Biography
Character and voice actor Bob Hastings is best known for his television work on series such as
McHale's Navy and
All in the Family, but he has also appeared in some feature films. Born in New York in 1921, he was busy on the radio in his twenties, specializing in male ingenue and comedy roles, including portraying Archie Andrews in an NBC radio adaptations of Archie Comics in 1944. His first credited television appearance was in 1955, in the U.S. Steel Hour production of
No Time for Sergeants. Hastings made his feature film debut in 1962 in the Disney production
Moon Pilot, starring
Tom Tryon, and that same year got his first regular series role as Lt. Elroy Carpenter, the obsequious aide to
Joe Flynn's Captain Binghamton on
McHale's Navy. He was with the series for four seasons, and it led to his subsequent big-screen work in the features
McHale's Navy (1964) and
McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force (1965). He also played Bert Ramsey on the daytime drama
General Hospital and managed to work in occasional big-screen work, in pictures such as
The Flim-Flam Man. In the 1970s, Hastings played the recurring character of Kelsey the tavern-keeper on
All in the Family. Hastings' on-screen acting has generally seen him cast as nervous, sycophantic mid-level bureaucrats, or, occasionally, as rough-hewn working-class types. But as a voice artist he has had a much wider range of portrayals, including heroes and authority figures, including the voice of Clark Kent in the 1960s Batman/Superman Hour and, in more recent decades, the voice of Commissioner Gordon on the animated
Batman from Fox network. Bob Hastings is the older brother of actor Don Hastings, who is perhaps best remembered by viewers of one generation for his portrayal of the Video Ranger in
Captain Video; Bob also appeared in the series, in a much less prominent role. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide