IMDB

Actor

1924-07-19 · Miami, Florida, USA · Male

53 series in the catalog

Martin Patterson Hingle (July 19, 1924 – January 3, 2009) was an American actor. He was best known to screen audiences for his character roles, often as tough blue-collar authority figures, in over 200 productions between 1954 and 2008.

On stage, Hingle starred in notable Broadway productions like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), J.B. (1958), Strange Interlude (1963), and That Championship Season (1972). He was nominated the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in William Inge's Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957).

Hingle was a close friend of Clint Eastwood and appeared in the Eastwood films Hang 'Em High, The Gauntlet, and Sudden Impact. He also portrayed Commissioner Gordon in the Batman film franchise from 1989 to 1997.

Early life

Born in Miami, Florida, Hingle was the son of a building contractor father and a mother who "worked at menial jobs". He attended high school in Weslaco, Texas, and played tuba in the WHS band. During World War II, Hingle enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1941, dropping out of the University of Texas, and served on the destroyer USS Marshall. He returned to UT after the war and earned a degree in radio broadcasting in 1949. As a Navy reservist, he was recalled to the service during the Korean War and served on the escort destroyer USS Damato.

Hingle began acting in college, and after graduating, he moved to New York and studied at HB Studio and the American Theatre Wing. In 1952, he became a member of the Actors Studio. This led to his first Broadway show, End as a Man.

Career

On Broadway, Hingle performed the role of Gooper in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). He played the title role in Archibald MacLeish's award-winning Broadway play J.B. (1958), receiving rave reviews.

In February 1959, while playing J.B. on Broadway, Hingle was seriously injured in an accident. He was trapped in the elevator of his West End Avenue apartment building when it stalled between the second and third floors. The elevator stopped four feet above the landing, within reach, and Hingle tried to jump to the second floor. He missed and fell back down the elevator shaft, plunging 30 feet to the bottom. He fractured his skull, wrist, hip and most of the ribs on his left side. He broke his left leg in three places and lost the little finger on his left hand.

On the strength of his performance in J.B., Hingle had been offered the title role of the 1960 film Elmer Gantry, but he lost it to Burt Lancaster because of his injuries. His recovery took months, and at first he could not walk without a cane.

Hingle appeared in the 1963 Actors Studio production of Strange Interlude, directed by Jose Quintero, and That Championship Season (1972). He earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance in Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957). In 1997, he played Benjamin Franklin in the Roundabout Theatre revival of the musical 1776, with Brent Spiner and Gregg Edelman.

Hingle's first film role was an uncredited part as bartender Jock in On the Waterfront (1954). Later in his career, he was known for playing judges, police officers and other authority figures. He was a guest star on the early NBC legal drama Justice, based on case histories of the Legal Aid Society of New York, which aired in the 1950s.

Another notable role was as the father of Warren Beatty's character in Splendor in the Grass (1961). Hingle was widely known for portraying the father of Sally Field's title character Norma Rae (1979). He also played manager Colonel Tom Parker in John Carpenter's TV movie Elvis (1979).

Hingle had a long list of television and film credits to his name dating to 1948. Among them were two episodes of The Fugitive (1964), Carol for Another Christmas (1964), Nevada Smith (1966), Mission: Impossible (1967), The Invaders (1967), Hang 'Em High (1968), The Gauntlet (1977), Sudden Impact (1983), Road To Redemption (2001), When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979), Brewster's Millions (1985), Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive (1986), Baby Boom (1987), The Grifters (1990), Citizen Cohn (1992), Cheers (1993), The Land Before Time (1988), Wings (1996), and Shaft (2000). 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). In 1963, Hingle guest-starred in an episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Incredible World of Horace Ford", as the title character. He guest-starred in the TV series Matlock, In the Heat of the Night, and Murder, She Wrote. In 1980, he appeared in the short-lived police series Stone with Dennis Weaver.

Hingle played Commissioner Gordon in the 1989 film Batman and its three sequels. He is one of only two actors to appear in the four Batman films from 1989 to 1997; the other is Michael Gough.

In November 2007, he created the Pat Hingle Guest Artist Endowment to enable students to work with visiting professional actors at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Personal life

Hingle married Alyce Faye Dorsey on June 3, 1947. They had three children. The couple later divorced. In 1979, Hingle married Julia Wright. He and his second wife had two children.

Death

Hingle died from myelodysplastic cancer (which had been diagnosed in November 2008) at the age of 84 at his house in Carolina Beach in North Carolina on 3 January 2009. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.

Pat Hingle at the TCM Movie Database (archived)

Pat Hingle at the Internet Broadway Database

Pat Hingle at the Internet Off-Broadway Database (archived)

AP Obituary in The Charlotte Observer