A BIRTHDAY SALUTE… By PETER BOSCH It is good and proper that Frank Gorshin wore a large question mark on his costume as the Riddler in the epic first episode of the 1966 Batman TV series. Many people – especially us kids – had no idea who he was before that night. It’s even likely some of us thought he was a new actor — without realizing that Gorshin was already accomplished, with a decade’s experience on TV, in the movies, and in Las Vegas (opening for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Red Skelton, and Judy Garland!). But who was Frank Gorshin before the Riddler (and after)? Since it’s the late entertainer’s birthday today — he was born April 5, 1933 — this is a good chance to look back and find out. He was born Frank John Gorshin Jr. in Pittsburgh, the son of a railroad worker and a seamstress. That’s all good but let’s jump ahead to a bunch of kids coming out of a movie house, trying to imitate the star of the picture, the great James Cagney. Frank did it a little harder than the others. He would later become an usher at the same theater, watching films over and over during their runs. A boring job for some… but for Frank, it meant having the chance to study in detail the mannerisms and voices of the actors onscreen. He got to be so good at mimicry that he won a local talent contest when he was 17 years old. The prize was a week’s spot performing in a New York nightclub. Just another small leap forward, this time to 1953 when Gorshin enlisted in the Army. He was assigned to the Special Services division, which handled entertainment for troops stationed abroad, and became part of the USO shows in Europe. While overseas, he met Maurice Bergman, who worked for Universal Pictures. It was through Bergman, after Gorshin left the service in 1955, that he got the introduction to a talent agent. The following year, Gorshin would appear in four movies, as well as having a small walk-on part as a page in an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series. Jump to the 3:14 mark to see Gorshin as a studio page. June 10, 1956. Just three days after the Hitchcock episode aired,...
PART 1 of BATMAN FAMILY ALBUM: An interview series with Bob Rozakis — who turns 75! — UPDATED 4/4/26: Bob Rozakis turns 75! Perfect time to reprint our four-part interview series with the Bronze Age stalwart — BATMAN FAMILY ALBUM — from 2015. Dig it. — Dan — The two best Batman runs of the ’70s were by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams at the beginning of the decade, and Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers at the end of it. Their stories, simply put, set the foundation of the modern Dark Knight. There were also mighty contributions from the likes of Bob Haney and Jim Aparo in Brave and the Bold, as well as Irv Novick and Len Wein, to name just a few. But over the course of the decade, all three titles starring Batman — JLA and World’s Finest are separate animals — had their ups and downs. There were dozens of memorably unmemorable stories tucked between the masterpieces. Enter Batman Family, the most consistently entertaining Batbook of the 1970s. Of course, we’re only talking 20 issues, many of which were stocked with heavy doses of reprints, but no comic was more fun, issue in and issue out. A lot of that was down to the sensibilities of Bob Rozakis, who crafted much of the book’s content and sense of whimsy. Batman Family was also highly influential: While a number of features and reprints centered on the various supporting characters and villains of Gotham, the focus was on the Batgirl and Robin team — the so-called Dynamite Duo — and their will-they-or-won’t-they relationship. Before Batman Family, there was no sexual spark between the two — at the time the book debuted, Barbara Gordon was a congresswoman and Dick Grayson was a college student. Today, through retcons borne from the seeds sown in the title, Babs and Dick have become DC’s great, star-crossed lovers, youthful contemporaries who learned at Batman’s side in roughly parallel fashion. But that’s something we’ll explore down the road. In this, our first installment of BATMAN FAMILY ALBUM, Bob Rozakis talks about how he ended up with the gig … — Dan Greenfield: It’ll probably be dating both of us by putting it this way, but I grew up reading Batman Family. (Bob laughs) It’s one of those books that I absolutely loved and...
