Africa's oldest chimp, a conservation icon, dies

Before rescue, Gregoire, 66, lived in solitary for more than 40 years

Jane Goodall Institute staff members are mourning the death of Gregoire, Africa's oldest known chimpanzee. Gregoire, who was 66 years old, was international symbol for the conservation of all animals, particularly those which suffered human-inflicted abuse prior to their rescue.

On Dec. 17, Gregoire passed away peacefully in his sleep at JGI's Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center in the Republic of Congo. He died next to a female chimpanzee named Clara, from whom he had been inseparable for many years.

"Gregoire was an incredibly resilient being," Lisa Pharoah, JGI Africa Program manager for West and Central Africa, told Discovery News. "Particularly for our Congolese staff, he served as a symbol for how we can all overcome adversity. There was such a gentleness about him."

For more than 40 years, Gregoire lived in solitary confinement in a barren cage at the Brazzaville Zoo in the Republic of Congo's capital city. Conservationist Aliette Jamar noticed the animal's poor condition and contacted Jane Goodall, who was horrified when she first saw the caged chimp.

"I gazed at this strange being, alone in his bleak, cement-floored cage," Goodall later recalled. "His pale, almost hairless skin was stretched tightly over his emaciated body so that every bone could be seen. His eyes were dull as he reached out with a thin, bony hand for a proffered morsel of food. Was this really a chimpanzee?"

She arranged for a caretaker to look after Gregoire and provide him with a healthier diet. In 1997, however, the intermittent Congo civil war worsened, leading to fighting just half a mile away from the zoo. With each shell explosion, Gregoire would duck under his sleeping shelf, to the point that his back was scraped raw.

Gregoire, along with other chimpanzees at the Brazzaville Zoo, was airlifted to Point Noire and then to the Tchimpounga sanctuary.

Shell shocked, Gregoire required time to recover. When he did, the chimp's gregarious personality blossomed.

"We all have favorite stories about Gregoire," said Pharoah, who visited the chimp in the Congo about a week before his death.

One fond memory concerns when his sleeping quarters had to be renovated," she shared. "A privacy wall that separated his nest with Clara and a second nest for two other females had to be temporarily removed. Gregoire sulked for days until the wall was erected again. He was definitely in love with Clara and needed his private time with her."

The Tchimpounga center houses 142 other primates, mostly orphaned chimpanzees whose parents were killed due to the bushmeat trade, and former house pets.

Claire Jones, a spokesperson for JGI, explained to Discovery News that often people bring home "cute and cuddly baby chimps, only to learn later that they grow to become strong and powerful beings that they cannot handle."

Shirley McGreal, chairwoman of the International Primate Protection League, told Discovery News that many chimps and other primates continue to suffer at poorly run zoos, particularly in Africa and Asia.

"They are fed cigarettes, given soft drink bottles and often live under deplorable conditions," McGreal said. "Keep in mind that zoos are more of a western concept often established by expatriates in countries where it's otherwise believed animals should exist in a more natural, free environment."

Like Goodall, however, she hopes conservation groups will eventually be able to provide sanctuary and improve conditions for all animals.

Two primates without such worries are Cheeta the chimp and Igor the gibbon. Cheeta, who famously starred in 12 Tarzan films, lives at the primate sanctuary Creative Habitats and Enrichment for Endangered and Threatened Apes in sunny Palm Springs. He is 75 now, and could very well be the oldest known chimp in the world.

Igor, now under the care of McGreal and her staff, spent 26 years in research labs. He was so traumatized that when he used to see other gibbons, he would savagely mutilate himself.

Like Gregoire, Igor recovered from his past.

"One of his favorite things to do now is to watch Sesame Street on television," McGreal said.

She added, "He would watch Animal Planet, but our sanctuary doesn't have cable."

LONDON (AP) -- Harold Pinter, praised as the most influential British playwright of his generation and a longtime voice of political protest, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.

Pinter, whose distinctive contribution to the stage was recognized with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, died on Wednesday, according to his second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser.

"Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the Nobel Academy said when it announced Pinter's award. "With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution."

The Nobel Prize gave Pinter a global platform which he seized enthusiastically to denounce U.S. President George W. Bush and then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in his Nobel lecture, which he recorded rather than traveling to Stockholm.

"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?" he asked, in a hoarse voice.

Weakened by cancer and bandaged from a fall on a slippery pavement, Pinter seemed a vulnerable old man when he emerged from his London home to speak about the Nobel Award.

Though he had been looking forward to giving a Nobel lecture �?"the longest speech I will ever have made" �?he first canceled plans to attend the awards, then announced he would skip the lecture as well on his doctor's advice.

Pinter wrote 32 plays; one novel, "The Dwarfs," in 1990; and put his hand to 22 screenplays including "The Quiller Memorandum" (1965) and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1980).

He admitted, and said he deeply regretted, voting for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Tony Blair in 1997.

Pinter fulminated against what he saw as the overweening arrogance of American power, and belittled Blair as seeming like a "deluded idiot" in support of Bush's war in Iraq.

In his Nobel lecture, Pinter accused the United States of supporting "every right-wing military dictatorship in the world" after World War II.

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," he said.

The United States, he added, "also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain."

Most prolific between 1957 and 1965, Pinter relished the juxtaposition of brutality and the banal and turned the conversational pause into an emotional minefield.

His characters' internal fears and longings, their guilt and difficult sexual drives are set against the neat lives they have constructed in order to try to survive.

Usually enclosed in one room, they organize their lives as a sort of grim game and their actions often contradict their words. Gradually, the layers are peeled back to reveal the characters' nakedness.

The protection promised by the room usually disappears and the language begins to disintegrate.

Pinter once said of language, "The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."

Pinter's influence was felt in the United States in the plays of Sam Shepard and David Mamet and throughout British literature.

"With his earliest work, he stood alone in British theater up against the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics, the audience and writers too," British playwright Tom Stoppard said when the Nobel Prize was announced.

"Not only has Harold Pinter written some of the outstanding plays of his time, he has also blown fresh air into the musty attic of conventional English literature, by insisting that everything he does has a public and political dimension," added British playwright David Hare, who also writes politically charged dramas.

The working-class milieu of plays like "The Birthday Party" and "The Homecoming" reflected Pinter's early life as the son of a Jewish tailor from London's East End. He began his career in the provinces as an actor.

In his first major play, "The Birthday Party" (1958), intruders enter the retreat of Stanley, a young man who is hiding from childhood guilt. He becomes violent, telling them, "You stink of sin, you contaminate womankind."

And in "The Caretaker," a manipulative old man threatens the fragile relationship of two brothers while "The Homecoming" explores the hidden rage and confused sexuality of an all-male household by inserting a woman.

In "Silence and Landscape," Pinter moved from exploring the dark underbelly of human life to showing the simultaneous levels of fantasy and reality that equally occupy the individual.

In the 1980s, Pinter's only stage plays were one-acts: "A Kind of Alaska" (1982), "One for the Road" (1984) and the 20-minute "Mountain Language" (1988).

During the late 1980s, his work became more overtly political; he said he had a responsibility to pursue his role as "a citizen of the world in which I live, (and) insist upon taking responsibility."

In March 2005 Pinter announced his retirement as a playwright to concentrate on politics. But he created a radio play, "Voices," that was broadcast on BBC radio to mark his 75th birthday.

"I have written 29 plays and I think that's really enough," Pinter said . "I think the world has had enough of my plays."

Pinter had a son, Daniel, from his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant, which ended in divorce in 1980. That year he married the writer Fraser.

"It was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be forgotten," Fraser said.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Police say the actor who portrayed the gay lover of a closeted mobster on "The Sopranos" has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New York.

Police spokesman Lt. John Grimpel says John Costelloe was found dead in an apparent suicide at his Brooklyn home on Dec. 18.

