Bob Hastings, the television and radio actor who voiced Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon in animation for a decade, has passed away.
The Burbank Leader reports that the star died from pancreatic cancer, from which he'd been suffering on and off for 15 years.
Hastings, who got his start in radio but rose to fame on TV in
McHale's Navy, first portrayed Gordon (who will be the lead character in the live-action TV series
Gotham debuting on Fox in the fall) in 1993's animated feature film
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. He went on to play the role in
Batman: The Animated Series and a number of spinoffs and tie-ins until 2003.
In the late 1970s, Hastings also lent his voice to
Challenge of the Superfriends, although he was never credited with a specific character, only listed in the credits as a contributing voice actor. Before teaming with Mark Hamill on
Batman: The Animated Series, Hastings shared screentime with him in
Jeannie, on which he played Henry Glopp, a character he carried over to
The New Scooby-Doo Movies.
Earlier still, he voiced Superboy and young Clark Kent in a number of animated projects in the '60s, including
The Batman/Superman Hour and
Superboy.