Adam West was born on September 19th, 1928, in Walla Walla, Washington, which means today would have been his 98th birthday.
His hometown has marked the day for years, and this one is bigger than usual. The Kirkman House Museum is running its ninth Adam West Day today, with the 1966 Batmobile, the Bat-Copter and the 1989 Batmobile parked outside, plus a costume contest. The night ends with a Bat-Signal lit on the Marcus Whitman Hotel tower.
They're calling it the Triple Milestone because his birthday and the 60th anniversaries of both the TV show and the movie all land in the same year. Batman Day 2026 is also today, since DC has set it as the third Saturday of September.
Here are some highlights and local coverage from last year's event!
William West Anderson took the name Adam West, and Batman premiered on ABC on January 12th, 1966. It aired two nights a week, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30, with Wednesday ending on a cliffhanger and Thursday getting him out of it. "Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel."
The Batman television series was a monster out of the gate. By the end of that first season the Thursday edition finished fifth for the year and the Wednesday edition tenth. Two nights of the same show, and they were both in the top ten!
Then things went south. FAST. By season two neither night was able to crack the top 30. Season three cut the budget, dropped to once a week and added Yvonne Craig as Batgirl, which pulled the numbers back up. By January 1968 the show sat at number 48. It was over that March. Three seasons and 120 episodes. Start to finish took 26 months.
In between seasons one and two they shot Batman: The Movie for 20th Century Fox, and it was released that July. Burt Ward appeared as Robin.
In his 1994 memoir Back to the Batcave, West described what happened every time a real actin part came close: "It was inescapable. I'd just about land something substantial, something I like or a good career move. Then some dinosaur would rear up and say, 'But the audience will think of him as Batman.' It was formidable. It was there like a brick wall."
What did he do about it? He kept working. He told Moviefone: "What I did, I went out, I did regional theater, I did dinner theater, I did the Mark Taper Forum in LA, I did really crappy films - anything I could to keep working and developing, and pay the damn bills." That interview ran three days after he passed...
In the same interview, he discussed how he talked himself into it: "Look, idiot. If people love Batman, if they enjoy it so much, and you know the whole family spectrum has made that apparent, then you better love it too, or there's something wrong with your head."
There's a dark knight, he'd say, and there's a bright knight, and he was the second one.
West went back to the cowl on and off for forty years, starting with The New Adventures of Batman on CBS in 1977. Then Family Guy made him Mayor Adam West in a recurring role from 2000 on. A whole generation met him there first and worked backward to the Batmobile. Seth MacFarlane spoke when he got his Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2012.
In 2016 Warner Bros. Animation put the original cast back together for Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, with West as Batman, Ward as Robin and Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Empire asked him whether going back felt right: "I didn't know whether it would. I just went in and did it. But as we went along I began to feel better about it." It was "just finally realizing that people are recognizing what I did."
He recorded Batman vs. Two-Face with William Shatner before he died. It came out four months later, and it was the last time he played the part.
Adam West died on June 9th, 2017, at 88, after what his family called a short battle with leukemia. Six days later Los Angeles threw a 70-foot Bat-Signal on City Hall and thousands turned up in costume. Walla Walla lit one the same night.
Burt Ward, who spent more time in a car with him than anybody: "In my eyes, there was only one real Batman; that is and always will be Adam West. He was truly the Bright Knight." Kevin Conroy, who voiced the Batman version that many today grew up with, posted that West was "the Batman of my childhood."
DC's statement when he passed said it directly: his Batman "was a huge contribution to the Caped Crusader's status as a true pop culture icon. His work helped bring comic books into the mainstream..." We ran the full set of tributes back in 2017, with Geoff Johns and Jim Lee saying a version of the same thing.
Despite his challenges, his version of the Caped Crusader kept finding kids for decades afterward in reruns.
Do you have a specific Adam West memory? Was he your first Batman, or did you find him later and work backward? Where did you watch him?
Related CBM Coverage