Police were called to his residence after family members were unable to reach him.

The 47-year-old actor gained fame in 2006 when he was cast as short-order cook Jim "Johnny Cakes" Witowski opposite Joseph Gannascoli, who played gay mobster Vito Spatafore on the hit HBO show.

Singer-actress Eartha Kitt dies at 81

Mixed stage, films, TV and recordings in a six-decade career

NEW YORK - Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.

Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.

Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.

Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.

'Most exciting woman in world'
Through the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans less than half her age even as she neared 80.

When her book "Rejuvenate," a guide to staying physically fit, was published in 2001, Kitt was featured on the cover in a long, curve-hugging black dress with a figure that some 20-year-old women would envy. Kitt also wrote three autobiographies.

Once dubbed the "most exciting woman in the world" by Orson Welles, she spent much of her life single, though brief romances with the rich and famous peppered her younger years.

After becoming a hit singing "Monotonous" in the Broadway revue "New Faces of 1952," Kitt appeared in "Mrs. Patterson" in 1954-55. (Some references say she earned a Tony nomination for "Mrs. Patterson," but only winners were publicly announced at that time.) She also made appearances in "Shinbone Alley" and "The Owl and the Pussycat."

Her first album, "RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt," came out in 1954, featuring such songs as "I Want to Be Evil," "C'est Si Bon" and the saucy gold digger's theme song "Santa Baby," which is revived on radio each Christmas.

The next year, the record company released follow-up album "That Bad Eartha," which featured "Let's Do It," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."

In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy in the category of traditional pop vocal performance for her album "Back in Business." She also had been nominated in the children's recording category for the 1969 record "Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa."

Acted on screens small and large
Kitt also acted in movies, playing the lead female role opposite Nat King Cole in "St. Louis Blues" in 1958 and more recently appearing in "Boomerang" and "Harriet the Spy" in the 1990s.

On television, she was the sexy Catwoman on the popular "Batman" series in 1967-68, replacing Julie Newmar who originated the role. A guest appearance on an episode of "I Spy" brought Kitt an Emmy nomination in 1966.

"Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland," she said in a 1996 Associated Press interview. "It depends so much on gadgetry and flash now. You don't have to have talent to be in the business today.

"I think we had to have something to offer, if you wanted to be recognized as worth paying for."

Anti-war comments
Kitt was plainspoken about causes she believed in. Her anti-war comments at the White House came as she attended a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson.

"You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed," she told the group of about 50 women. "They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."

For four years afterward, Kitt performed almost exclusively overseas. She was investigated by the FBI and CIA, which allegedly found her to be foul-mouthed and promiscuous

"The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth �?in a country that says you're entitled to tell the truth �?you get your face slapped and you get put out of work," Kitt told Essence magazine two decades later.

In 1978, Kitt returned to Broadway in the musical "Timbuktu!" �?which brought her a Tony nomination �?and was invited back to the White House by President Jimmy Carter.

In 2000, Kitt earned another Tony nod for "The Wild Party." She played the fairy godmother in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" in 2002.

As recently as October 2003, she was on Broadway after replacing Chita Rivera in a revival of "Nine."

She also gained new fans as the voice of Yzma in the 2000 Disney animated feature "The Emperor's New Groove.'"

Stuff of storybooks
In an online discussion at Washingtonpost.com in March 2005, shortly after Jamie Foxx and Morgan Freeman won Oscars, she expressed satisfaction that black performers "have more of a chance now than we did then to play larger parts."

But she also said: "I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made (me) �?not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have."

Kitt was born in North, S.C., and her road to fame was the stuff of storybooks. In her autobiography, she wrote that her mother was black and Cherokee while her father was white, and she was left to live with relatives after her mother's new husband objected to taking in a mixed-race girl.

An aunt eventually brought her to live in New York, where she attended the High School of Performing Arts, later dropping out to take various odd jobs.

By chance, she dropped by an audition for the dance group run by Dunham, a pioneering African-American dancer. In 1946, Kitt was one of the Sans-Souci Singers in Dunham's Broadway production "Bal Negre."

