Arleen Sorkin has died. Although she was a veteran actor and performer with a number of credits to her name, Sorkin is most closely associated with a single role: DC Comics character Harley Quinn, who she was originally hired to play, as an unnamed side character, for a single episode of Batman: The Animated Series in 1992—and who she would continue to play for the next 20 years, crafting one of the single most important modern additions to the Batman mythos in the process. Her death was reported tonight by Deadline, after DC Studios co-head James Gunn, and long-time co-star Mark Hamill, both appeared to confirm the news. Sorkin was 67.
Born in Washington, D.C. in the 1950s, Sorkin studied theater in college—meeting Batman: TAS writer Paul Dini while the two were both at Emerson. Moving to New York after graduating, she became involved in the city’s comedy scene, booking radio ads and other small parts—including a recurring part as beloved character Calliope Jones on Days Of Our Lives, which, in addition to its own merits, was also destined to be one of the most influential soap opera gigs in all of comic book history.
In 1991, Dini reached out to Sorkin and her then-writing partner, Beth Milstein, to pen a couple episodes of Tiny Toons Adventures, which he was working on at the time. The next year, he called back with an even stranger offer: Dini, as head writer of the new Batman cartoon, had been thinking about ways to expand the character of Mark Hamill’s Joker by giving him someone to talk to—ultimately settling on a jester-esque moll character inspired by a scene Sorkin had performed in a dream sequence on Days Of Our Lives. When Dini offered his old friend the part, the character was intended for a single appearance, and didn’t even have a name—Mark Hamill joking years later that the script just referred to her as “Joker Henchwench 1.” But as soon as Sorkin began voicing her—infusing the character with her Brooklyn accent and natural joi de vivre—Harley Quinn was born.
As the breakout original character of The Animated Series, Sorkin voiced Harley in many of its most beloved episodes, singing, cracking wise, and inevitably getting her heart (and bones) broken by her “beloved” Mr. J. In a show that often delved into the psychology of Batman’s rogues, few got as much focus as Harley, who could be malevolent, sympathetic, and hilarious in the space of a single minute. (In Sorkin’s own words: “She wants to be a good girl but it’s so much more her to be a bad one.”) Sorkin would play Quinn in TV shows, movies, and video games for a total of two decades, portraying her for the last time in 2012 for the video game D.C. Universe Online. And while the character has now ended up in the hands of numerous other performers—Tara Strong, Kaley Cuoco, and, of course, Margot Robbie, just to name a few—it’s impossible to imagine her having the chance to evolve into her current incarnations without Sorkin’s energy propelling her along for so many years.
Outside her voice acting work, Sorkin continued to hold a number of gigs—including a short stint co-hosting America’s Funniest People that ended in an acrimonious lawsuit in the early ’90s. Among her other jobs, she holds a strange position in the mythology of the sitcom Frasier, which was co-created by her husband, prolific TV writer and producer Christopher Lloyd: The show’s regular gag of having celebrities play the callers to Frasier Crane’s radio show was facilitated by Sorkin, who delivered the fill-in dialogue that was later replaced with the recordings from the famous cameos. (Sorkin herself appeared in the show’s final episode.)
In her later years, Sorkin was a regular on the comic convention scene, often teamed up with voice actor Diane Pershing—whose dynamic with Sorkin, as BTAS’ version of Poison Ivy, laid much of the groundwork for the characters’ future relationship. She was also a noted collector of movie and TV memorabilia, owning a hefty collection of Harley Quinn merch amongst her other treasures.
Sorkin is survived by her husband, Christopher Lloyd, and their two sons.
