Kevin Conroy, who provided the voice of Batman for almost three decades spanning approximately thirty different television episodes, movies, and video games, passed away on Thursday at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was 66.
Vaughn C. Williams, Mr. Conroy’s spouse, said that the deceased passed away as a result of intestinal cancer.
Mr. Conroy spent more time as Batman than any other actor who appeared on film wearing the iconic cape and mask associated with the character, despite the fact that he never revealed his face while portraying the role. According to DC Comics, his distinctively low and raspy voice helped define the character in nearly sixty different productions, including fifteen films, fifteen animated series that collectively spanned almost four hundred episodes, more than one hundred hours of television, and twenty-five video games.
Mr. Conroy said in 2016 to The New York Times, “I’ve been incredibly lucky to have received Batman, because he’s a character that’s simply developed,” and he was referring to Batman. It’s simply been a character that allows you to surf that wave for the last 24 years. The difficulty is in preventing him from deteriorating into a gloomy, uninteresting, and brooding individual.
Mr. Williams, who had been married to Mr. Conroy for almost ten years, said that “it looked to me that he was Batman.” “He had a hard childhood and suffered from several unpleasant conditions, yet he was able to transform that into an unbelievable personal strength.”
Alan Burnett, a writer and producer on the series, told The Times that Mr. Conroy was cast in the title role of “Batman: The Animated Series” despite the fact that he was not a fan of comic books. The producers of the show were unimpressed with some 500 auditions, but they were transfixed by the “gravitas” that Mr. Conroy brought to the role. In 1992, the first episode of the programme aired on the Fox Kids network.
Mr. Conroy commented on the part, saying that as an actor, “it’s so much joy to dig your teeth into.” “To call it animation is doing it a great disservice. It’s more along the lines of mythology.”
Kevin Conroy was brought into the world on November 30, 1955, in Westbury, New York. His parents, Thomas and Patricia Conroy, reared him in Westport, Connecticut. He was the youngest of four children and grew up in a strict Irish Catholic home. When he was 15 years old, the family fell apart because of the alcoholism of his father, who was an executive with Pan Am. His mother left because of his father’s drinking problem.
He graduated from high school earlier than his classmates when he was living with friends, and he said that he felt the most comfortable and at ease while he was onstage acting in school plays.
At the age of 17, he was awarded a scholarship to attend Juilliard. It was there that he began to refine his acting abilities and where he also shared an apartment with Robin Williams.
According to DC Comics, Mr. Conroy started his career in the theatre in New York as well as at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. In the late 1980s, he earned popularity in a Broadway production of “Eastern Standard,” in which he portrayed a TV producer who was keeping his AIDS diagnosis a secret from his coworkers.
Mr. Conroy shared his thoughts with The Times, saying, “I felt such a feeling of duty to do it well since I attended to so many funerals.” On occasion, when he had the stage to himself, he would start crying. “I was in so much pain that every night I would simply cry out in agony. I was unable to avoid the sensation. It was a cry that essentially said, “Look what’s happening to us! Help!”
Mr. Conroy had been living in both New York and Los Angeles for a number of years, supplementing his income by investing in real estate flipping. In the year 2000, he decided to make New York his permanent home and commute to Southern California for acting jobs.
Mr. Conroy said that, despite having a troubled upbringing, he was able to make peace with his parents in their latter years.
In addition to his spouse, Mr. Conroy is survived by his sister, Trisha Conroy, as well as his brother, Tom Conroy.
Even in more recent years, Mr. Conroy’s dedication to Batman has remained unwavering.
In 2019, he appeared in “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” a live-action crossover event that was broadcast on the CW network and consisted of five parts, each of which spanned an episode of one of the network’s several television programmes. His role as Bruce Wayne.
In addition, earlier this year, he recounted how much it meant for him to provide his voice for the Caped Crusader in a nine-page comic book titled “Finding Batman,” which was published as part of an anthology published by DC Pride.
Mr. Conroy said, in the same vein as the protagonist, that he had become skilled at hiding aspects of himself. It was during his audition for “Batman: The Animated Series” that he first started to come to terms with the fact that he had grown up as the homosexual son in a devout home.
