Arleen Sorkin, Harley Quinn's Inspiration and Original Voice Actor, Passes Away at 67

Arleen Sorkin, the actor who was both the direct inspiration for the creation of Harley Quinn as well as her first voice actor, has passed away at 67

Arleen Sorkin, the acclaimed comedic actor who was both the direct inspiration for the creation of Harley Quinn, as well as the original voice of the iconic character, has passed away at the age of 67. After unconfirmed reports of her death appeared on social media on Saturday, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the actor's passing, which occurred earlier this week, following a long illness that had left Sorkin unable to act in recent years.

Sorkin's first big break in show business was working in cabaret in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, she formed the comedy quartet, The High-Heeled Women, along with Mary Fulham, Tracey Berg, and Cassandra Danz. The group would mix comedy with singing and dancing in a popular cabaret act (the act was directed by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, before those two went on to become Broadway icons)...

Her High-Heeled Women work eventually landed Sorkin a gig on the hit daytime soap opera, Days of Our Lives, where she played the wacky Calliope Jones. Sorkin's inherent comedic abilities (and her over-the-top "Noo-Yawk" accent..okay, and the series of odd hats that she wore on the show) made Calliope stand out from the crowd. In 1987, Sorkin pitched the series on doing a storyline where a character would be reading a story to their son, leading to an over-the-top fantasy sequence (Sorkin was inspired by the then-recent film, The Princess Bride, which was built around a framing sequence of an old man reading his grandson a story while the boy is home sick from school).

Sorkin had some VHS copies made of her performance, and sent at least on to an old college friend of hers, Paul Dini, who was a successful animated television screenwriter. Dini did not get around to watching the tape right away, but luckily, after getting sick at some point in mid-1991, Dini was stuck at home and decided to watch the tape.

Somewhere around that point in time, Dini was helping to write what would become the script for an episode of Batman: The Animated Series called "Joker's Favor," and the Joker needed a henchperson in the episode. Dini later recalled, I needed a girl to wheel in a cake in one scene (and even considered Joker in a disguise for that role). What if we do a twist harkening back to the 1960s where the villain always had a girl with him? The Joker is a pretty colorful personality. He probably would have a girl or two around. A couple of girls who are into him the way a girl would be into a rock star, leading that kind of exciting life. “I decided to make her kind of funny. Kind of a clown in her own right. Somebody whom the Joker might get upset with if she got a better laugh than he did. I started thinking of it as a sort of Punch-and-Judy sort of relationship. I was sort of stuck for a name. Somehow Harley Quinn stuck because I was thinking of clowns, clown-like imagery and carnivals. I started a little design of her. It looked nothing like the character looks now. In fact, it looked like a caricature of Arleen Sorkin, my good friend who plays Harley on the show and whom I wanted to do the voice. I showed it to Bruce (Timm) and he said, ‘It looks like a 1960s go-go girl, and it looks like your friend’. Very soon, he came up with the gal we have here for which we’re all eternally grateful."

Here is Harley;s first appearance in the September 1992 episode...

Since Harley was such a minor character in the episode, Sorkin's voice acting essentially created the character (Harley Quinn's real name, Harleen Quinzel, was also a reference to Sorkin), and obviously, the character quickly became a fan favorite. Sorking appeared as Harley in eight more episodes of the original Batman: The Animated Series, but continued as a constant presence in the DC Animated Universe for the next decade, with Sorkin voicing Harley in The New Batman Adventures, Superman: The Animated Series, Gotham Girls, Static Shock and Justice League. Sorkin also voiced Harley in a number of video games. The 2011 multiplayer online game, DC Universe Online, marked Sorkin's last performance as Harley before retiring from the role (Tara Strong took over Harley in video games and all-ages animated shows, with Kaley Cuoco performing the role of Harley in the R-rated Harley Quinn Max series).

Sorkin was the original co-host of the America's Funniest Home Videos spinoff, America's Funniest People, in 1990, alongside Dave Couiler. They did two seasons together on the show (which, unlike the accidental comedy of America's Funniest Home Videos, was about people intentionally doing funny things on video).

Sorkin married Emmy-Award-winning writer and producer, Christopher Lloyd, in 1995. Sorkin and Lloyd had two sons, Eli and Owen.