Legendary stage and film actor Pat Hingle, known for his role as Commissioner Gordon in several Batman movies, passed away in his North Carolina home on Saturday after losing a long battle with blood cancer. He was 84.

According to family spokeswoman, Lynn Heritage, the actor died at his home in Carolina Beach, where he had been living for the last 15 years since shooting the Stephen King film "Maximum Overdrive." Hingle's wife, Julie, was with him. Heritage said that Hingle had been diagnosed with myelodysplasia, a blood disease similar to leukemia, in November 2006. Aside from his wife, Hingle is survived by two sisters - Jamie Petty and Joyce France, children Bill Hingle, Jody Smith and Molly Mantione; stepchildren Katherine Joy and Gregory Swanson; including 11-grandchildren.

Hingle, who appeared in over 20 Broadway productions, including "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs," for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play, as well as the original production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," in which he played Gooper, may be best known for his role as Commissioner Gordon from the Batman movies.  

His many other credits included "J.B.," "Strange Interlude," the 1965 revival of "The Glass Menagerie," "The Price," "The Odd Couple," "That Championship Season," and the Roundabout Theatre Company's 1997 revival of the musical "1776," in which he played Benjamin Franklin.

"The thing that impressed me most about Pat, he came totally prepared. The man was word perfect. He did not need to be scripted," said Terry Theodore, a theater professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He directed Hingle in "Our Town" and "Love Letters."

He never became a huge movie star, but throughout his career which spanned over six decades, he worked alongside Hollywood's finest, including Clint Eastwood ("Hang 'Em High"), Sally Field ("Norma Rae"), Warren Beatty ("Splendor in the Grass") and Marlon Brando ("Waterfront"). Most recently he was seen in 2006's "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

On TV, He appeared on "Twilight Zone," "The Untouchables," "Route 66," "Gunsmoke," "The Fugitive," "Mission Impossible," "The Andy Griffith Show," "Kung Fu," "Barnaby Jones," "Hawaii Five-O," "M*A*S*H," "St. Elsewhere," "Murder, She Wrote," "Cheers," and dozens more.

Hingle once said in an interview that if it weren't for his accident (Hingle fell more than 50 feet down an elevator shaft in his apartment building, suffering extensive injuries) which stopped him from taking the title role in "Elmer Gantry," he would have become more of a movie name. However, he had the chance to star in many plays, which was exactly the career he had hoped for.

"There were the Gary Coopers and the Clark Gables, but they didn’t really appeal to me. But I saw Walter Huston and Hume Cronyn in about 10 movies and I saw that it was possible to play a wide variety of roles where there [were] no connections between one or the other; they weren’t put into a slot....I saw what was possible."

To his closest friends, Hingle was not a movie star, he will be remembered as a great individual who gave a lot of himself, and always had a good story he was happy to share. He was a beloved member of his community in Wilmington where he enjoyed encouraging and mentoring young actors. 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.