a living! It was severed in the fall as abruptly as Hingle`s career was halted by agonizing months of rehabilitation and second guesses about the direction his life as an actor might have taken. Hingle was still recovering when Burt Lancaster won an Oscar for his performance in the role. The newspaper has long since ceased publication, and the clipping is cracked and yellow with age. . Over the next 50 years, Hingle fashioned a career as a top supporting actor in film, television and theater. But in three weeks time, I saw Walter Huston (Anjelica Hustons grandfather) and Hume Cronyn in about 10 movies and I saw that it was possible to play a wide variety of roles where there was no connections between one or the other; they werent put in a slot . Hingle and Michael Gough are the only two actors to appear in all 4 Batman movies. Pat Hingle, the veteran actor with more than half a century of impressive work in theater, film and television who was perhaps best known to a generation of movie fans as Commissioner James Gordon in the first four Batman films, has died. He played Dr. Chapman in seven episodes of the TV series Gunsmoke (1971), and Col. Tucker in the movie Gunsmoke: To the Last Man (1992). He tried to crawl out, lost his balance and fell 54ft down the shaft. In 1963, Hingle guest-starred in an episode of The Twilight Zone,"The Incredible World of Horace Ford", as the title character. He returned to the University of Texas after the war and earned a degree in radio broadcasting in 1949. The couple later divorced. 1941 entered the University of Texas, majoring in advertising. Martin Patterson Hingle, actor, born 19 July 1924; died 3 January 2009, US character actor with a distinguished career on stage and screen, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Pat Hingle (r) in The Ugly American with Marlon Brando Photograph: The Ronald Grant Archive. Caught in an elevator in his West End Avenue apartment building that was stalled . He served on the destroyer USS Marshall during World War II. He is so busy with screen and stage work that he hardly has time to think about what might have been--even though it is fascinating to speculate. Hingle was also in Arthur Millers The Price in 1968. In 1960, he had been offered the title role in Elmer Gantry, but Burt Lancaster filled the part because Hingle had been in a near-fatal accident. Hingle died Saturday night of myelodysplasia, a type of blood cancer, at his home in Carolina Beach, N.C., according to Lynn Heritage, a cousin who was acting as a spokesperson for the family. After studying with Uta Hagen, Hingle joined the famed Actors Studio, run by Lee Strasberg, in 1952. Hingle spent much of the next year relearning how to walk, and the Gantry role went to Burt Lancaster. Mr. Hingle said he preferred theater because movies are not the actors medium. . Another successful Kazan production on Broadway was William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957-59), with Hingle as a failed salesman. Over the next 50 years, Hingle fashioned a career as a top supporting actor in film, television and theater. He learned to act at the Actors Studio. Over the next three years, he did 35 plays and found himself more comfortable in the theater than anywhere else. It was there that he met Elia Kazan, co-founder of the Studio and the director most identified with "the method". He missed and fell back down the elevator shaft, plunging 30 feet to the bottom. The director can pull his hair in the back of the house and the producer and the playwright can cry on each others shoulders. . Kazan then cast Hingle in the Broadway premiere of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955-56) as Gooper, the weak-willed jealous elder brother of Brick (Gazzara). He played a sprightly Benjamin Franklin in the 1997 Broadway revival of 1776; a gay J. Edgar Hoover in the 1992 HBO movie Citizen Cohn; and Warren Beattys father in the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass.. The entire cast, directed by Kazan's protege Jack Garfein, was made up of Studio alumni. Hingle died Saturday night of myelodysplasia, a type of blood cancer, at his home in Carolina Beach, N.C., according to Lynn Heritage, a cousin who was acting as a spokesperson for the family. B.," was critically injured yesterday morning when he fell thirty feet down an elevator shaft. In 1979 Hingle married Julia Wright. He fell ten stories down a deserted elevator shaft and survived. three years I did 35 plays and in one of those plays I finally realized ''There were all these actors I knew and I could only choose seven or eight,'' he said. He was the most authentic man Ive ever met.. "I didn't want to be Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart or Spencer Tracy," he explained. Obituaries Pat Hingle, Veteran Character Actor, Dies at 84 Pat