Kevin Conroy, a defining voice of Batman, has died at the age of 66

NEW YORK –

Kevin Conroy, the prolific voice actor whose serious performance in Batman: The Animated Series defined the definitive sound of the Caped Crusader for many Batman fans, has died at the age of 66.

Conroy died Thursday after a battle with cancer, series producer Warner Bros. announced on Friday.

Conroy was the voice of Batman in the acclaimed animated series that ran from 1992 to 1996 and often starred alongside Mark Hamill’s Joker. Conroy remained the almost exclusive animated voice of Batman, including some 15 films, 400 television episodes and two dozen video games, including the Batman: Arkham and Injustice franchises.

In Batman’s eight-decade history, no one has played the Dark Knight again.

“For several generations, he has been the definitive Batman,” Hamill said in a statement. “It was one of those perfect scenarios where they got just the right man for the right role, and the world was a better place for it.”

“He will always be my Batman,” Hamill said.

Conroy’s popularity with fans made him a sought-after figure on the convention grounds. In the often turbulent world of DC Comics, Conroy was a mainstay and widely loved. In a statement, Warner Bros. Animation said Conroy’s performance “will forever remain among the greatest depictions of the Dark Knight in any medium.”

“Kevin brought a light everywhere, whether he was giving it his all in the recording booth, feeding first responders during 9/11, or making sure every fan who’d ever waited for him had a moment with their Batman,” said Paul Dini , producer of the animated show. “A hero in the truest sense of the word.”

Born in Westbury, New York and raised in Westport, Connecticut, Conroy began as a well-trained theater actor. He attended Juilliard and stayed with Robin Williams. After graduating, he toured with John Houseman’s acting company, The Acting Company. He appeared in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Public Theater and in “Eastern Standard” on Broadway. He appeared in Hamlet at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, California.

The 1980s production of Eastern Standard, in which Conroy played a television producer secretly living with AIDS, held a special meaning for him. Conroy, who was gay, said at the time that he regularly attended funerals for friends who had died from AIDS. Every night he poured out his pain on stage.

In 1980, Conroy moved to Los Angeles, began acting in soap operas, and booked appearances on television shows such as Cheers, Tour of Duty, and Murphy Brown. When casting director Andrea Romano was scouting her lead actor for Batman: The Animated Series in 1991, she went through hundreds of auditions before Conroy walked in. He was there on the recommendation of a friend – and immediately occupied.

Conroy began the role with no background whatsoever in comics and as a newcomer to voice acting. His Batman was hoarse, brooding, and dark. His Bruce Wayne was light and dashing. His inspiration for the contrasting voices, he said, came from the 1930s film The Scarlet Pimpernel, about an English aristocrat who leads a double life.

“It’s so much fun to get your act together,” Conroy told the New York Times in 2016. “Calling it animation doesn’t do it justice. It’s more like mythology.”

As Conroy’s performance evolved over the years, it sometimes connected to his own life. Conroy described his own father as an alcoholic and said his family fell apart while he was in high school. He channeled those emotions into the 1993 animated film Mask of the Phantasm, which centered on Bruce Wayne’s unresolved issues with his parents.

“Andrea came in after the shoot and hugged me,” Conroy told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. “Andrea said, ‘I don’t know where you went, but it was a beautiful performance.’ She knew I was drawing on something.”

Conroy is survived by husband Vaughn C. Williams, sister Trisha Conroy, and brother Tom Conroy.

In Finding Batman, which was released earlier this year, Conroy wrote a comic about his unlikely journey with the character and as a gay man in Hollywood.

“I’ve often wondered how appropriate it was that I should get this role,” he wrote. “As a gay boy growing up in a strictly Catholic family in the 1950s and 1960s, I had become adept at hiding parts of myself.”

The voice that emerged from Conroy for Batman, he said, was one he didn’t recognize — a voice that “seemed to roar out of 30 years of frustration, confusion, denial, love and longing.”

“I felt Batman rising from deep within.”