Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997)[1][2] was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed radio, theater, film, and television.
"Although those performances renewed his popularity," observedMel Gussow inThe New York Times (referring to the Penguin and Mickey Goldmill roles), "they represented only a small part of a richly varied career in which he played many of the more demanding roles in classical and contemporary theater—in plays byShakespeare,O'Neill,Beckett and others."[1]
Meredith was born in 1907 inCleveland, Ohio, the son of Ida Beth (née Burgess; 1861–1933) and William George Meredith (1861–1938), a Canadian-born physician of English descent.[1][9][10] His mother came from a long line ofMethodist revivalists,[1] a religion to which he adhered throughout his lifetime.
Known informally to his friends as "Buzz", Burgess Meredith graduated fromHoosac School in 1926 and then attendedAmherst College (class of 1931). He left Amherst and became a reporter for theStamford Advocate.[11]
Burgess Meredith's stage performances attracted the attention of several Hollywood film producers. Unlike most other movie actors, Meredith never signed a long-term contract with a single studio, preferring to work on individual film projects. Also, unlike some other former stage actors, Meredith successfully adjusted his performances to the film medium. Instead of playing to the audience in the balcony, Meredith now played to the camera, with his performances more controlled and intimate.[citation needed] This gave his screen characters great sensitivity, as he demonstrated in three bravura performances for which he is remembered: as Mio Romagna inWinterset (1936); asGeorge Milton inOf Mice and Men (1939); and asErnie Pyle inThe Story of G.I. Joe (1945). He starred only occasionally in pictures, as inSan Francisco Docks (1940, as a longshoreman accused of murder) andStreet of Chance (1942, as an amnesiac who may have been a killer). Meredith was featured in many 1940s films, including three co-starring his then-wifePaulette Goddard:Second Chorus (1940),Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), andOn Our Merry Way (1948).
Meredith appeared in four episodes of the anthology TV seriesThe Twilight Zone, tying him withJack Klugman for the most appearances on the show in a starring role.[31]
In his first appearance in 1959 in "Time Enough at Last", Meredith portrayed a henpecked bookworm who finds himself the sole survivor of an unspecified apocalypse that leads him to contemplate suicide until he discovers the ruins of the library.[32] In 1961's "Mr. Dingle, the Strong", Meredith played the title character, a timid weakling who receives superhuman strength from anextraterrestrial experiment in human nature.[33] Also that year in "The Obsolete Man", Meredith portrayed a librarian sentenced to death in adystopic totalitarian society.[34] Lastly, in 1963's "Printer's Devil", Meredith portrayed theDevil himself.[35] Meredith later played two additional roles inRod Serling's other anthology series,Night Gallery.[36] Meredith was the narrator forTwilight Zone: The Movie in 1983.[37]
Meredith as the Penguin on the 1960s TV showBatman
Meredith was also well known for his portrayal ofthe Penguin in the television seriesBatman from 1966 to 1968 and in the1966 film based on the TV series.[19] His role as the Penguin was so well-received that the show's writers always had a script featuring the Penguin ready whenever Meredith was available.[citation needed] Meredith made 21 appearances on the series as the Penguin. He also made a brief cameo appearance as the Penguin in the 1968 episode ofThe Monkees titled "Monkees Blow Their Minds".
From 1972 to 1973, Meredith played V. C. R. Cameron, director ofProbe Control, in the television movie/pilotProbe and then inSearch, the subsequent TV series (the name was changed to avoid conflict with a program onPBS).
Meredith won anEmmy Award as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Drama Special for portraying crusading lawyerJoseph Welch in the 1977 television filmTail Gunner Joe, a fictionalized study of the career ofU.S. SenatorJoseph McCarthy, the controversial anticommunist politician active in the 1950s.[38]
In 1992, Meredith narratedThe Chaplin Puzzle, a television documentary that provides a rare insight intoCharles Chaplin's workcirca 1914 atKeystone Studios andEssanay, where Chaplin developed hisTramp character. Coincidentally, Meredith married actressPaulette Goddard in 1944 following her divorce from Chaplin.[17]
He acted in theKenny G music video of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", which was released in 1994. He played the main character, a projectionist at a movie theater.[47] In 1994, he published his autobiography,So Far, So Good.
His last role before his death was the portrayal of both the Hamilton Wofford and Covington Wofford characters in the 1996 video gameRipper byTake-Two Interactive.[48] Meredith was considered to play the Penguin's father in the 1992Tim Burton filmBatman Returns, but illness prevented him from appearing[19] and the role was taken byPaul Reubens.[49]
Meredith was married four times. His first wife, Helen Derby Berrien Meredith—the daughter ofAmerican Cyanamid president Harry L. Derby—died by suicide in 1940, nearly five years after their divorce.[50] His next two wives,Margaret Perry (actress) andPaulette Goddard, were actresses; Goddard suffered a miscarriage in 1944. Meredith's last marriage, to Kaja Sundsten, lasted 46 years and produced two children, Jonathan (a musician) and Tala (a painter).[1]
In 1937, Meredith moved toRockland County, New York where he bought land named High Tor Ranch.[52][53][54] He would sponsor popular horse shows, the funds from the first were used as seed money to pay for legal fees to incorporate the area into the village ofPomona.[55] His shows were popular enough that he would entertain guests dressed in his Penguin costume and invite fellow actors and celebrities to join him.[56]
On September 9, 1997, Meredith died at age 89 from complications ofAlzheimer's disease andmelanoma in his home in Malibu, California, and his remains were cremated.[2]
^Garfield, David (1980)."Strasberg Takes Over: 1951–1955".A Player's Place: The Story of The Actors Studio. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. p. 278.ISBN0-02-542650-8.Aside from the original Robert Lewis group and those who came in with Mann and Meisner and were asked to remain, such individuals as Roscoe Lee Browne, Dane Clark, Tamra Daykarhanova, Rita Gam, Burgess Meredith, Sidney Poitier, Paula Strasberg, Anna Mizrahi Strasberg, and Franchot Tone have been voted directly into membership by the Studio's directorate or by Strasberg himself. In the early sixties, several actors who performed with The Actors Studio Theatre were similarly admitted
Harvey Fierstein / Marco Paguia, David Oquendo, Renesito Avich, Gustavo Schartz, Javier Días, Román Diaz, Mauricio Herrera, Jesus Ricardo, Eddie Venegas, Hery Paz, and Leonardo Reyna / Jamie Harrison, Chris Fisher, Gary Beestone, and Edward Pierce (2025)
