Pat Hingle, a veteran actor whose career included a recurring role as Commissioner Gordon in several Batman movies, died after battling blood cancer. Hingle, seen here in 2007 in Wilmington, N.C., was 84. Family spokeswoman Lynn Heritage said Hingle died at his home Saturday night.

Pat Hingle, an actor with more than a half-century of impressive work in theater, film and television who perhaps was best known to a generation of movie fans as Commissioner Gordon in the first four Batman films, has died. He was 84.

Hingle died Saturday night of myelodysplasia, a form of blood cancer, at his home in Carolina Beach, N.C., according to Lynn Heritage, a cousin.

On film, he worked with stars ranging from Clint Eastwood to the Muppets. He played Sally Field’s father in “Norma Rae” and Warren Beatty’s in “Splendor in the Grass.” He played the bartender who needles Marlon Brando about his former prize-fight style in “On the Waterfront.” And he was the crime boss who terrorizes Angelica Huston with a bag of oranges in “The Grifters.”

He had an illustrious Broadway career and was in the original casts of some of the great plays in American theater, including “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” and “J.B.”

James Morrison, an actor best known now for his role as Bill Buchanan in the television series “24,” was a friend of Hingle’s and worked with him in a 1983 production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in Los Angeles.

“Only a chosen few had the body of work that he had,” Morrison said Sunday. “The reason he stands out is that he had the humility and ease that made acting look easy.”

Hingle’s television credits include “Twilight Zone,” “The Untouchables,” “Route 66,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Fugitive,” “Mission Impossible” and “Hallmark Hall of Fame.”

On the big screen, his films include “Hang ’Em High,” “Sudden Impact” and “The Gauntlet” with Eastwood, as well as “Muppets from Space.”