Pat Hingle
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
Some sources give Hingle's birth place as Miami, Florida, but more recent material places it in Denver, Colorado. Similarly, his year of birth is variously reported as 1923 and 1924.
Hingle received a honorary PhD in 1974 from Otterbein College in Westerville, OH.
Biography
A sturdily built performer with a large square head and a rustic voice, Pat Hingle has been a solid character player on stage, screen and TV for over four decades. He began acting as a student at the University of Texas and made the move to NYC in the late 1940s. There, Hingle studied at the American Theater Wing and became a protege of director Elia Kazan at the Actor's Studio. He was soon working regularly on the NY stage, where he would appear in four Pulitzer Prize-winning plays ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" 1955, "J.B." 1958, "Strange Interlude" 1963 and "That Championship Season" 1973). Hingle performed initially on TV in an adaptation of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1950) for CBS' "Suspense," and his feature acting debut came in a small part as a bartender in Kazan's "On the Waterfront" (1954). He shone in a breakthrough supporting role in Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass" (1961), as the brusque father of Warren Beatty, but the greatest part of his career would have been the one that got away. Offered the title role in "Elmer Gantry" (1960), Hingle nearly died from a fall down an elevator shaft, preventing him from playing the role that would win Burt Lancaster a Best Actor Oscar.
Hingle spent much of his film and TV career playing ambiguous fathers, sympathetic community leaders, veteran cops, crafty judges and other law enforcement personnel. Younger audiences may know him best as Police Commissioner Gordon in the feature "Batman" series, but some may recognize him as the conflicted police chief father of a catatonic rapist in Clint Eastwood's "Sudden Impact" (1983) or as mob boss Bobo Justice, who comes west to teach a painful lesson to Anjelica Huston about skimming mob money at the track, in "The Grifters" (1990). Equally comfortable in the Old West, he unjustly sentenced Eastwood to death in Ted Post's "Hang 'Em High" (1968), strode the prairie in such oaters as "Nevada Smith" (1966) and "Invitation to a Gunfighter" (1964) and even lent some iconic authority to his small role as a bartender in Sam Raimi's "The Quick and the Dead" (1995). In addition to his feature work, Hingle worked frequently on TV and in regional theater during the 90s, most notably as Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," before returning to Broadway as Benjamin Franklin in the revival of "1776" (1997).
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Cast (TV Mini-Series)
Life Events
1941
Joined the U.S. Navy in December 1941 and served on the destroyer USS Marshall during World War II
1950
Began professional acting career in a non-union stock company in New York
1950
First television appearance was in a CBS production of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
1953
Made Off-Broadway debut as Harold Koble in "End as a Man"
1954
Made feature acting debut in Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront"
1955
Broadway debut as Joe Foster in "Festival"
1955
Cast as Gooper in the Broadway production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
1958
Nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for William Inge's "Dark at the Top of the Stairs"
1959
Received rave reviews in title role of Archibald MacLeish's "J.B." on Broadway
1960
Narrated Elia Kazan's "Wild River"
1961
Breakthrough feature supporting role as Warren Beatty's father in Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass"
1964
Appeared as Parnell James in the Broadway production of James Baldwin's "Blues for Mr Charlie"
1965
Appeared in the first stage revival of "The Glass Menagerie"
1966
Played the Gentleman Caller in a CBS-TV adaptation of "The Glass Menagerie"
1968
First film with Clint Eastwood, "Hang 'Em High" (also appeared with Eastwood in "The Gauntlet" 1977 and "Sudden Impact" 1983)
1969
TV-movie debut, "The Ballad of Andy Crocker" (ABC)
1973
Succeeded Richard A. Dysart as Coach in Jason Miller's "That Championship Season" on Broadway
1974
Played a colorful Depression-era doctor in the ABC TV-movie, "The Last Angry Man"
1980
Debut as a TV regular, played Chief Paulton on the short-lived ABC detective series "Stone"
1986
Gave an amusing performance as a true screen swine, in Stephen King's directorial debut "Maximum Overdrive"
1988
Cast as a regular in the short-lived CBS drama "Blue Skies"
1989
Portrayed Police Commissioner James Gordon in Tim Burton's "Batman"; took the job so his wife could see London
1990
Cast as mob boss Bobo Justice in "The Grifters" opposite Anjelica Huston
1991
Played J. Edgar Hoover in the HBO movie "Citizen Cohn"
1992
Reprised the role of Commissioner Gordon for Burton's "Batman Returns"
1995
Again played Commissioner Gordon for Joel Schumacher's "Batman Forever"
1997
Acted the part of Benjamin Franklin in the Broadway revival of "1776"
1997
Had a fourth go as Commissioner Gordon in "Batman & Robin"
1997
Portrayed Officer Wylie in the USA movie "The Member of the Wedding"
2002
Returned to series TV as regular on the ABC drama "The Court"
2006
Cast opposite Will Ferrell in the comedy "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby"
2006
Co-starred in the comedy "Waltzing Anna"
Photo Collections
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
Some sources give Hingle's birth place as Miami, Florida, but more recent material places it in Denver, Colorado. Similarly, his year of birth is variously reported as 1923 and 1924.
Hingle received a honorary PhD in 1974 from Otterbein College in Westerville, OH.
He won a Clio Award for his portrayal of Thomas Edison in General Electric TV commercials.
About his brush with death: "It's a miracle I survived it. I was back on Broadway within a year, though at first I couldn't walk without the help of a cane. My left leg was put together with nails and clamps, this and that. But I had such kindnesses given me. I was at Knickerbocker Hospital up in Harlem and Daniel Petrie, the director called. He said 'I've got a television job for you. It's a character in the hospital. We'll just fly you out here.' The doctor said, 'Are you out of your mind?' My sense returned to me then. I saw him years later and said 'You son of a gun, you did such a kindness to me. How it picked up my spirits to know there was still work!" --Pat Hingle quoted in THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 11, 1997
"I know that if I had played Elmer Gantry, I would have been more of a movie name. But I'm sure I would not have done as many plays as I've done. I had exactly the career I had hoped for. And I never, never forget that I'm the recipient of the blessing that is life. It was given to me to try again." --Hingle in THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 11, 1997
