Meredith was born in Cleveland,
Ohio. He was the youngest of three children of
William George Meredith--a physician--and Ida Beth
Burgess. In the late 1920s, Meredith drifted to New
York, where he had numerous jobs including selling
vacuum cleaners, clerking at Macy's, and working as
a runner on Wall Street. He then made two trips to
South America as an ordinary seaman on an ocean
liner, after which he was fired for disobeying
orders. Meredith attended Cathedral Choir School,
Cleveland; Hoosac Falls Preparatory School, New
York; Amherst College, Massachusetts.
In 1933, he became a member of Eva
Le Gallienne's theatre company in New York. He
attracted favorable attention for playing George in
a 1939 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and
Men 
and
as war correspondent Ernie Pyle in The Story of G.I.
Joe (1945). He was featured in many 1940s films,
including three (Second Chorus (1940), Diary of a
Chambermaid (1946) and On Our Merry Way (1948) )
co-starring then-wife Paulette Goddard. Among later
roles, he became known for playing The Penguin on
the television series Batman. The Penguin's
trademark quacking laugh was actually Meredith's
attempt to cover up coughing fits, as his part
required him to smoke, something he had not done in
years. He admitted in an interview it sounded more
like a duck than a penguin. [citation needed]
Nevertheless, his role as the Penguin was so
well-received that the show's writers always had a
script featuring the Penguin ready whenever Meredith
was available. He appeared on the show more times
during its run than any other villain.
Meredith served in the United States Army Air Forces
in World War II, reaching the rank of captain. He
transferred to the Office of War Information and was
involved in making films for G.I.s.. As a result of
the House Committee on Un-American Activities
investigation into Communist influence in Hollywood,
Meredith was placed on the Hollywood blacklist in
the 1950s.
Burgess Meredith was adept playing both dramatic and
comedic roles, and appeared in four different
starring roles in the acclaimed anthology TV series
The Twilight Zone (only Jack Klugman had as many
leading guest appearances). In the famous "Time
Enough at Last", a 1959 episode of The Twilight
Zone, Meredith plays a henpecked bank teller who
only wants to be left alone with his books. In the
1961 episode "Mr. Dingle, the Strong", Meredith
plays the title character, a timid weakling who, as
the subject of a space alien's experiment on human
nature, suddenly acquires superhuman strength. In
"Printer's Devil," Meredith portrayed the Devil
himself, and in "The Obsolete Man" he portrayed a
deeply religious man, sentenced to death in a
future, dystopic totalitarian society.
Meredith achieved iconic status for playing The
Penguin in the television series Batman.
In 1972 - 1973, Meredith played V.C.R. Cameron,
director of "Probe Control," in the movie "Probe"
and then in "Search," the subsequent TV series (the
name was changed to avoid conflict with a program on
PBS). The series involved "World Securities
Corporation," a private agency which, among other
activities, fielded a number of detectives equipped
with high-tech equipment including a tiny TV
transmitter (the "Scanner") which allowed Probe
Control to see what was going on where the agents
were working. One episode centered around Cameron
being kidnapped and having to escape from a torture
chamber, without any of the tools carried by Probe
agents.
Meredith was a favorite of director Otto Preminger,
who cast him in Advise and Consent (1962), In Harm's
Way (1965), Hurry Sundown (1967), Skidoo (1968) and
Such Good Friends (1971). He appeared in Ray
Harryhausen's last stop-motion feature Clash of the
Titans, in a supporting role. He also played Rocky
Balboa's trainer, Mickey, in the first three Rocky
films (1976), (1979) and (1982), to great acclaim.
His character Mickey died in the third Rocky film
but returned briefly for the fifth film Rocky V
(1990) in flashbacks. Meredith also appeared in
Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). In his twilight
years, he played Jack Lemmon's character's father in
Grumpy Old Men (1993) and its sequel, Grumpier Old
Men (1995). He was the Penguin in the original
Batman Movie. As a nod to his longtime association
with The Twilight Zone, he served as narrator for
the 1983 film based on the series. He was Academy
Award-nominated in the Best Supporting Actor
category for his roles in The Day of the Locust
(1975) and Rocky (1976).
A somewhat more mixed (comedy/dramatic) role was his
portrayal of the philosophical (yet hapless) tramp,
Vladimir, in a notable production of Beckett's
Waiting for Godot.
Meredith also did voice over work mostly in the
1970's, supplying the voice over in TV commercials
for Stokley Vegetables, United Airlines, and
Freakies cereal; as well as supplying the narration
for the 1974-1975 ABC Saturday morning series Korg:
70,000 B.C. and supplying the voice of Puff in the
1978 animated TV special adaptation of the Peter,
Paul, and Mary song Puff, The Magic Dragon.
For his contribution to the motion
picture industry, Meredith has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6904 Hollywood Blvd.
Critic Wolcott Gibbs once hailed Meredith in The
New Yorker as
"brilliant, impressive, heartbreaking, vibrant and
eloquent." Gibbs was, of course, talking of
Meredith the stage performer. Sadly, there are only
a handful of film roles that live up to that
estimation.
His autobiography So Far, So Good was published in
1994.
Meredith died of Alzheimer's disease and melanoma in
1997.
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