WFU film forum to focus on actor Pat Hingle

Actor Pat Hingle.

Wake Forest University will host a film forum centered on film and television actor Pat Hingle Jan. 15 and 16 in Benson University Center’s Pugh Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Hingle, who lives in Wilmington, has been in more than 110 motion pictures and countless television shows since the early 1950s. His first film was “On the Waterfront” with Marlon Brando.

Curtis Gaston, visiting lecturer in communication, is spearheading the forum. It is co-sponsored by Wake Forest’s communication department and film studies program, which debuted in the fall of 2004. Gaston’s goal is to begin a series of quarterly film forums focusing on film and documentary-film industry professionals with connections to North Carolina.

“The connection can be that these individuals are from the state, live here, lived here or made films here,” Gaston says. “Hingle is the perfect person for the first forum’s subject — he is a piece of walking film history.”

In 1963, Hingle starred in “Splendor in the Grass” with Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. He played Commissioner Gordon in the last four Batman Movies.

Other film credits include: “The Grifters,” “The Quick and the Dead,” “Shaft” and “The Falcon and the Snowman.” Television credits include roles on “Touched by an Angel,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “Wings” and “Cheers.”

Gaston hopes the forums will give students a realistic look at the entertainment industry.

“We hear so much of movie ‘stars’ and too little of movie actors,” Gaston says. “Having people like Hingle — and even people whose careers are less well-known — sit and tell stories about their side of the business will give students a first-hand experience that will be enriching.”

Two films featuring Hingle will be screened on Jan. 15 in Pugh Auditorium: “The Road to Redemption” at 2 p.m., and “Splendor in the Grass” at 4 p.m. On Jan. 16, Hingle will view and comment on selected scenes from movies featuring him at 1 p.m. in Pugh Auditorium. A second screening of “Splendor in the Grass” will follow at 4 p.m., during which Hingle, Gaston and Winston-Salem Journal film critic Mark Burger will provide commentary.