Frank Gorshin

Frank John Gorshin Jr., born April 5, 1933, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was an American actor, comedian, and impressionist who died on May 17, 2005. His father, Frank Gorshin Sr., was a second-generation Slovenian-American railroad worker whose parents had emigrated from Slovenia, and his mother, Frances, née Prešeren, had come to the United States as a young girl from Regrča Vas, near Novo Mesto in the Lower Carniola region of Slovenia. Both parents were active in Pittsburgh's Slovenian community and sang in the Slovenian Singing Society Prešeren. Gorshin, raised in a Slovenian-speaking household, spoke mostly Slovene before beginning school.

His path toward performance began in his teenage years, when he took a part-time job as a cinema usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre at age 15, memorizing the mannerisms of the screen actors he observed and developing an impressionist act. Still in high school, he won a Pittsburgh talent contest in 1951, the prize being a one-week engagement at Jackie Heller's New York nightclub, Carousel. His parents encouraged him to accept the engagement even though his 15-year-old brother had been struck and killed by a car just two nights prior. After graduating from Peabody High School, Gorshin enrolled at the Carnegie Tech School of Drama, now Carnegie Mellon University, where he balanced his studies with work in local plays and nightclubs.

In 1953, Gorshin was drafted into the United States Army and stationed in Germany, where he served for approximately a year and a half as an entertainer attached to Special Services. During that posting he met Maurice Bergman, who later connected him with Hollywood agent Paul Kohner. His Army service records were subsequently destroyed in the 1973 fire at the U.S. National Personnel Records Center. Following his discharge, Gorshin returned to performance and by 1956 had become a prolific film actor, with early roles in Hot Rod Girl, Dragstrip Girl, and Invasion of the Saucer Men, all from that period. His first film role was in Between Heaven and Hell. In 1957, while driving to a Hollywood screen test for Run Silent, Run Deep after 39 hours without sleep, he fell asleep at the wheel, sustained a fractured skull, and spent four days in a coma; a Los Angeles newspaper incorrectly reported him dead. The role went to Don Rickles.

Gorshin built a parallel career as a nightclub impressionist, becoming the first impressionist to headline the main showrooms in Las Vegas and the first impressionist headliner at the Empire Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. His most celebrated impressions included Burt Lancaster, exaggerating Lancaster's hand gestures; Kirk Douglas, exaggerating Douglas's gritted teeth; and Marlon Brando, spoofing his squint. He was known for combining physical resemblance with pitch-perfect vocal imitation. On television, he made 12 guest appearances on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show, with his first on June 17, 1962, and was present for the February 9, 1964, broadcast on which the Beatles and Davy Jones also made their debuts. He appeared on Tonight Starring Steve Allen, The Dean Martin Show, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, among other variety and talk programs.

From 1966 to 1968, Gorshin portrayed the Riddler on ABC's live-action television series Batman, starring Adam West and Burt Ward, earning an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Comedy. His characterization featured a high-pitched cackle inspired by Richard Widmark's portrayal of Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death. Dissatisfied with the Riddler's original unitard costume from the comics, Gorshin had a green business suit and bowler hat marked with question marks created as an alternative, a variant later adopted in the comics themselves. He played the character in ten episodes and in the 1966 theatrical film, though a pay dispute with ABC before the second season led to his temporary replacement by John Astin for two episodes. He returned in Season 3 for an episode titled Ring Around The Riddler and reprised the role again in the 1979 television film Legends of the Superheroes. In 1969, he appeared in the Star Trek episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield as Bele, a half-whiteface, half-blackface alien from the planet Cheron.

Gorshin's Broadway career spanned from 1969 to 2002. He appeared in Jimmy in 1969 and subsequently took on roles in Peter Pan, Whodunnit, and On the Twentieth Century. He starred in Say Goodnight Gracie, for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance in 2003. His television work during the 1970s and beyond included guest appearances on The Name of the Game, Ironside, Hawaii Five-O, Get Christie Love, Charlie's Angels, and Wonder Woman. In 1979, he played interplanetary assassin Seton Kellogg in the two-part Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode Plot to Kill a City. In 1981, he appeared as Dan Wesker in the miniseries Goliath Awaits and took the role of Smiley Wilson on the ABC soap opera The Edge of Night, where he incorporated his impressionist skills to mimic other performers on the series. In 1982, he acted and sang the role of King Gama in a PBS television production of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Princess Ida, later performing the role in live venues as well.