Adam West

How many actors have a shot at being a part of something that became a part of pop culture?

It's been very rewarding. I'm not getting the 20 million bucks for the new movies, but at least I'm getting warmth and recognition from people wherever I go 

-Adam West

Adam West born William West Anderson
September 19, 1928 – June 9, 2017

Adam West died yesterday following a brief battle with leukemia in Los Angeles at the age of 88.

Adam West in The Young Philadelphians 1959 by KierstenTuck

He appeared in the film The Young Philadelphians which starred Paul Newman He had guest-star roles in a number of television Westerns. On three Warner Bros. westerns which aired on ABC—Sugarfoot, Colt .45, and Lawman—West played the role of Doc Holliday, the frontier dentist and gunfighter. He portrayed Wild Bill Hickok in the episode "Westbound Stage" of the 1960 NBC Western series Overland Trail, with William Bendix and Doug McClure.

He guest-starred on Edmond O'Brien's syndicated crime drama Johnny Midnight, and soon snagged a supporting role as police sergeant Steve Nelson in the crime drama, The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor. He appeared once on Walter Brennan's sitcom, The Real McCoys.

On January 10, 1961, West appeared as a young, ambitious deputy who foolishly confronts a gunfighter named Clay Jackson, portrayed by Jock Mahoney, in the episode "The Man from Kansas" of the NBC Western series Laramie.

West made two guest appearances on Perry Mason in 1961 and 1962. His first role was as small-town journalist Dan Southern in "The Case of the Barefaced Witness". His other role was as folk singer Pete Norland in "The Case of the Bogus Books".

West starred in an episode of the ABC Outer Limits series titled "The Invisible Enemy". He made a brief appearance in the film Soldier in the Rain starring Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen, and starred as Major Dan McCready, the ill-fated mission commander of Mars Gravity Probe 1 in the 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars. In 1965, he was cast in the comedy Western The Outlaws Is Coming, the last feature film starring The Three Stooges. He played Christopher Rolf in the episode "Stopover" of ABC's The Rifleman, which aired on April 25, 1961.

The popular campy show ran on ABC from 1966 to 1968; a feature-length film version directed by Leslie H. Martinson was released in 1966. Producer William Dozier cast West as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, Batman, in the television series Batman, in part after seeing West perform as the James Bond-like spy Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik commercial. He was in competition with Lyle Waggoner for the Batman role.

In his Batman character, West appeared in a public service announcement where he encouraged schoolchildren to heed then-President Lyndon B. Johnson's call for them to buy U.S. Savings stamps, a children's version of U.S. Savings bonds, to support the Vietnam War.

In 1970, West was offered the role of Bond by Cubby Broccoli for the film Diamonds Are Forever. West did not accept, later stating in his autobiography that he believed the role should always be played by a British actor.

After his high-profile role, West, along with Burt Ward and Yvonne Craig (who played crime-fighting sidekicks Robin and Batgirl), was severely typecast. West's first post-Caped Crusader role was in the film The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1969). His lead performance against type as cynical tough guy Johnny Cain did not erode his Batman image; the movie was a box office disappointment.

West subsequently appeared in the theatrical films The Marriage of a Young Stockbrocker (1971), The Curse of the Moon Child (1972), The Specialist (1975), Hooper (as himself; 1978), The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980) and One Dark Night (1983). West also appeared in such television films as The Eyes of Charles Sand (1972), Poor Devil (1973), Nevada Smith(1975), For the Love of It (1980) and I Take These Men (1983).For a time, West made a living doing personal appearances as Batman. In 1974, when Ward and Craig reprised their Batman roles for a TV public-service announcement about equal pay for women, West was absent. Instead, Dick Gautier filled in as Batman. One of his more memorable Batman appearances after the series was when he made an appearance in the Memphis, Tennessee-based United States Wrestling Association to engage in a war of words with Jerry "The King" Lawler while wearing the cowl and a track suit, and even name-dropping Spider-Man, though he is a Marvel Comics hero.

He did guest shots on the television series Maverick; Diagnosis: Murder; Love, American Style; Bonanza; The Big Valley; Night Gallery; Alias Smith and Jones; Mannix; Emergency!; Alice; Police Woman; Operation Petticoat; The American Girls; Vega$; Big Shamus Little Shamus; Laverne & Shirley; Bewitched; Fantasy Island; The Love Boat; Hart to Hart; Zorro; The King of Queens; and George Lopez. West was also in an episode of Bonanza that supposedly never aired until reruns were shown and he made several guest appearances as himself on Family Feud. In 1986, he starred in the comedy police series titled The Last Precinct.

West often reprised his role as Batman/Bruce Wayne, first in the short-lived animated series The New Adventures of Batman, and in other shows such as The Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour, Tarzan and the Super 7, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (succeeding Olan Soule in the role). In 1979, West once again donned the Batsuit for the live-action TV special Legends of the Superheroes. In 1985, DC Comics named West as one of the honorees in the company's 50th-anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great for his work on the Batman series.

West was considered to play Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne's father, in Tim Burton's Batman. Originally, he wanted to play Batman.West never appeared in any of the theatrically released post-1960s Batman franchise motion pictures and, to date, neither has Burt Ward (Robin, from the TV series). West made an appearance in a 1992 episode of Batman: The Animated Series on Fox, but not as Batman (as the role of Batman was already being played by Kevin Conroy). Instead, he portrayed Simon Trent, a washed-up actor who used to play a superhero in a TV series called The Gray Ghost and who now has difficulty finding work. The producers nearly considered scrapping that episode, as they figured it mirrored West too much; however, West gladly accepted voicing such a character. West later had a recurring role as the voice of Mayor Grange in the WB animated series The Batman.

