ADAM WEST

(19 September 1928 - 9 June 2017)

Although he clocked up nearly 200 credits on film and television, actor Adam West was never a big star or even a leading man, except for Batman, the 1966 TV series and its spin-off movie which made his name for evermore. On leaving the US Army, West toured the States setting up military TV stations. Then he joined a kids’ TV programme, The Kini Popo Show in Hawaii. Following television work from 1954 and after the Boris Karloff film Voodoo Island, West got his Hollywood  break in 1959 in The Young Philadelphians, with Paul Newman. Several TV westerns ensued until his next big film, Geronimo  (1962), with Chuck Connors. More TV included The Detectives  (currently replaying on Talking Pictures TV), Laramie, Bonanza,  Maverick, Gunsmoke etc. West was never in many major movies, with perhaps Hooper and The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker being the exceptions. However, he still worked continuously on TV, latterly doing voiceover work on various animated Batman series and as Mayor Adam West in Family Guy, another certainty for being remembered by posterity. He was offered the role of James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever, but declined it as he thought it needed a British actor. Adam West married three times, had four children and two stepchildren.

MICHAEL DARVELL