Frank Gorshin Biography

Fast Facts

• Got his first professional performing job after winning a talent competition at the age of 17 and went on to appear in films like "Invasion of the Saucer Men" and "Dragstrip Girl" in 1957
• Quote: "My parents were both from Yugoslavia and didn't know any of the people I impersonated, so they couldn't understand why I was winning prizes․ My mother did start going to movies and she'd often say, 'I saw someone who acts just like you․'"
• Quote: "I just want to work - no matter what it is․ You got a job for me?"
• Was an opening act for Bobby Darin and Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas during the 1960s and later became a headliner there, one of the first impersonators to do so
• Best known as an impressionist and character actor who played The Riddler in the original "Batman" television series
• Had success on Broadway in the one-man show "Say Goodnight, Gracie," which ran eight times a week for almost a year despite the fact that he learned he had lung cancer during its run
• Appeared in a 1969 episode of "Star Trek" as an alien named Commissioner Bele
• His final broadcast performance, in the season finale of the TV series "CSI," saw the lifelong impersonator playing himself
• When he appeared on the same "Ed Sullivan Show" where the Beatles made their American debut in 1964, he allegedly joked, "How do all these girls and guys know I'm here tonight?"