Alan William Napier-Clavering (7 January 1903 – 8 August 1988), better known as Alan Napier, was an English actor. After a decade in West End theatre, he had a long film career in Britain and later on in Hollywood. Napier is best remembered for portraying Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler in the 1960s live-action Batmantelevision series.[1]
Early life and career
He was born Alan William Napier-Clavering on 7 January 1903 in Birmingham to Claude and Millicent (née Kenrick) Napier-Clavering. He had two older siblings, Mark (born five years earlier) and Molly (born two and a half years earlier).[2]
He was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with the likes of John Gielgud and Robert Morley. As Napier recalled, his "ridiculously tall" 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) height[7] almost cost him his position immediately after he secured it. J. B. Fagan had dismissed Tyrone Guthrie because he was too tall for most parts.[8] Napier was interviewed (and accepted) as Guthrie's replacement while sitting down. Fagan realized that Napier was even taller than Guthrie when he stood up, but honoured his commitment.[8] Napier performed for ten years (1929–1939) on the West End stage. Napier described himself as having a particular affinity for the work of George Bernard Shaw, and in 1937 appeared in a London revival of Heartbreak House supervised by Shaw himself.[9]
He made his American stage debut as the romantic lead opposite Gladys George in Lady in Waiting.[8] Though his film career had begun in Britain in the 1930s, he had very little success before the cameras until he joined the British expatriate community in Hollywood in 1941. There he spent time with such people as James Whale, a fellow ex-Oxford Player. He appeared in such films as Random Harvest (1942), Cat People (1942), and The Uninvited (1944). In The Song of Bernadette (1943), he played the ethically questionable psychiatrist who is hired to declare Bernadette mentally ill. He also played the vicious Earl of Warwick in Joan of Arc (1948). He performed in two Shakespearean films: the Orson WellesMacbeth (1948), 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 (1953), as Cicero. He appeared as Mr. Rutland in the Hitchcock movie Marnie (1964).
In 1965, he was the first to be cast in the Batman TV series,[11] 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.[11]
Later life and career
Napier's career extended into the 1980s with roles on television, including the miniseries QB VII, The Bastard, and Centennial, and the drama The Paper Chase. He retired in 1981, aged 78.
In early 1988, Napier appeared on the late-night talk show The Late Show as part of a reunion of the surviving cast of Batman, despite being in a wheelchair.[9][12] His co-star Yvonne Craig described the reunion show as overbooked, and when host Ross Shafer finally turned his attention to Napier, it was only to ask him a silly question, then cut him off abruptly as he was telling a story, much to Napier's annoyance. Napier did not participate in the subsequent cast reunion held before his death.[11]
Family
Napier was twice married. His second wife, Aileen Dickens Hawksley, was a great-granddaughter of novelist Charles Dickens.[9] Hawsley's daughter from a previous marriage, actress Jennifer Raine, was the mother of former child actor Brian Forster, best known as "Chris Partridge" on the 1970s television show The Partridge Family.[13]
Death
Napier suffered a stroke in 1987, was hospitalized from June 1988, and was gravely ill for several days before his death of natural causes on 8 August 1988, in the Berkeley East Convalescent Hospital in Santa Monica, California. He was 85 years old.[1]
Autobiography
In the early 1970s, Napier wrote a three-volume autobiography which was not published at the time because, as he joked, "I haven't committed a major crime and I'm not known to have slept with any famous actresses."[14] In 2015, McFarland Press published the book under the title Not Just Batman's Butler, with Napier's original text annotated and updated by James Bigwood.[citation needed]
