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Hingle, Martin Patterson (Pat), BT1.
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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 was 84.
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.
He wasn't a household name, but his solid, broad, hang-dog screen face became a household image. On film, he worked with stars ranging from Clint Eastwood to the Muppets. He was Sally Field's father in "Norma Rae" and Warren Beatty's 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."
James Morrison, the actor who is best known now for his role as Bill Buchanan in the television series "24," was a friend of Hingle's and worked with him in a 1983 production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum.
"Only a chosen few had the body of work that he had," Morrison told The Times on Sunday. "The reason he stands out is that he had the humility and ease that made acting look easy."
Hingle was born Martin Patterson Hingle in Miami on July 19, 1924. He'd had one semester at the University of Texas when World War II broke out. He entered the Navy and served as an enlisted man on a destroyer in the Pacific. After the war, he returned to college but switched majors after observing that every pretty girl he saw was headed toward the university's theater department.
Over the next three years, he did 35 plays and found himself more comfortable in the theater than anywhere else.
He said two actors were responsible for his deciding to become a professional actor.
"There were the Gary Coopers and the Clark Gables, but they didn't really appeal to me," he told the Washington Post some years ago. "But in three weeks' time, I saw Walter Huston (Anjelica Huston's 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 weren't put in a slot . . . I saw what was possible."
After graduating in 1949, Hingle moved to New York and studied acting with Uta Hagen at Herbert Berghof Studios. He later was accepted into the prestigious Actors Studio.
His break came in 1955 when Elia Kazan, one of the co-founders of the Actors Studio, cast him as the scheming son Gooper in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Two years later, Kazan cast him in William Inge's "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs," which became a major Broadway hit and earned Hingle a Tony Award nomination. 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. Hingle was also in Arthur Miller's "The Price" in 1968.
He earned rave reviews in "J.B." and was offered the title role in the film "Elmer Gantry," but then tragedy struck. Several weeks into the play's run, Hingle became caught in a stalled elevator in his apartment building. He lost his balance while trying to crawl out and fell 54 feet down the shaft. He sustained massive injuries, including a fractured skull, wrist, hip and leg, and several broken ribs. He also lost his little finger on his left hand.
Hingle spent much of the next year relearning how to walk, and the Gantry role went to Burt Lancaster.
"I know that if I had done 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," he later told the New York Times. "I've had exactly the kind of career I hoped for."
Over the next 50 years, Hingle fashioned a career as a top supporting actor in film, television and theater. His TV credits include "Twilight Zone," "The Untouchables," "Route 66," "Gunsmoke," "The Fugitive," "Mission Impossible" and "Hallmark Hall of Fame." On television he's played J. Edgar Hoover, former House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Col. Tom Parker (Elvis Presley's manager) and, in the miniseries "War and Remembrance," Adm. William F. "Bull" Halsey.
On the big screen, his films include "Hang 'Em High," "Sudden Impact" and "The Gauntlet" with Eastwood, as well as "Muppets From Space." He and Michael Gough, who played Alfred Pennyworth, were the only two actors to appear in the first four "Batman" films.
To the end, Hingle preferred being in the theater.
"The stage is an actors' medium," he told The Times some years ago. "When the curtain goes up, there are those crazy actors. The story comes through them. The director can pull his hair in the back of the house and the producer and the playwright can cry on each other's shoulders. But there go those galloping actors."
Hingle's friend Morrison recalled him Sunday as a "great listener."
"The great actors have this and he taught me this. . . . You were the most important thing when you worked opposite him. He was present, right there, in his life and in his work. He was the most authentic man I've ever met."
Hingle is survived by Julia, his wife of 29 years; five children; 11 grandchildren; and two sisters.
Asiatic-Pacific Specified Raids (1944)/Naval attack of Truk (Operation Hailstone)
From Month/Year
February / 1944
To Month/Year
February / 1944
Description Operation Hailstone was a massive naval air and surface attack launched on February 16–17, 1944, during World War II by the United States Navy against the Japanese naval and air base at Truk in the Caroline Islands, a pre-war Japanese territory.
The U.S. attack involved a combination of airstrikes, surface ship actions, and submarine attacks over two days and appeared to take the Japanese completely by surprise. Several daylight, along with nighttime, airstrikes employed fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo aircraft in attacks on Japanese airfields, aircraft, shore installations, and ships in and around the Truk anchorage. A force of U.S. surface ships and submarines guarded possible exit routes from the island's anchorage to attack any Japanese ships that tried to escape from the airstrikes.