Kitt's travels with the Dunham troupe landed her a gig in a Paris nightclub in the early 1950s. Kitt was spotted by Welles, who cast her in his Paris stage production of "Faust."

That led to a role in "New Faces of 1952," which featured such other stars-to-be as Carol Lawrence, Paul Lynde and, as a writer, Mel Brooks.

Many languages
While traveling the world as a dancer and singer in the 1950s, Kitt learned to perform in nearly a dozen languages and, over time, added songs in French, Spanish and even Turkish to her repertoire.

"Usku Dara," a song Kitt said was taught to her by the wife of a Turkish admiral, was one of her first hits, though Kitt says her record company feared it too remote for American audiences to appreciate.

Song titles such as "I Want to be Evil" and "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" seem to reflect the paradoxes in Kitt's private life.

Over the years, Kitt had liaisons with wealthy men, including Revlon founder Charles Revson, who showered her with lavish gifts.

In 1960, she married Bill McDonald but divorced him after the birth of their daughter, Kitt.

While on stage, she was daringly sexy and always flirtatious. Offstage, however, Kitt described herself as shy and almost reclusive, remnants of feeling unwanted and unloved as a child. She referred to herself as "that little urchin cotton-picker from the South, Eartha Mae."

For years, Kitt was unsure of her birthplace or birth date. In 1997, a group of students at historically black Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., located her birth certificate, which verified her birth date as Jan. 17, 1927. Kitt had previously celebrated on Jan. 26.

The research into her background also showed Kitt was the daughter of a white man, a poor cotton farmer.

"I'm an orphan. But the public has adopted me and that has been my only family," she told the Post online. "The biggest family in the world is my fans."

Ellie Nesler

SACRAMENTO, CA - Ellie Nesler, the Sonora woman who gained national attention when she shot her son's accused molester in a Tuolumne County courtroom 15 years ago, died Friday after a long bout with cancer, family members said.

Nesler's daughter Rebecca Nesler told News10 her mother died Friday at the UC Davis Medical Center. The elder Nesler had suffered from Stage 4 cancer for the past four years while living with her daughter in Elk Grove. She was admitted to the UC Davis Medical Center Monday.

Nesler gained notoriety in 1993 when she pulled a gun in a Jamestown courtroom and fired five shots into Daniel Driver. Driver was accused of molesting four boys, including Nesler's then-12-year-old Willie.

The shooting sparked a national debate on vigilantism. Nesler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served three years of a 10-year sentence before successfully appealing based on jury misconduct.

Nesler was back in the news in 2002 when she was sentenced to six years in prison after trying to buy 10,000 decongestant tablets from an undercover police officer. The pills contain pseudoephedrine, a chemical used to make methamphetamine.

At the time, Nesler said she wanted to fight the felony drug charges, but didn't think she could get a fair trial.

While awaiting trial in 1994, Nesler was diagnosed with breast cancer and even then, felt her prognosis was not good.

"That's the best I have, five years," Nesler told News10's Tim Daly in 1994. "And only a 50 percent chance I live the whole five years."

Willie Nesler, who led a troubled life after his mother went to prison, was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2005 after beating Tuolumne County neighbor David Davis to death in a dispute over tools. Nesler was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Rebecca Nesler said her brother was able to speak to their mother by phone last week to say their final goodby

Robert Graham, L.A. sculptor, dies at 70

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- Vincent Ford, a songwriter credited with composing the Bob Marley reggae classic "No Woman, No Cry," has died in Jamaica. He was 68.

Ford died Sunday at a hospital of complications from diabetes, said Paul Kelly, a spokesman for the Kingston-based Bob Marley Foundation.

The song, which appeared on Marley's 1974 "Natty Dread" album, was inspired by the Kingston ghetto of Trench Town where Marley and Ford lived in the 1960s.

Ford is credited with the tune. However, some critics contend that Marley wrote it himself but gave Ford the credit to help his friend support himself with the royalties.

