Son of a schoolteacher and of a building contractor, Pat Hingle admitted himself into the U.S. Navy in December 1941. Born in Denver, Colorado, Hingle dropped out the University of Texas and decided to enroll in the Navy. He served during the World War II on the destroyer “USS Marshall,” but then returned to the University of Texas and earned a degree in radio broadcasting.

Due to a near fatal accident in 1960, Hingle couldn’t take an important offer like the title role in “Elmer Gantry.” He had been caught in an elevator in his West End Avenue apartment building which stopped between the second and third floor. Trying to crawl out and reach the second floor corridor, he fell 54 feet down the shaft and fractured his skull, wrist and hip. He broke his left leg and lost the little finger of his left hand.

For more than two weeks, he lay near death and it took a year to recover.

As an actor, he was best known for his roles as judge, police officer and authority figures. In 1961, Hingle played the father of the character interpreted by Warren Beatty in “Splendor in the Grass.” Yet, his famous role was the one from 1989, when he played Commissioner Gordon in “Batman” and its three sequels.

Among the movies he played in, there are titles like Hang 'Em High (1968), Sudden Impact (1983), Road To Redemption (2001), When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979), Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive (1986), The Grifters (1990), Citizen Cohn (1992), Muppets from Space, and Shaft (2000). Together with Alfred Pennyworth, he was one of the only two actors to play in four Batman movies.

Hingle married Alyce Faye Dorsey in 1947, but divorced. He got three children from this marriage, Jody, Billy and Molly and then married Julia Wright in 1979, with whom he had other two children.

The actor died on January 3, 2009 of leukemia at his house in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, after he had been diagnosed with myelodysplasia two years ago.