Pat Hingle

Born
July 19, 1924 · Miami, Florida, USA
Died
January 3, 2009 · Carolina Beach, North Carolina, USA (complications from myelodysplasia)
Birth name
Martin Patterson Hingle
Height
5′ 10″ (1.78 m)

He lost the lead role in the film Elmer Gantry (1960), which could have been a turning point in his screen career, when he, trying to escape a stalled elevator in his apartment building on the West Side, fell more than 50 feet down the shaft. He fractured his skull, hip, wrist, and most of the ribs on his left side, also breaking his left leg in three places. A finger had to be amputated. Near death for two weeks, he spent a year relearning to walk. Burt Lancaster inherited the role and won an Oscar.
Serving on the destroyer USS Marshall during World War II, he later returned to the military during the Korean War as a boilerman technician in the Navy.
Worked various jobs during his salad days -- shoe salesman, playground attendant, Bible salesman, farmhand, usher, waiter, and as a file clerk at Bloomingdale's.
Went to the University of Texas in 1942 on a tuba scholarship.
Diagnosed in November 2006 with myelodysplasia, a blood disease. He died in early 2009.

After one [college] semester I went into the Navy for four years in the Pacific on a destroyer. I went back to school and every time I saw a pretty girl I'd say, "Who the hell is that?" Well, they were all headed towards the theater department so I joined the campus Curtain Club. In three years I did 35 plays and in one of those plays I finally realized that I felt more comfortable than I did anywhere and I was where God intended me to be. I always feel that way.
I know that if I had done Elmer Gantry (1960), 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. I've had exactly the kind of career I hoped for.
The stage is an actors' medium. 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.
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.
I can be a truck driver, a doctor, a lawyer, a hanging judge, whatever. And looking like I do has allowed me to make a good living in all kinds of media. It's a blessing and I'm aware of it.