Ford, who ran a soup kitchen and lost both his legs to diabetes, is also credited with three songs on Marley's 1976 album "Rastaman Vibration."

Marley died of cancer in Miami in 1981 at age 36 and remains one of this Caribbean island's most beloved national heroes.

John Travolta's Son Dies

In a tragic beginning to the new year, John Travolta and Kelly Preston's son, Jett Travolta, has died while vacationing with his family in the Bahamas.

The 16-year-old collapsed and died after suffering a seizure inside the family's suite at the Old Bahama Bay Hotel on Grand Bahama Island. He was taken to Rand Memorial Hospital. Travolta's attorney, Michael Ossi confirmed this, adding that attempts to revive the teen were unsuccessful.

"He was one of the most special, loving boys," Kelly's mother, Linda Carlson, tells OK! in an exclusive interview. "I thank God I had time to spend with him before Christmas."

Kelly Preston's half-brother, Chris Palzis, tells OK!, "We're all devastated. It's definitely a bad time. That's all I have to say."

Northern Bahamas Police Chief Superintendent Basil Rahming tells OK! that Jett  was discovered unconscious in the bathroom of the family suite at 10 a.m. by the caretaker, Jeff Michael Kathrein. He was taken to the hospital shortly before noon where he was pronounced dead. While an autopsy is set to be performed to determine the cause of death, Jett reportedly hit his head on the bathtub.

Jett reportedly suffered from Kawasaki Syndrome--a condition which often leads to heart disease, however the rumor was that he really had Autism, something Travolta has repeatedly denied.

The Travoltas, who also have a daughter, Ella Bleu, arrived in the Bahamas via private jet on Dec. 30.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Donald Westlake, a prolific author considered one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States, has died. He was 75.

Westlake collapsed from an apparent heart attack as he headed to New Year's Eve dinner while vacationing in Mexico, his wife, Abigail, told the New York Times.

In a lengthy career that spanned a half-century, Westlake won three Edgar Awards, an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay "The Grifters" and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993. His first novel, "The Mercenaries," was published by Random House in 1960.

Westlake wrote more than 90 books �?mostly on a typewriter. Aside from his own name, he also used several pseudonyms �?including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Edwin West �?in part because people didn't believe he could write so much so quickly.

"In the beginning, people didn't want to publish more than one book a year by the same author," Susan Richman, his publicist at Grand Central Publishing, told the Times.

In recent years, Westlake wrote only under his name and Richard Stark, author of a dark, spare series about a one-named sociopath called Parker. More than 15 of his books were made into movies, and he wrote a number of screenplays, including "The Grifters," which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991.

Westlake continued to write until he died. His latest novel, "Get Real," is scheduled to be released in April 2009.

Donald Edwin Westlake was born July 12, 1933, in Brooklyn but was raised in Yonkers and Albany. He attended several colleges in New York but did not graduate from any of them.

He married his current wife, Abigail, in 1979, and the couple made their home in Gallatin, N.Y. He is survived by his wife, four sons from his previous marriage, three stepchildren and four grandchildren.

Steel guitarist, writer, producer Walter Haynes dies at 80

Steel Guitar Hall of Famer Walter Haynes, who also wrote and produced hit country music songs, died Jan. 1 in Tyler, Texas. He was 80, and was known for his work with Jimmy Dickens, Del Reeves, The Everly Brothers, Jeanne Pruett and numerous others.

“When you heard Walter play on things like Jimmy Dickens�?‘We Could,�?the tone was just so beautiful,�?said broadcaster, musician and historian Eddie Stubbs. “That steel guitar sounded almost like it was breathing.�?/P>

Haynes�?legacy is not solely defined by his steel guitar prowess. He produced Pruett’s “Satin Sheets�?and Cal Smith’s “Country Bumpkin,�?and also produced artists including Reeves, Marty Robbins and Bill Monroe. And though he was not a prolific songwriter, he co-wrote (with Hank Mills) Del Reeves�?No. 1 1965 hit, “Girl on the Billboard.�?The inspiration for that song came when he saw a Coca-Cola billboard that featured a swimsuit-wearing model. Without a pen and paper handy, he scribbled ideas for the song in his dust on his car’s dashboard.

