featured actor in William Inge's "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs"
(1957) and played the lead role in Archibald MacLeish's retelling of
Job, "J.B." (1958).

The second show led to his casting in the title role of the 1960 film
"Elmer Gantry," based on the Sinclair Lewis novel about evangelists.

Before the production began, Mr. Hingle fell 54 feet down an elevator
shaft, fracturing his hip, skull, wrist and many of his ribs and losing
his left pinky. He also lost the movie role to Burt Lancaster.

"I know that if I had played Elmer Gantry, I would have been more of a
movie name," he told the New York Times. But he preferred the stage,
telling the Winston-Salem Journal, "I realized very rapidly that in
films, an actor has no bloody control over what the audience sees
whatsoever."

He disappeared into roles but with his broad shoulders and barrel chest
was never hard to notice. After spending four years on a Navy
destroyer, he went to college at the University of Texas and fell into
acting because he said every pretty woman he saw seemed to be walking
toward the theater department.

Working at an Austin movie house, he found himself further inspired in
his craft by watching such untypecastable character actors as Hume
Cronyn and Walter Huston.

He later terrified Huston's granddaughter Anjelica in "The Grifters"
(1990), burning a cigar on her skin in a scene so intense that she
spent the night retching.

He was frequently cast in positions of authority. He played Clint
Eastwood's boss in "Sudden Impact" (1983) as well as father to both
Warren Beatty ("Splendor in the Grass," 1961) and Sally Field ("Norma
Rae," 1979).

Mr. Hingle also played a Founding Father, portraying Ben Franklin in
the 1997 Broadway revival of the musical "1776," a performance Variety
called "the perfect blend of wisdom, compassion and humor."

Martin Patterson Hingle was born July 19, 1924, in Miami. He was 6 when
his father, a building contractor, abandoned the family, and his mother
moved around to try to find jobs to support the family.

After World War II, he married Alyce Dorsey. They divorced after 32
years. In 1979, he married Julia Wright, whom he met while filming
"When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?"

In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children from his
first marriage; two stepchildren; 11 grandchildren; and two sisters.

He moved to the North Carolina oceanfront after filming "Maximum
Overdrive" in 1986. He remained a prolific actor through recent years
but always looked back on his college days as his most vital period.

"In three years I did 35 plays and in one of those plays I finally
realized that I felt more comfortable than I did anywhere and I was
where God intended me to be. I always feel that way," he told the
Wilmington Star News in 2007, and then interrupted himself: "Well,
shoot a monkey tail, I've got to get to rehearsal." 

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary