Alan Napier
Alan Napier (
January 7,
1903 -
August 8,
1988) was a
British character actor. He is best known for playing
Alfred in the 1960s live-action
Batman television series.
This cousin of
Neville Chamberlain, Britain's prime minister from 1937 to 1940, was born
Alan Napier-Clavering in
Birmingham, England. He was stagestruck from childhood and after graduating from
Clifton College, the tall (6 ft 5 in), booming-voiced Napier studied at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then later was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with such raw young talent as Sir
John Gielgud and
Robert Morley. He continued working with the cream of Britain's acting crop during his ten years (
1929-
1939) on the West End stages. He came to
New York City in 1940 to co-star with
Gladys George in
Lady in Waiting. Though his film career had begun in England in the
1930s, he had very little success before the cameras until he arrived and joined the British community in
Hollywood in 1941. There he spent time with such people as
James Whale. He usually played dignified, sometimes
WASP-ish roles of all sizes in such films as
Cat People (1942),
The Uninvited (1943), and
House of Horror (1946).
In
The Song of Bernadette, he played the ethically questionable psychiatrist who is hired to declare Bernadette mentally ill. He appeared in two
Shakespeare films - the
Orson Welles Macbeth, in which he played a priest that Welles added to the story, who spoke lines originally uttered by other characters, and
MGM's
Julius Caesar, in which he played
Cicero. He also played the vicious Earl of Warwick in
Joan of Arc.
In 1966, he was the first to be cast on the smash-hit TV series
Batman, as Bruce Wayne's faithful butler Alfred, a role he played with delightful gusto until the series' cancellation in 1968. Napier's career extended into the
1980s, with TV roles in such miniseries as
QB VII and such weeklies as
The Paper Chase. Declining health led to a stroke in 1987, and he died of natural causes the following year in
Santa Monica, California at the age of 85.
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Cat People (
1942)
*
Random Harvest (
1942)
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The Song of Bernadette (
1943)
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Johnny Belinda (
1948)
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Joan of Arc (
1948)
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Macbeth (
1948)
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Julius Caesar (
1953)
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Tender is the Night (
1962)
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Batman (
1966)
* "I had never read comics before I [was hired for 'Batman']. My agent rang up and said, 'I think you are going to play on "Batman,"' I said 'What is "Batman"?' He said, 'Don't you read the comics?' I said, 'No, never.' He said, 'I think you are going to be Batman's butler.' I said, 'How do I know I want to be Batman's butler?' It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard of. He said, 'It may be worth over $100,000.' So I said I was Batman's butler."
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Information and photos of Alan Napier
