Burgess Meredith

Born on November 16, 1907, in Cleveland, Ohio, Oliver Burgess Meredith attended Amherst College before joining Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre company in New York in 1930. He became a Broadway sensation in Maxwell Anderson's verse plays 'Winterset' (1935) and 'High Tor' (1937), earning acclaim as one of the finest stage actors of his generation. In 1939, he delivered an unforgettable film performance as George Milton opposite Lon Chaney Jr. in the screen adaptation of John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'. During World War II, Meredith served in the U.S. Army Air Forces, reaching the rank of captain, and starred as legendary war correspondent Ernie Pyle in the classic film 'The Story of G.I. Joe' (1945). In 1959, Meredith starred in one of the most famous episodes in television history: Rod Serling's 'The Twilight Zone' episode 'Time Enough at Last', playing the bookish bank teller Henry Bemis who survives a nuclear holocaust only to break his reading glasses. In the 1960s, Meredith brought manic comedic genius to television screens as the umbrella-wielding, waddling villain The Penguin in the camp classic 'Batman' series (1966–1968). In his late sixties, Meredith achieved a magnificent career renaissance, earning Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for 'The Day of the Locust' (1975) and for his unforgettable portrayal of the gravel-voiced, tough-loving boxing trainer Mickey Goldmill in Sylvester Stallone's 'Rocky' (1976)—a role he reprised in 'Rocky II' and 'Rocky III'. Meredith died on September 9, 1997, in Malibu, California, at age eighty-nine, remembered as one of the most beloved and dynamic character actors in American history.