Hingle, the character actor whose career stretched back to the 1940s and whose credits encompassed copious roles in theatre,. The little finger of that hand is missing. In 1959 Hingle fell down a Manhattan elevator shaft, cracking his skull, leg, hip and wrist and severing the finger. I know that if I had done Elmer Gantry, I would have been more of a movie name. He was in the starry Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude (1963), with Gazzara again, Jane Fonda, Geraldine Page and Franchot Tone; in James Baldwin's Blues for Mister Charlie (1964), and he created the role of Victor Franz in Arthur Miller's The Price (1968-69), and was Benjamin Franklin in the American centenary musical 1776 (1997). To the end, Hingle preferred being in the theater. He was trapped in the elevator of his West End Avenue apartment building when it stalled between the second and third floors. He is one of only two actors to appear in the four Batman films from 1989 to 1997; the other is Michael Gough. He lay near death for two weeks, and his recovery required more than a year.[4][5]. He was caught in his West End Avenue apartment building in an elevator that had stalled between the second and third floors. [6] He also played manager Colonel Tom Parker in John Carpenter's TV movie Elvis (1979). I saw what was possible.. Not long after the accident, Kazan provided Hingle with his finest film role in Splendor in the Grass (1961), as the extrovert self-made millionaire Ace Stamper who has aspirations for his son Bud (Warren Beatty, in his screen debut) to succeed him in the oil business. He was present, right there, in his life and in his work. He came to New York in 1952, joined the Actors Studio and began to get parts both onstage and in films. Accident. Mr. Hingle first attracted the attention of critics in 1953 when he appeared on Broadway in End as a Man as a genial but loutish football player caught up in murky doings at a military academy in the South. mother supported the family by teaching school in Denver. The stage is an actors medium, he told The Times some years ago. He was near death for two weeks (and lost the little finger of his left hand); his recovery took more than a year. The director can pull his hair in the back of the house and the producer and the playwright can cry on each others shoulders. Mr. Hingle, a husky six-footer, did have an imposing physical presence, but his 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 Bloomingdales. In the meantime, he was carrying on a parallel career with bigger and better roles in the theatre. You were the most important thing when you worked opposite him. He crawled out and sought to reach the second floor corridor but lost his balance and fell fifty-four feet down the shaft. In more recent years, Hingle has played Commissioner Gordon in the "Batman" movies.Just prior to his death, he resided in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, with his wife, Julia. He crawled out and sought to reach the second floor corridor but lost . In 1953, Hingle got his first break on Broadway in End As a Man, Calder Willingham's play depicting the dehumanisation of young men at a southern military school. His father was a building contractor who died when his son was an infant; his widow took her three children all over the country as she worked at menial jobs. He served as a fireman aboard a destroyer that saw action in the South Pacific. [3] He was caught in his West End Avenue apartment building in an elevator that had stalled between the second and third floors. He also lost his little finger on his left hand. Accident [] In 1960, he had been offered the title role in Elmer Gantry, but Burt Lancaster filled the part because Hingle had been in a near-fatal accident. Ive had exactly the kind of career I hoped for.. ", he recalled). Walter Kerr, reviewing the play for The New York Herald Tribune called Mr. Hingles performance first rate. When the play, by Calder Willingham, was made into a film called The Strange One in 1957, Mr. Hingle got the same role and similar notices. York and began to get jobs on the stage and on TV. He spent a year convalescing. The future Tony Award nominee made his "acting debut" in the third grade, playing a carrot in a school play ("At that time it didn't seem like much of a way to make a living! He was caught in his West End Avenue apartment building in an elevator that had stalled between the second and third floors. The future Tony Award Boyce is a former FBI man who has to cope with an alienated son (Tim Hutton) who eventually betrays the United States by selling CIA secrets. With his wife Alyce (whom he first met at the university), Hingle moved to New York and began to get jobs on the stage and on TV. He received a bachelors degree in 1949. For the fictional character Patricia Hingle, see, Last