In total the attack sank three Japanese light cruisers (Agano, Katori, and Naka), four destroyers (Oite, Fumizuki, Maikaze, and Tachikaze), three auxiliary cruisers (Akagi Maru, Aikoku Maru, Kiyosumi Maru), two submarine tenders (Heian Maru, Rio de Janeiro Maru), three other smaller warships (including submarine chasers CH-24 and Shonan Maru 15), aircraft transport Fujikawa Maru, and 32 merchant ships. Some of the ships were destroyed in the anchorage and some in the area surrounding Truk lagoon. Many of the merchant ships were loaded with reinforcements and supplies for Japanese garrisons in the central Pacific area. Very few of the troops aboard the sunken ships survived and little of their cargoes were recovered.
Maikaze, along with several support ships, was sunk by U.S. surface ships while trying to escape from the Truk anchorage. On 17 February 1944, while evacuating convoys to Yokosuka from Truk following Allied attack on Truk, Maikaze, the cruiser Katori, and the auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru were sunk by gunfire from the cruisers Minneapolis, New Orleans, and the battleship New Jersey 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Truk. Maikaze herself was sunk with all hands on board. The survivors of the sunken Japanese ships reportedly refused rescue efforts by the U.S. ships.
The cruiser Agano, a veteran of the Raid on Rabaul and which was already en route to Japan when the attack began, was sunk by a U.S. submarine, Skate. Oite rescued 523 survivors from Agano and returned to Truk lagoon to assist in its defense with her anti-aircraft guns. She was sunk soon after by air attack with the Agano survivors still on board, killing all of them and all but 20 of Oite's crew.
Over 250 Japanese aircraft were destroyed, mostly on the ground. Many of the aircraft were in various states of assembly, having just arrived from Japan in disassembled form aboard cargo ships. Very few of the assembled aircraft were able to take off in response to the U.S. attack. Several Japanese aircraft that did take off were claimed destroyed by U.S. fighters or gunners on the U.S. bombers and torpedo planes.
The U.S. lost twenty-five aircraft, mainly due to the intense anti-aircraft fire from Truk's defenses. About 16 U.S. aircrew were rescued by submarine or amphibious aircraft (several Japanese, whose crew took them prisoner). A nighttime torpedo attack by a Japanese aircraft from either Rabaul or Saipan damaged Intrepid and killed 11 of her crew, forcing her to return to Pearl Harbor and later, San Francisco for repairs. She returned to duty in June, 1944. Another Japanese air attack slightly damaged the battleship Iowa with a bomb hit.
An aerial view of the airstrike at Truk can be seen in the U.S. Navy film The Fighting Lady.
One well-known pilot, U.S. Marine Corps ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, survived this raid while being held prisoner on Truk, after being captured at Rabaul.
Aftermath
The attacks for the most part ended Truk as a major threat to Allied operations in the central Pacific; the Japanese garrison on Eniwetok was denied any realistic hope of reinforcement and support during the invasion that began on February 18, 1944, greatly assisting U.S. forces in their conquest of that island.
The Japanese later relocated about 100 of their remaining aircraft from Rabaul to Truk. These aircraft were attacked by U.S. carrier forces in another attack on April 29–30, 1944 which destroyed most of them. The U.S. aircraft dropped 92 bombs over a 29-minute period to destroy the Japanese planes. The April 1944 strikes found no shipping in Truk lagoon and were the last major attacks on Truk during the war.
Truk was isolated by Allied (primarily U.S.) forces as they continued their advance towards Japan by invading other Pacific islands such as Guam, Saipan, Palau, and Iwo Jima. Cut off, the Japanese forces on Truk, like on other central Pacific islands, ran low on food and faced starvation before Japan surrendered in August 1945.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1943
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories 1 April. Marshall next participated in TF 58's strikes against Japanese installations at Wakde and Hollandia in New Guinea, 21 to 27 April. On the 29th, Truk was the recipient of the forces' aerial message, while on the 30th her battleships commenced the bombardment of Ponape and her cruisers shelled Satawan
Naval task force which includes 9 carriers and 6 battleships strike Japanese installations and vessels at Truk
