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Thread: Alan Napier

  1. #1
    Guest Guest

    Cool Alan Napier



    Alan Napier (born Alan W. Napier-Clavering; 7 January 1903 – 8 August 1988) was an English character actor. He is best known for playing Alfred in the 1960s live-action Batman television series.

    Napier was a cousin of Neville Chamberlain, Britain's prime minister from 1937 to 1940 and the great-great-grandson of author Charles Dickens. He was stage-struck from childhood and after graduating from Clifton College, the tall 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m), 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 stage. 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 WASPish 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 1949, he made an appearance on the short-lived television anthology series Your Show Time as Sherlock Holmes, in an adaptation of The Adventure of the Speckled Band. In the 1950s he appeared on TV in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

    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 until the series' cancellation in 1968.

    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."

    Napier's career extended into the 1980s, with TV roles in such miniseries as QB VII and such weeklies as The Paper Chase.

    Napier is the grandfather of actor Brian Forster, best known as portraying (the second) Chris Partridge on the television series, The Partridge Family, and the the great-grandfather of actor James Napier, who is perhaps most notable for his roles on the television series' The Tribe and Power Rangers Dino Thunder.

    Napier died from a stroke on 8 August 1988, in Santa Monica, California at the age of 85. His final resting place is at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory.

    In the 1989 film Batman, the real name of the Joker is Jack Napier, his last name being an homage to Alan Napier

  2. #2
    guardmom2008 Guest
    I only knew him from Batman, but reading your thread I learned that his family had great genes.

  3. #3
    Guest Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by guardmom2008 View Post
    I only knew him from Batman, but reading your thread I learned that his family had great genes.
    I always thought he was very suave and gentlemanly

  4. #4
    guardmom2008 Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Vladpyre View Post
    I always thought he was very suave and gentlemanly
    I agree.

  5. #5
    Join Date
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    Very Distinguished Gentleman and I agree from a great Gene Pool !! (( How does someone get that lucky)) HA!!! He does have a familiar look about him and I am sure I have seen him in the Batman series also.. I am trying to place his voice and thinking it was soft and pleasant ??
    There's more to the truth than just the facts. ~Author Unknown

  6. #6
    ratkin638 Guest
    I certainly remember him from Batman, even if I haven't seen anything else in his credits list. I remember thinking at the time that, with the exception of the famous Guest Villains (Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, etc.), he was the one person in that show who seemed to be much better than the material.

  7. #7
    Guest Guest
    Yes, he was softly spoken and a star in his own right! Always a pleasure to watch! For me, he was the best Alfred, although Michael Gough was very gentlemanly and similar in the later film versions!

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