4. Otto Preminger
With his bright orange eyebrows and unique Freeze-collar, Otto Preminger’s interpretation of Mr. Freeze may just be the most eye-catching of them all, but it really must be said that he backs it all up with his performance.
The second Mr. Freeze to appear on the 1966 Batman series, Preminger took over from George Sanders when the character returned in the second season and he wasted little time making the character his own.
Adding unique quirks to the villain, the veteran would often twiddle the corner of his eyebrow when things were going his way, before exclaiming “Wild!” with an evil laugh. He was sinister, but in a comical kind of way that totally worked for the tone of the series. But, of the three Freezes on the show, he was also the most formidable.
Concocting a nefarious scheme that made all of Gotham lose faith in Batman and Robin’s ability as crime-fighters, he was a mastermind that was much smarter than the colorful comic books at the time suggested. And with a larger-than-life presence like Preminger commanding the screen, you can bet that we all took him incredibly seriously.
He was also the first actor to make us feel sympathy for Mr. Freeze (in the closing moments of his two-parter when he loses his Freeze collar) and that’s an emotion we have come to associate with the character.
He was, for lack of a better term, wild.