Frank Gorshin was nominated for an Emmy (Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Comedy) for his most famous role: as The Riddler in the Batman live action television series, in which he was clad in a bowler hat and iridescent green body suit decorated with question marks, and frequently uttered his now-famous high deranged cackle, inspired by Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) in 1947's Kiss of Death. He also had a memorable role in the 1969 Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" as the half-whiteface, half-blackface Bele, for which he was again Emmy-nominated. Prior to that, he was a dramatic actor, often playing "tough guys" like those played by one of his favorite target of impressions, James Cagney, whom he was said to resemble. He did take a comic turn, though, as the myopic bandleader Basil (paired with singer Connie Francis) in 1960's Where The Boys Are, and played a boss-behind-bars for laughs in Otto Preminger's 1968 comedy Skidoo.

Gorshin also played a villain in the television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. In the feature-length episode "Plot To Kill A City" he played interplanetary assassin Seton Kellogg, a master of planning who leads his gang, the Legion Of Death, to force a worker to sabotage an anti-matter reactor near New Chicago in order to obliterate the entire area. Kellogg is aided by an alien bodyguard, Varek (played by Anthony James), who is capable of altering his molecular structure to pass through walls, a result of radiation absorbed when "his homeworld thought they'd won a nuclear war."

He made several appearances on CBS's Ed Sullivan Show during the 1960s, including the February 9, 1964 broadcast in which The Beatles made their American debut.

He appeared on Broadway, in Jimmy (1970) and Guys and Dolls (1971). In 2002, he portrayed comedian George Burns on Broadway in the one-man show Say Goodnight Gracie.

His final performance was in an episode of the CBS-TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation which aired two days after his death from lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia, and was dedicated to his memory. While he was known for his impressions, his role on CSI was as himself. Gorshin died on the same day that the TV movie Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt was released on DVD in North America. Gorshin appeared as himself (parodying his role as the Riddler) in this 2003 special that reunited the original stars of the Batman series. Gorshin also voiced villain Hugo Strange in an episode of The Batman, which aired in the series' second season on the WB. (Gorshin died a few days before the newest incarnation of The Riddler first appeared in The Batman.) After Gorshin's death, Strange was voiced by Richard Green. Gorshin also voiced the characters Marius and Lysander in the computer role playing game Diablo II.


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