Adam West (1928-2017)
Hello everyone, it's with sadness that I inform you that Adam West, the noted television and film actor known for portraying Batman in the 1960s titular campy show and movie adaptation, passed away on June 9, 2017, at age 88, after a short battle with leukemia. West is known as the third actor to play the Caped Crusader and a favourite of many comic book readers. When the dark, gritty feel was introduced in the 1980s and became an integral part of the comic series, not everyone admired his horseplay and the show's goofy tone. He had a huge impact on the Bat fandom, and we will remember him.
West's television acting career began in the late 1950s on a children's show, though he did not adopt the stage name Adam West until he moved to Hollywood in 1959. West's film appearances before Batman include supporting roles in "The Young Philadelphians" opposite Paul Newman, "Robinson Crusoe on Mars," and "The Outlaws Are Coming" with The Three Stooges, as well as numerous guest appearances on various classic television programs. It was then that producer William Dozier discovered the young actor after seeing him perform in a Nestle Quik commercial and cast him as Bruce Wayne and his eponymous alter ego in the campy television series, which aired from 1966 to 1968. Aside from playing the titular character in television and film, West also appeared in a public service announcement urging schoolchildren to heed Lyndon B. Johnson's call to buy U.S. savings stamps to support the Vietnam War. Shortly after Batman, West and his few co-stars, such as Yvonne Craig and Burt Ward, fell on hard times when they became typecast in their high-profile roles. Not even his first post-Batman film, "The Girl Who Knew Too Much," attempted to distance itself from his Batman, and despite all his issues, West continued to act in more films. He even appeared in numerous guest spots on television programs, including "Fantasy Island," "Bewitched," "Bonanza," "Maverick," "The Love Boat," and "Laverne and Shirley." In later years, during his celebrity status, he appeared as himself in shows like "NewsRadio," "The Adventure of Pete and Pete," "Murphy Brown," "The Ben Stiller Show," "The Drew Carey Show," and "The Big Bang Theory," and also in the feature "Drop Dead Gorgeous."
Outside of his acting, West was a professional voice actor, thanks to his distinctive voice and did voiceovers for several films, including "Chicken Little" and "Meet the Robinsons." Even on television, where he did guest voices on shows like "Rugrats," "The Simpsons," "The Critic," "Johnny Bravo," "Kim Possible," "Futurama," and "SpongeBob SquarePants." Before that, he often reprised the Batman character in Saturday-morning cartoons produced by Filmation and Hanna-Barbera, and more recently in two direct-to-DVD movies (with one forthcoming), including "Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders" and "Batman vs. Two-Face." West also voiced in "Batman: The Animated Series" in the episode "Beware the Gray Ghost." Instead of the dark-winged avenger (whose role has been taken by Kevin Conroy), he plays Simon Trent. Like him, his character is a former actor who struggles to find work after portraying a superhero in the classic TV series The Gray Ghost. He later had a recurring role in the animated series "The Batman" as Mayor Grange and guest-starred as Thomas Wayne in "Batman: The Brave and the Bold." In Seth MacFarlane's animated sitcom "Family Guy," he voiced the eccentric mayor of Quahog. He voices a parody of himself as Catman, a cat-like superhero obsessed with felines, on Nickelodeon's "The Fairly OddParents."
Anyone old enough to remember Adam West will miss him as long as his memory lives on.
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