Neil Hamilton (actor)
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| Neil Hamilton | |
 Neil Hamilton as Crown Prince Alexander in Ernst Lubitsch's The Patriot (1928) |
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| Birth name | James Neil Hamilton |
| Born | September 9, 1899 Lynn, Massachusetts, USA |
| Died | September 24, 1984 Escondido, California, USA |
James Neil Hamilton (9 September 1899–24 September 1984) was an American actor famous for his role as Commissioner Gordon on the Batman TV series of the 1960s.
As an only child, he was born in Lynn, Massachusetts and raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic household.
His show business career began when he secured a job as a shirt model in magazine ads. After this he became interested in acting and joined several stock companies. This allowed him to secure his first film role in 1918, but he got his big break from D.W. Griffith in The White Rose (1923). After performing in several more Griffith films, Hamilton was signed by Paramount in the late 1920s and soon became one of that studio's most popular leading men. He was steadily employed in supporting roles, and worked for just about every studio in Hollywood.
In 1960, Hamilton got another break later in his career when he suddenly replaced Richard Cromwell, who was planning a comeback of sorts. Hamilton was quickly signed by producer Maury Dexter for 20th Century Fox's planned production of The Little Shepard of Kingdom Come co-starring Jimmie Rodgers and Chill Wills because Cromwell took sick and died on October 11, 1960 of complications from liver cancer. Hamilton, a distant cousin of Margaret Hamilton, "went on with the show".
He is probably best known to audiences, however, as Police Commissioner Gordon in the TV series Batman. He played the character of Commissioner Gordon very strait-laced and did not think much of Adam West's Batman.
He died in 1984 after an asthma attack.
