Just heard that Frank Gorshin died on Tuesday — news that leaves me feeling a little sad and a little old. Like most of the people in my generation, he was and will always be The Riddler.

One of the bad guys who was, it turns out, a good guy in real life. The few times when I saw him speaking in interviews, he always seemed like a clever, decent fellow with considerable talent and experience . . . who didn’t mind it that his claim to fame was due to an insane giggle and a green unitard.

S’funny, I can still hear his voice in my head. That strangely resonant escalation he used whenever The Riddler spoke of a scheme he was hatching or a trap he had laid. If I had to write it out, I’d want a musical notation to map out the rise and fall of his voice, that strange Beat Poetry tempo of his words.