Haven't
you read the newspapers Batman? Haven't you heard the stories ? You
are no longer the great
Mr Freeze was a villain who due to Batman accidentally spilling a vial of instant freeze solution on him in a fight in his laboratory, was forced to live his life out in a air conditioned environment of fifty degrees below zero. He had a quick freeze gun and had a soft spot for stolen diamonds ( ice ). His special suit maintained his cool sub-zero temperature . In The series, the second Mr Freeze was Otto Preminger.
Otto Preminger was
not new to movies or TV before he appeared on Batman.He was born in
Austria in 1903 and came to the United Stated in 1935. He already was
an Oscar winning Director ( Laura 1944 ) and had also had roles in a
few movies, He 
appeared
in the 1953 classic " Stalag 17 as an evil and mean commandant
of a prison camp. On Otto appearing in Batman, Exec producer William Dozier: "
Otto I had known for a long time, and he called me from New Your and
said ' Bill, I must do a Batman. If I don't do a Batman, my children
wont let me come home.' He hadn't acted in 17 years since " Watch
The Rhineon
Broadway. They ( guest villains ) all got the same amount of money :
twenty five hundred dollars.
Thats what they got , period." He
did land a job on the series. He was a great director however
as a person unfortunately he was a big jerk. No one like him on the
series and was happy to see him go. Many people who had worked on the
show had worked with Otto in the past including, Burgess Meredith ,
Vincent Price, Neil Hamilton and Alan Napier. Alan Napier on evil
Otto : "
I had worked before Batman with Awful Otto Preminger in Forever Amber
as 
the
English expert and dialog director. Otto got me mad because , if anyone
dried up on a close up, he would say ' Why dont you concentrate?
Then he comes on the set of Batman. Instead of looking six foot tall
as I thought, he looks five foot tall , because it is now my
territory and he is playing Mr Freeze. It happens that I was on the
set when he was doing a series of close- ups and in every one of
them, Otto dried up and it was only the gentleman built into my
nature that I didn't say " Otto why don't you concentrate? ".
I
have done much research on the Batman series and I find very few
actors that are spoken with such disregard as this man. Adam West on
Otto : Mr
Freeze was out cold on the floor and Batman was supposed to run in
and 
pick
him up. In most case an unconscious actor will help the person
trying to pick him or her up. They'll go with that person, move the
shoulders, bend at the waist, do something,
Not
Otto. When I ran to pick him up, he stiffened like a sand bag and
literally dug his nails into the floor. I couldn't lift two hundred
pounds of resisting weight. I dropped him down and we tried again.
Same thing. On the next take , my foot accidentally stepped on his
hand . He yelled, but he got the message and we were able to continue. As
terrible as he was, he still had enough pull in Hollywood where no
one would tell him off. There are stores about him where he treated
women with great disregard, commented on their breast size and would
ask men if they were gay.
There is justice sometimes
however, The screen Actors Guild found out he was performing and
demanded $11,000 in unpaid dues. The last time he performed before
Batman was in Stalag 17 (53). His disposition and general jerk
attitude is the reason for the next Mr Freeze episode he was replaced
with Eli Wallach.
Old Otto would
not mend his evil ways until April 23, 1986
He passed away
in New York.
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