Yet steel players and traditional country music fans speak first of Mr. Haynes�?contributions as an instrumentalist. Raised in Kingsport, Mr. Haynes moved to Nashville in 1949 as a fiddle player. Two years later, he had switched to steel and was working toward a sound that was complex and intricate for its time.

He became a major influence on Buddy Emmons, who would join Dickens�?band after Mr. Haynes left the group in 1955. Emmons would later broaden the impact of the pedal steel guitar and would become beloved in doing so. Less celebrated than Emmons, Mr. Haynes was nonetheless crucial in bridging instrumental eras. Mr. Haynes provided a link between the simple lap steel of the 1940s and the more sophisticated pedal steel styles of Emmons, Lloyd Green and others.

“There was a time when Walter Haynes was a critical part of steel guitar recording in Nashville,�?said modern day steel guitarist Pete Finney. “He’s too often overlooked in the history of pedal steel.�?BR>
An addition to his time in Dickens�?Country Boys group, Mr. Haynes worked the road with Ferlin Husky and Webb Pierce. He also worked for 13 years as a staff musician on the Grand Ole Opry. In the studio, he was versatile enough to play on such disparate recordings as Dickens�?rockabilly-fused “Hey Worm! (You Wanna Wiggle),�?Patsy Cline’s elegant “Walkin�?After Midnight�?and rocker J.J. Cale’s 1971 Naturally album.

Mr. Haynes also worked some music-related “day jobs,�?heading up Moss Rose Publishing and serving as an assistant to Owen Bradley at Decca and as a vice president at MCA Nashville. In young days, he was a dashing fellow, as well: Elvis Presley once asked him for hairstyling advice.

“He and I were roommates in the early 1950s,�?said Bob Moore, the legendary bass player who also spent time as a member of the Country Boys band. “He had a lot of fun, and he was just a plain old nice guy.�?BR>
At the time of his death, Mr. Haynes had been teaching music lessons in Bullard, Texas, where he lived with wife Cindy.

Actor Pat Hingle dies at age 84

Born Martin Patterson Hingle in Miami on July 19, 1924, Hingle had a long career took him around the country until he settled in the Wilmington area in 1986 after filming the big-screen thriller “Maximum Overdrive.�?More recently, while living in Carolina Beach, Hingle continued to work in commercial productions including “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,�?which filmed in Charlotte, as well as local independent productions including “The List�?and “Undoing Time.�?He also appeared on Wilmington stages in plays such as “Tuesdays With Morrie�?and “Our Town.�?/P>

When most people think of Hingle, any number of iconic images emerge. He is known as much for his role as a cantankerous judge opposite Clint Eastwood in “Hang ‘em High�?(1968) as he is for the role as Sally Field’s father in “Norma Rae�?(1979). Younger generations know him better as Commissioner Gordon from the late �?0s and early �?0s Batman movies.

While working in the area, Hingle enjoyed encouraging and mentoring young actors. This was evident in his informal conversations as well as philanthropic endeavors. 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.

Hingle arrived at the endowment announcement in a wheelchair and with an oxygen tube in his nose. Yet he took time to give a speech in honor of the event. He emphasized how fortunate he felt to have lived the life he had. He was not born into an acting family, yet somehow he’d found what made him happy.

“I’ve always known there was a divine hand at my shoulder,�?he said.

Lou Buttino, chair of UNCW's department of film studies, is documenting much of how that happened in a biography commissioned by the actor about a year ago.

“He was a tough guy, but his love of people was genuine,�?Buttino said. “He taught me, in many ways, what it means to be a man.�?/P>

Buttino said Hingle may have seemed gruff at times, but only because if he thought he was right, he would not back down. Hingle always tried to do the right thing. The professor will remember him as the ultimate storyteller, and as someone who was very at peace in accepting his death.

