One of the Gorshin obit photos that was moved by press services and featured on many websites today was the one at left from the Batman TV series. It shows Frank as The Riddler, menacing an actress named Susan Silo. As it happened, I had lunch today with Susan and she recalled Frank — as has everyone who knew him — as a gracious, talented man who smoked too much. They worked together a number of times over the years and she was always impressed with his skills. There was something about the guy — the way he commanded audience attention — that just set him apart from a lot of people who think they can do Brando. Some of their working together was in the voiceover category. One thing I should have mentioned about Gorshin was that he occasionally did v.o. work, including animation.
He was pretty good at it, though since his main career often took him out of town, he didn't do a lot in this area. In the last few years, he was one of those called upon to replicate Mel Blanc voices — Foghorn Leghorn in the 1997 short, "Pullet Surprise," for instance. I once asked him if he was ever hired to loop any of the actors he was famous for impersonating in his act — Lancaster or Douglas, perhaps? Frank chuckled and said, "Yeah, I'm in a couple of their movies but I did such a good job, I can't recognize me."