edited on 17 December 2022, at 11:05, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, "Pat Hingle, Versatile Actor With Recurring Role in Batman Movies, Dies at 84", "Weslaco grad, veteran actor Pat Hingle dies", "HB Studio - Notable Alumni | One of the Original Acting Studios in NYC", "A Broadway Elder With the Spirit of '76", "Pat Hingle dies at 84; veteran actor was perhaps best known for 'Batman' role", "HINGLE NO STRANGER TO PATRIARCHAL ROLES", "Pat Hingle: Commissioner Gordon in four of the Batman films", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pat_Hingle&oldid=1127917989, This page was last edited on 17 December 2022, at 11:05. It amused Hingle that, after a long and distinguished career on stage, screen and television spanning almost 50 years, he finally gained wide popular recognition in four blockbuster Batman movies. He earned rave reviews in J.B. and was offered the title role in the film Elmer Gantry, but then tragedy struck. In 1980, he appeared in the short-lived police series Stone with Dennis Weaver. However, in 1971, he was forced to temporarily leave the show for just a handful of episodes because he had to undergo heart surgery after suffering a heart attack. He found himself auditioning friends, and it was excruciating. He sustained massive injuries, including a fractured skull, wrist, hip and leg, and several broken ribs. I know that if I had done Elmer Gantry, I would have been more of a movie name. A year later, Kazan once again helped him land a role as the title character in J.B., the Archibald MacLeish play about the life of Job that won both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize in 1958. [6] Hingle was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Atlantic Ocean. On film, he worked with stars ranging from Clint Eastwood to the Muppets. He. There were the Gary Coopers and the Clark Gables, but they didnt really appeal to me, he told the Washington Post some years ago. She then [3][4] Hingle enlisted in the United States Navy in December 1941, dropping out of the University of Texas. [6], Hingle married Alyce Faye Dorsey on June 3, 1947. In His father, a building contractor, abandoned the family when Hingle was six, and for the next seven years he and his sister lived in more than a dozen cities, wherever their mother could find work. This page was last changed on 16 December 2022, at 22:23. With his Hingle died on January 3, 2009 in Carolina Beach, North Carolina from Myelodysplastic syndrome, he was 84 years old. He was caught in his West End Avenue apartment building in an elevator that had stalled between the second and third floors. He needed over a year to recover. began to travel (with her son in tow) in search of more lucrative work; Pat Hingle holds the worn piece of paper in his left hand, but he really needs no reminder. He also realised that his looks - bull-necked and burly - were not conventional star material, but they helped him play a variety of parts. Mr. Hingle went to high school in Weslaco, Tex., where he played tuba in the band. [9], Another notable role was as the father of Warren Beatty's character in Splendor in the Grass (1961). Several weeks into the plays run, Hingle became caught in a stalled elevator in his apartment building. The reason he stands out is that he had the humility and ease that made acting look easy.. He was near death for two weeks (and lost the little finger of his left hand); his recovery took more than a year. He returned to the University of Texas after the war ended and earned a degree in radio broadcasting. After the war, he returned to college but switched majors after observing that every pretty girl he saw was headed toward the universitys theater department. Hingle had 3 children with Dorsey; Jody, Billy, and Molly. Hingle had a near death experience, as he was in an elevator that was trapped between the second and third floor in his apartment building. I had exactly the kind of career I had hoped for.". He was Sally Fields father in Norma Rae and Warren Beattys in Splendor in the Grass. He played the bartender who needles Marlon Brando about his former prize-fight style in On the Waterfront, and he was the sadistic crime boss who terrorizes Anjelica Huston with a bag of oranges in The Grifters., Hingle had an illustrious Broadway career and was in the original casts of some of the great plays in American theater, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and J.B.. Who knows?'' In 1959 while playing J.B. on Broadway, he was offered the title role for the 1960 film Elmer Gantry but lost it to Burt Lancaster because Hingle had a nearly fatal accident. Without taking over a scene, Hingle has a way of registering his character`s presence in a movie even when his screen time is limited. wife Alyce (whom he first met at the university), Hingle moved to New