Rumor Has it TV Batman Adam West Slept With So Many Women in Aspen That the City Banned Him for 15 Years. So Heroes DO Wear Capes.
Watching reruns of the original Batman TV show was one of those pop culture experiences I had as a kid that I didn't really ... get. I knew it was supposed to be cool. And had insanely creative, stylized gadgets, including the best vehicle in all of fiction. But I was too young to grasp the whole campy, satirical vibe of it.
Until I wasn't. Until I came back around to the show when I was in college and had this "Oh ... now I understand" epiphany. Where I finally understood why grown men in the 1960s were watching this ridiculous, overacted, over-the-top nonsense. The formula was about 25% humor and 75% sex. Just dripping with it. Too subtle for a kid who owned a Matchbox Batmobile and just wanted to see Batman and Robin cartoonishly kick the crap out of henchmen in a supervillain lair. But definitely there, just under the surface of every episode. I mean, just look at that scene between Adam West and Julie Newmar. Game of Thrones never had anything that overtly sexual. And it went full frontal dozens of times.
What I'm only now just finding out is that the sexual elements of the show couldn't hold a flickering candle to Adam West's actual life. In the past few days, the internet has been lousy with reports that he smashed so many women that the city of Aspen, Colorado banned him for 15 years:
By way of full disclosure, I cannot confirm he reports of his banning are accurate. And I don't see how it's legal for a city to ban anyone for much of anything, much less boning lots of consenting adults. So this is quite possibly just Urban Legend. But we can confirm this Bruce Wayne was a swordsman of the highest order:
The Sun - HOLY family viewing, Batman – it turns out the Caped Crusader’s fetching satin pants spent a lot of time on the floor.
Adam West … was a sex-mad actor who slept with up to EIGHT women a night — and turned to booze when the show was axed.
He and co-star Burt Ward, who played sidekick Robin, also romped with eager groupies in their dressing rooms in between scenes.
In fact West discovered the only limits to his bedroom batpowers were those caused by his famous costume.
The actor explained years later: “Because of the physical limitations of the costume, you gotta have quickies.”
And he had an awful lot of them, as well as dates with fellow stars including actress sisters Natalie and Lana Wood, and Raquel Welch.
I pause here to present Natalie and Raquel:
Advertisement
West explained: “Burt and I were like kids in a candy store. It was the Swinging Sixties with free love and women threw themselves at us.
“I remember one night with eight different women. Orgy is a harsh word, but it was eight at one time.
“I’d have young female co-stars in my dressing room at 7.45 in the morning.”
This doesn't confirm the banning story, per se. But it does make it plausible. This myth is not busted. But regardless, there are truths, and meta-truths. The kind of thing that is maybe not factually accurate to the smallest detail. But true in a much larger sense. And that's what this is. Like when some historic figure was supposed to have said that can't be confirmed so historians go, "If he didn't say it, he should have." If Aspen didn't banish this world class seducer of women for a decade and half, they should have. It would've only served to raise his already superhuman body count.
As it turns out, I got to be one of the last people to see the legendary Adam West alive. Just prior to his untimely passing in 2017, some buddies of mine and I went to a ComicCon where he and Burt Ward spoke. To our eternal regret, we never got a picture with them, because it was limited to two people at a time and some of the fellas had their kids with them. But as a consolation, we did get photos with that aforementioned Batmobile.
That was a life-altering experience. One that 6 year old me used to dream about. But Old Balls me was even more excited to be in the presence of one of Hollywood's great ladies men. And possible social outcast from all the smashing. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some 50 year old reruns to catch up on.