Died: January 3, 2009 (at age 84)
Birthplace: Miami, Florida, U.S.
Martin Patterson "Pat" Hingle (July 19, 1924 - January 3, 2009) was an American actor, who appeared in hundreds of television shows and feature films. His first film was On The Waterfront in 1954. He often played tough authority figures. Hingle was a close friend of Clint Eastwood, and appeared in the Eastwood films Hang 'em High, The Gauntlet, and Sudden Impact.
Martin Patterson Hingle was born in Miami, Florida (some sources say Denver, Colorado), the son of Marvin Louise (née Patterson), a schoolteacher and musician, and Clarence Martin Hingle, a building contractor. Hingle enlisted in the United States Navy in December 1941, dropping out of the University of Texas. He served on the destroyer USS Marshall during World War II. He returned to the University of Texas 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 the American Theater Wing. In 1952, he became a member of the Actors Studio. This led to his first Broadway show, End as a Man.
On Broadway, he originated the role of Gooper in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). He played the title role in the award winning Broadway play J.B. by Archibald MacLeish (1958). He 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), which was directed by Elia Kazan, the director of On the Waterfront. He was widely known for portraying the father of the title character, played by Sally Field, in Norma Rae (1979). He played as Col Tom Parker in Elvis by John Carpenter
Hingle had a long list of television and movie credits to his name, going back to 1948. Among them were The Fugitive (1964), Carol for Another Christmas (1964), Nevada Smith (1966), Mission: Impossible (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), The Grifters (1990), Citizen Cohn (1992), The Land Before Time (1988), Wings (1996), and Shaft (2000). Hingle 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 called "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" as the title character. He guest starred in the TV series Matlock and Murder, She Wrote. In 1980, he appeared in the short-lived police series Stone with Dennis Weaver. Magnum PI (1985)(Garwood Huddle)
He is probably best known in recent times for playing 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.
Hingle married Alyce Faye Dorsey on June 3, 1947. They had children Jody, Billy and Molly. The couple later divorced. In 1979 Hingle married Julia Wright. He and his second wife had two children.
In 1960, he was offered the title role in Elmer Gantry, but Burt Lancaster filled the part, because Hingle had a nearly fatal accident. He was trapped in the elevator of his West End Avenue apartment building, when it stalled between the second and third floors. He crawled out and tried to reach the second floor corridor, but lost his balance and fell fifty-four feet down the shaft. 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. He lay near death for two weeks, and his recovery required more than a year.
Hingle died at his home in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, of myelodysplasia on January 3, 2009; he had been diagnosed with the disease in November 2006. His ashes were scattered into the Atlantic Ocean.
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1954 | On the Waterfront | Jocko | |
1957 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Warren Selvy | TV Show
Season 3, episode 13, "Night of the Execution" |
The Strange One | Harold Koble | ||
1961 | Splendor in the Grass | Ace Stamper | |
1962 | The Untouchables | Mitchell A. Grandin | TV Show Season 3 Episode 23: "The Case Against Eliot Ness" |
1963 | The Untouchables | Barney Howe/ Barney Retsick | TV Show Season 4 Episode 20: "Junk Man" |
The Twilight Zone | Horace Ford | TV Show Episode: "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" |
|
The Ugly American | Homer Atkins | ||
1964 | Invitation to a Gunfighter | Sam Brewster | |
1964 | Carol for Another Christmas | Ghost of Christmas Present | |
1965 | Daniel Boone | Will Carey | TV Show
Episode: "The Returning" |
1966 | Nevada Smith | Big Foot | |
The Andy Griffith Show | Fred Gibson | TV Show
Season 6, Episode 20 "Wyatt Earp Rides Again" |
|
1967 | Mission: Impossible | R.J. McMillan | TV Show
Season 1, Episode 22 "The Confession" |
1968 | Hang 'Em High | Judge Adam Fenton | |
Sol Madrid | Harry Mitchell | ||
Jigsaw | Lew Haley | ||
1970 | Bloody Mama | Sam Adams Pendlebury | |
WUSA | Bingamon | ||
Norwood | Grady Fring | ||
1971 | Gunsmoke | Dr. John Chapman | TV Show 7 Episodes after Milburn Stone had heart surgery |
1972 | The Carey Treatment | Captain Pearson | |
1973 | One Little Indian | Captain Stewart | |
1974 | The New Land | Cadbury | TV Show episode "The Word is: Mortal" (never aired) |
The Super Cops | Inspector Novick | ||
Nightmare Honeymoon | Mr. Binghamton | ||
1975 | Hawaii Five-O | Ormsbee | TV Show Episode 8: "The Defector" |
1976 | Independence | John Adams | |
1977 | The Gauntlet | Maynard Josephson | |
Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo | Doc Hodgins | TV movie | |
1979 | When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? | Lyle Stricker | |
Elvis | Colonel Tom Parker | TV movie | |
Norma Rae | Vernon | ||
Disaster on the Coastliner | John Marsh | TV movie | |
1980 | Running Scared | Sergeant McClain | |
M*A*S*H | Colonel Daniel Webster Tucker | TV Show, guest appearance | |
Stone | Chief Gene Paulton | TV Show | |
1982 | Gunsmoke: To the Last Man | Colonel Tucker | TV movie |
1983 | Sudden Impact | Chief Lester Jannings | |
Going Berserk | Ed Reese | ||
1985 | Brewster's Millions | Edward Roundfield | |
The Falcon and the Snowman | Charles Boyce | ||
The Rape of Richard Beck | Chappy Beck | TV movie | |
The Lady from Yesterday | Jim Bartlett | TV movie | |
1986 | Maximum Overdrive | Bubba Hendershot | |
Murder, She Wrote | Ret. Lt. Det. Barney Kale | TV Show episode "Unfinished Business" | |
1987 | Baby Boom | Hughes Larabee | |
1988 | The Land Before Time | Narrator & Rooter | Voice |
War and Remembrance | Admiral William "Bull" Halsey | TV miniseries | |
1989 | Batman | Commissioner Gordon | |
1990 | The Grifters | Bobo Justus | |
1992 | Citizen Cohn | J. Edgar Hoover | |
Batman Returns | Commissioner Gordon | ||
1995 | Batman Forever | ||
The Quick and the Dead | Horace | ||
1996 | Wings | Jack Hackett | 1 episode |
1997 | Batman & Robin | Commissioner Gordon | |
1997 | The Shining | Pete Watson | TV miniseries |
1999 | Muppets from Space | General Luft | |
2000 | Shaft | Judge Dennis Bradford | |
2001 | Road to Redemption | Grandpa Nathan Tucker | |
2006 | Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby | Mr. Dennit Sr. | Final film role. |