Batman
Batman is Bruce Wayne, as a teenager Bruce saw his parents being murdered and vowed to avenge their deaths by bringing the criminals to justice. Bruce is a multi-millionaire and used his money to train himself in criminology, and to create crime-fighting tools, costumes and vehicles. One night Bruce Wayne was startled by a bat outside his window and decided to dress himself as a bat man to frighten cowardly and superstitious hearts of criminals. From that moment, Bruce became Batman. Unlike other hereos Batman has no super powers, he is a police man with a secret identity to avenge hisparents murder and claim peace in Gotham City.
Bruce Wayne is an ordinary human being who adopts the form of a human 'bat' to conceal his true identity while he terrorises evil-doers. He can't fly, and he doesn't have magic powers - and his only extraordinary attributes are his vast personal fortune, his strength and agility, and his keen skills of detection.
Adam West
Adam West was born in Wala Wala Washington in 1928. He was actually born as William West Anderson but changed his name to the more dynamic Adam West in 1957. Before Adam landed in Hollywood he was a disc jockey in Hawaii and a radio presenter for the programe "The Kini Popo Show". When Adam landed in Hollywood in 1957 he enjoyed fame in the show "The Detectives" just before he played Batman.
When Adam was asked to consider the role as Batman he replied; "are you serious, I am trying to have a serious career". Nethertheless, he auditioned for the show, was filmed in the screen test and chosen for the role as Batman, which later became his signature role.
"Adam was so proud of being Batman. He was in such demand and was always going off to some place to appear in arenas or football coliseums and everything. Coming out in his Batman outfit and all and he loved every minute of it" - Cesar Romero (Joker)
"An agent came in and showed me an 8 by 10 of a guy with a surf board. He said what do you think of this feller? I said who is he? And he said his name is Adam West." - William Dozier
Below is Adam West's and Burt Ward's screen test, which was shown to ABC executives to pick the best dynamic duo. The other possible duo was Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell, their screen test can be downloaded aswell as this one on my Video's Webpage.
Adam West is the only actor to play Batman who actually is the same height at Batman according to the comic books.
However, after his huge success as Batman, Adam was heavily type cast and found it difficult to find roles elsewhere. Which led to drink problems and ruined his marriage.
Thankfully, since his marriage to Marcelle Tagand Lear in 1972, Adam's life turned around, since then he has accepted that he is Batman and has done several projects/apperences as Batman since. In 1994 he published his autobiography entitled "Back to the Batcave".
"Batman broke hot, it broke very big and naturally that’s a wonderful thing to a be part of." - Adam West