“He believed that his spirit would come back, especially to his family and to help other actors,�?Buttino said.

When Hingle was 6 years old, his father left, leaving his mother to travel from job to job taking her son and daughter in tow. Although Hingle’s first taste of acting was as a carrot in a third-grade play, he did not immediately pursue the career as an adult. He entered the University of Texas on a tuba scholarship to major in advertising. World War II soon broke out, though, and within one semester Hingle joined the Navy, serving aboard the USS Marshall. He also served in the Naval reserves during the Korean War.

After World War II, he returned to college and graduated in 1949 with a degree in radio broadcasting. But it was during this second stint in college that Hingle became involved in school productions as a way to meet girls. And he did. While in college, he married his first wife, Alyce Dorsey, with whom he would have three children.

Soon, acting became his passion. And by the time he left college, he had 35 productions under his belt. After college, Hingle and his wife moved to New York, where he studied at the American theater wing. His first performances off-Broadway were for Ilse Stanley’s theater in Long Island around 1950. In 1952, he became a member of the Actors Studio, which led to his first Broadway show, “End as a Man.�?/P>

Hingle would go on to appear in four Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway shows �?“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof�?(1955), “JB�?(1958), “Strange Interlude�?(1963) and “That Championship Season�?(1973).

It was his 1958 role in “Dark at the Top of the Stairs,�?though, that led to a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play.

According to an Aug. 10, 1997 article in The New York Times, while performing in Broadway’s “JB�?in 1959, Hingle was offered the title role in the film, “Elmer Gantry.�?But six weeks after the play opened, Hingle had a nearly fatal accident.

Caught in an elevator in his West End Avenue apartment building that was stalled between the second and third floors, he tried to crawl out, lost his balance and fell 54 feet down the shaft. He fractured his skull, wrist, hip and most of his ribs on his left side, broke his left leg in three places and lost the little finger on his left hand.

Burt Lancaster got the job on “Elmer Gantry�?and went on to win a best actor Oscar for the role. Hingle, however, took the twist of fate in stride. In the Times article he said, “I know that if I had played 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. I had exactly the kind of career I had hoped for. And I never, never forget that I’m the recipient of the blessing that is life. It was given to me to try again.�?/P>

By the late �?0s, Hingle and his first wife were divorced, and while filming “When You Comin�?Back, Red Ryder?�?in El Paso, Texas, he met and fell in love with a bank teller who cashed the crew’s checks.

On Oct. 25, 1979, Hingle married Julia Wright. The couple moved from state to state following Hingle’s film and television projects. In 1985, a Stephen King feature called “Maximum Overdrive�?brought them to Wilmington and its blossoming film industry. Hingle played a truck stop diner manager who was one of several people held hostage by demon-possessed machinery.

While here, the couple stayed in a condo at Carolina Beach.

Several years later, when Hingle decided to retire, he and his wife considered moving to various states they had visited through his work. The Wilmington area’s beaches, strong theater community and temperate climate won out, and they built their dream home at Carolina Beach.

Once here, the actor made a huge impact on the community. Friends who had no family in the area were welcomed at his Christmas dinner table with the rest of his family. Some local film workers considered themselves adopted children of Hingle’s.

Michele Seidman, who considers herself one of those “surrogate kids�?said, “Pat and Julie took in a lot of strays, including me . . . Pat was gruff on the outside but he was a Teddy bear on the inside.�?/P>

Terry Theodore, a UNCW theater professor who directed Hingle in two plays, said he loved imparting his knowledge to acting students and would talk to classes even more often than was asked of him.

“He was a very affectionate man, very free with advice,�?Theodore said.

During an interview this November about his acceptance into the Wilmington Walk of Fame, Hingle spoke candidly about his sickness, his past and his life in Carolina Beach.

“I really do believe there was a divine hand that headed me here,�?he said. “I am happy that I think it’s going to end here.�?/P>