Diagnosed in November 2006 with a blood disorder, myelodysplasia. He died over two years later.
Had three children, Bill, Jody and Molly, by first wife Alyce.
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.
He studied drama at HB Studio in Greenwich Village in New York City.
In his last appearance as Commissioner Gordon in the Batman series, he worked with Uma Thurman, whose first husband, Gary Oldman, succeeded him in the role in Batman Begins (2005).
One of only two actors to appear in all of the first four Batman movies. The other was actor Michael Gough who played Alfred.
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.
Studying acting with Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof Studios, he later was a strong disciple of the Actors Studio in New York. It was Elia Kazan, who gave Hingle his big screen break by casting him in the unbilled role of a bartender in On the Waterfront (1954). Later he played Warren Beatty's browbeating father in Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961). Kazan also cast him as the original Goober on Broadway in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".
The only son of three children whose father, a contractor, died when he was an infant.
Was nominated for Broadway's 1958 Tony Award as best supporting or featured actor (dramatic) for "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.".
Went to the University of Texas in 1942 on a tuba scholarship.
Worked various jobs during his salad days - shoe salesman, playground attendant, Bible salesman, farmhand, usher, waiter and a file clerk at Bloomingdale's.