The actor vocally reprised his role as Batman for the CGI-animated short film Batman: New Times. He co-starred with Mark Hamill, who vocally portrayed The Joker and had originally played the role on Batman: The Animated Series. West also voiced Thomas Wayne in an episode of the cartoon series Batman: The Brave and the Bold. In the same series, he played Batman's prototype robot, named "Protobot".

He played a washed-up superhero in the Goosebumps television series episode "Attack of the Mutant". The boy hero is a comic book geek whose favorite superhero, Galloping Gazelle (West's character), is portrayed as fading and on the verge of retirement. Towards the end, the boy is shocked to learn that the Gazelle is real, though he (the boy) must save the day by himself.During the 1990s, West's status as a pop culture icon led to appearances as himself in the film Drop Dead Gorgeous and in several TV series, including NewsRadio, Murphy Brown, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, The Ben Stiller Show, and The Drew Carey Show. He notably appeared as "Dr. Wayne" in the 1990 Zorro episode "The Wizard", even being shown Zorro's "secret cave" headquarters. In 1991, he starred in the pilot episode of Lookwell, in which he portrayed a has-been TV action hero who falsely believes he can solve mysteries in real life. The pilot, written by Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel in their pre-Late Night period, aired on NBC that summer, but was not picked up as a series. It was later broadcast on the Trio channel, under the "Brilliant But Cancelled" block. In 1994, West played a non-comedic role as the father of Peter Weller's character in the Michael Tolkin film The New Age.

In 1994, West, with Jeff Rovin, wrote his autobiography, Back to the Batcave published by Berkeley Books. He also appeared as a guest in the animated talk show Space Ghost Coast to Coast in an episode titled "Batmantis", where he displayed his book. That episode was essentially a parody to his Batman television series, where Zorak dressed himself as "Batmantis", a praying mantis version of Batman.

In 1996, Virgin Interactive released the gambling simulation game Golden Nugget on PlayStation. West acted in the video cut scenes of the "Chaos Mystery" storyline subgame. In 2001, he played the super-villain Breathtaker on the short-lived television series Black Scorpion.

In 2003, West and Burt Ward starred in the television movie Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt, alongside Frank Gorshin, Julie Newmar, and Lee Meriwether. Jack Brewer portrayed West in flashbacks to the production of Batman. In 2005, West appeared in the CBS show The King of Queens. In the episode, Spence first asks Lou Ferrigno to go to a sci-fi convention, but when Spence meets West (playing himself), he leaves Ferrigno and asks West to come with him. He appears prominently in the 2006 video for California band STEFY's song "Chelsea" as "Judge Adam West", presiding over the courtroom scene.

In 2007, West played an attorney for Benny on the show George Lopez, and starred as "The Boss" in the movie comedy Sexina: Popstar PI. Following the release of a Batman game, a host of the show X-Play visited West on the show. In 2009, West played himself in the episode "Apollo, Apollo" of 30 Rock.

West has appeared in a number of videos for Funnyordie.com.In 2010, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. West received the 2,468th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 5, 2012. His star is located at 6764 Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Guinness Museum in Hollywood, California.

He was interviewed in 2013 on the PBS series called Pioneers of Television in the season-three episode called "Superheroes". Also in 2013, he was the subject of the documentary Starring Adam West.

West is among the interview subjects in Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, a three-hour documentary narrated by Liev Schreiber that premiered on PBS in October 2013.

In October 2014, West was a guest star on the HuffPost Live show, talking about his Batman role and the upcoming release of all 120 episodes of his Batman series.

In February 2016, West guest-starred as himself on the 200th episode of The Big Bang Theory.

Having a distinctive voice, West built a career doing voice-over work on a number of animated series (often as himself), including appearances on The Simpsons, Futurama, Rugrats, The Critic, Histeria!, Kim Possible, Johnny Bravo, and even in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series called "Beware the Gray Ghost", where he voiced the Gray Ghost.

He also appeared in many episodes of Nickelodeon's cartoon The Fairly OddParents as a cat-obsessed version of himself, who is famous for playing a superhero called Catman, and who actually believes he is Catman. His later appearance in The Fairly OddParentswas a parody of himself, hired to play the role of the Crimson Chin in the movie of the same name. Yet another appearance on the show had him as himself in a fairy-sponsored video about how to cope with losing one's fairy godparents. In later seasons, the role for this version of Adam West was recast to Jeff Bennett.

In 1997, West ap

He also performed voice-over work for Futurama 

From 2000, West made regular appearances on the animated series Family Guy, on which he played Mayor Adam West, the lunatic mayor of Quahog, Rhode Island. His role gave him a new wave of popularity since Batman, and lead writer Seth MacFarlane claims to have gone out of his way to avoid typecasting West by deliberately not making any references to Batman.

Some of his latest voice-over performances were playing the role of Uncle Art in the Disney Animation film Meet the Robinsons, and voicing the young Mermaid Man (along with Burt Ward, who voiced the young Barnacle Boy) in the cartoon show SpongeBob SquarePants, in the episode "Back to the Past" of 2010. The Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy characters are hybrid parodies of both Batman and Robin and Aquaman and Aqualad, respectively (both heroes have a television show), and Mermaid Man's old age is a humorous reference to West's age.

West also played the voice of General Carrington in the video game XIII, and has voiced other video games such as Marc Eckō's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, Chicken Little: Ace in Action, Scooby-Doo! Unmasked, and Goosebumps: Attack of the Mutant. For the online game Champions Online, his voice is used in one of the website's videos.

In November 2014, West voiced himself, and the 1960s version of Batman, in the video game Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham.

Good Night Batman

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Tony Figueroa