Adam West

Lore & Background

Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928, in Walla Walla, Washington. His father, Otto Anderson (1903–1984) was a farmer descending from Scania in southern Sweden; and his mother, Audrey Volenne (née Speer; 1906–1969) was an opera singer and concert pianist who left her Hollywood dreams to care for her family. Following her example, as a young man West told his father that he intended to go to Hollywood after completing school. He moved to Seattle with his mother when he was 15, following his parents' divorce. West attended Walla Walla High School during his freshman and sophomore years and later enrolled in Lakeside School in Seattle. He attended Whitman College but studied at the University of Puget Sound during the fall semester of 1949. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in literature and a minor in psychology from Whitman College, where he was a member of the Gamma Zeta chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He also participated in the speech and debate team. Drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he served as an announcer on American Forces Network television. After his discharge, he worked as a milkman before moving to Hawaii to pursue a television career.

Reader's Guide

While in Hawaii, West was picked for a role as the sidekick on a local TV program, The Kini Popo Show, which also featured a chimp named Peaches. West later took over as host of the show. In 1959, West moved with his wife and two children to Hollywood, where he took the stage name Adam West. He appeared in the film The Young Philadelphians, which starred Paul Newman. He had guest-starring roles in a number of television Westerns. On three Warner Bros. Television westerns which aired on ABC—Sugarfoot, Colt .45, and Lawman—West played the role of Doc Holliday, the frontier dentist and gunfighter. West also appeared playing different characters in two episodes of Maverick opposite James Garner: 'Two Tickets to Ten Strike' and 'A Fellow's Brother' in 1958. He guest starred in Warner Bros. detective series Hawaiian Eye and Bourbon Street Beat. 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. He played Christopher Rolf in the episode 'Stopover' of ABC's The Rifleman, which aired on April 25, 1961. 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'. In 1959-1962, he became a regular on the American television series Robert Taylor's Detectives in its third season. He made a brief appearance in the 1963 film Soldier in the Rain starring Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen, and starred as Colonel Dan McCready, the ill-fated mission commander of Mars Gravity Probe 1 in the 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars. That same year he was cast alongside William Shatner in the pilot for the proposed series Alexander the Great, playing Cleander to Shatner's Alexander. The series was not picked up, and the pilot was not broadcast until 1968 when it was repackaged as a TV film to capitalize on West and Shatner's later fame. West was apparently unsurprised by the rejection, later noting that 'It turned out to be one of the worst scripts I have ever read and it was one of the worst things I've ever done.' In 1964, West played Dr. Clayton Harris, a handsome young physician, in two episodes of the sitcom Petticoat Junction. In the sam

Did You Know?

• West graduated with a bachelor's degree in literature and a minor in psychology from Whitman College.
• He was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War.
• In 1970, West was considered for the role of James Bond by United Artists for the films Diamonds Are Forever and Live and Let Die, and declined because he felt Bond should be British.

Roots in the Pacific Northwest

Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928, in the small town of Walla Walla, Washington. His father, Otto Anderson, was a farmer whose family traced back to Scania in southern Sweden, while his mother, Audrey Volenne Speer, had been an opera singer and concert pianist who set aside her Hollywood ambitions to raise a family. That maternal example clearly left its mark: as a teenager, West told his father he intended to head to Hollywood once school was done. After his parents' divorce, he moved to Seattle at fifteen to live with his mother. He attended Walla Walla High School for two years before enrolling at Lakeside School in Seattle, and eventually earned a bachelor's degree in literature with a psychology minor from Whitman College, where he joined the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and participated in speech and debate. The Korean War draft pulled him into the U.S. Army, where he served as a television announcer on the American Forces Network. After discharge, he worked as a milkman before heading to Hawaii to chase a television career.

The Caped Crusader and Its Long Shadow

Producer William Dozier spotted West performing as Captain Q, a suave spy character in a Nestlé Quik commercial, and cast him as Batman and Bruce Wayne for the ABC series that ran from 1966 to 1968. He had edged out fellow actor Lyle Waggoner for the part. The campy show spawned a feature-length film directed by Leslie H. Martinson in 1966, and West even released a novelty song called Miranda in character. He also appeared in a public service announcement encouraging schoolchildren to buy U.S. savings stamps in support of the Vietnam War effort, at the behest of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Yet the very fame that made him a household name became a professional prison. Alongside Burt Ward and Yvonne Craig, West found himself typecast and struggled to land roles that did not reduce him to the cowl. His first post-Batman film, The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1969), paired him against type as a cynical tough guy named Johnny Cain, but the picture flopped and did little to shake the association. For a stretch, West simply made a living doing personal appearances in the Batman costume.

A Chameleon Before the Cowl

Before the cape defined him, West built a remarkably varied résumé across film and television. In the early 1960s he starred opposite Chuck Connors in Geronimo (1962) and shared the screen with The Three Stooges in The Outlaws Is Coming (1965). He played Colonel Dan McCready, the doomed mission commander, in the science fiction film Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), and was cast alongside William Shatner in a pilot for a proposed Alexander the Great series, playing Cleander to Shatner's Alexander. The series was never picked up, and West himself later called it one of the worst scripts he had ever read. On television, he guest-starred on Perry Mason twice in 1961 and 1962, played Doc Holliday in three separate Warner Bros. westerns on ABC, and appeared in two episodes of Maverick opposite James Garner. He also showed up in episodes of Laramie, The Rifleman, Petticoat Junction, Bewitched, and Outer Limits. In 1970, United Artists even considered him for James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever and Live and Let Die, but West turned it down, insisting the role should go to a British actor.

The Voice That Outlived the Suit

Long after the 1960s series ended, West kept the Batman connection alive in a lighter register. He voiced parodied versions of himself in a string of animated sitcoms: Johnny Bravo (1997, 2004), The Fairly OddParents (2003–2008), The Simpsons (1992, 2002), and Family Guy (2000–2017). In the latter, he played Mayor Adam West across the show's second through seventeenth seasons, a role that kept him in the public eye for over a decade. In 2012, the Television Academy recognized his contributions by awarding him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. West continued reprising the Batman role in various media until 2017, the year of his death on June 9. From a milkman in the Pacific Northwest to a voice heard in millions of living rooms, his career arc spanned nearly seven decades and touched virtually every corner of American popular entertainment.