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Alan Napier

{{short description|English actor (1903–1988)}}

{{Use British English|date=February 2014}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Alan Napier

| image = Alan Napier 1949.GIF

| caption = Napier in 1949

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=y|1903|01|07}}

| birth_place = King's Norton, Birmingham, England

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=y|1988|08|08|1903|01|07}}

| death_place = Santa Monica, California, U.S.

| resting_place = Cremated; ashes scattered in the garden of his home in Pacific Palisades, California

| education = Clifton College

| alma_mater = Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

| birthname = Alan William Napier-Clavering

| yearsactive = 1920s–1981

| spouse = {{plainlist|

  • {{marriage|Emily Nancy Bevill Pethybridge|1930|1944|end=divorced}}
  • {{marriage|Aileen Dickens Hawksley|1944|1961|end=died}}

}}

}}

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 Batman television series.{{cite news |title=Alan Napier, 'Batman's' butler, dies |newspaper=Ukiah Daily Journal |agency=Associated Press |date=8 August 1988 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1317513/alan_napiers_obituary/ |via=Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}

Early life and career

Alan William Napier-Clavering was born on 7 January 1903 in Birmingham to Claude Gerald Napier-Clavering, managing director of the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft,The Kelmscott Press: A History of William Morris's , William S. Peterson, 1991, p. 157 and Millicent Mary, daughter of politician William Kenrick. He had two older siblings, Mark (born 1898) and Mary Helen- "Molly"- (born 1900).{{cite book |last1=Napier |first1=Alan |last2=Bigwood |first2=James |title=Not Just Batman's Butler: The Autobiography of Alan Napier |location=Jefferson, N.C. |publisher=McFarland & Co. |date=24 September 2015 |isbn=9781476662879 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KUbJCgAAQBAJ |pages=8–9, 15}} The Napier-Clavering family were landed gentry- the senior line owning Axwell Park near Gateshead until 1920- and descended from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier.A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, the Privy Council, Knightage, and Companionage, 92nd edition, vol. 2, Burke's Peerage, 1934, p. 1760

Napier was a first cousin-once removed of Neville Chamberlain,{{cite news |title="Good Old Neville" Draws Support from Actor-Cousin |newspaper=Bradford Evening Star |agency=United Press |date=9 May 1940 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1317517/alan_napiers_support_for_his_cousin/ |via = Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}} Britain's prime minister from 1937 to 1940. He was educated at Packwood Haugh School and,{{cite web |title=After Packwood |url=http://www.packwood-haugh.co.uk/information/old-packwoodians/after-packwood.../ |website=Packwood Haugh School |access-date=26 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160919134234/http://www.packwood-haugh.co.uk/information/old-packwoodians/after-packwood.../ |archive-date=19 September 2016 |url-status=dead}} after leaving Clifton College,"Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. pp446/77: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April 1948. he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1925.{{cite web |title=Student & Graduate profiles |url=https://www.rada.ac.uk/profiles/?q=1925&page=4 |website=Royal Academy of Dramatic Art |access-date=19 March 2022}}

Napier was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with the likes of John Gielgud and Robert Morley. As Napier recalled, his "ridiculously tall" {{convert|6|ft|6|in}} height{{Cite news

| last1 = Oldham

| first1 = Michael

| title = 'Batman' Butler Alan Napier's Castellammare Home

| newspaper = Palisadian-Post

| location = Pacific Palisades, California

| date = 8 November 2018

| url = https://www.palipost.com/batman-butler-alan-napiers-castellammare-home/

| access-date = 28 December 2019

| url-access = subscription}} 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.{{cite news |title=Alan Napier Gets There in Spite of Skyscraper Effect |newspaper=Brooklyn Daily Eagle |date=5 May 1940 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1313488/alan_napier_is_tall/ |via = Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}} 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. 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.

Napier made his American stage debut as the romantic lead opposite Gladys George in Lady in Waiting. 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 Welles Macbeth (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 1949, Napier 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".{{cite book |last=Barnes|first=Alan| authorlink=Alan Barnes (writer) |title=Sherlock Holmes on Screen |year=2011 |publisher=Titan Books|page=311 |isbn=9780857687760}} In the 1950s, he appeared on TV in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and guest starred on Dale Robertson's NBC western series Tales of Wells Fargo. He had a recurring role as General Steele on the 1962–1963 situation comedy Don't Call Me Charlie!

''Batman''

In 1965, Napier was the first to be cast in the Batman TV series,{{cite news |url=https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/birmingham-actor-was-batmans-butler-237570 |title=Birmingham actor was Batman's butler |work=Sunday Mercury |location=Birmingham, England |date=3 January 2009 |access-date=30 July 2020}} 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.

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.{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=qBgRJ0PEte4 |title=Alan Napier's Disappointing Final TV Appearance - The Late Show with Ross Shafer, April 28, 1988 |date=20 July 2021 |publisher=Forgotten Media |via=YouTube}} 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.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

Family

Napier was twice married. His second wife, Aileen Dickens Hawksley, was a great-granddaughter of novelist Charles Dickens.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KUbJCgAAQBAJ&q=Aileen+Dickens+Hawksley&pg=PA199 |title=Not Just Batman's Butler: The Autobiography of Alan Napier |last1=Napier |first1=Alan |last2=Bigwood |first2=James |date=24 September 2015 |location=Jefferson, N.C. |publisher=McFarland & Co. |isbn=9781476662879 |page=199 |language=en}} Hawksley'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.{{Cite magazine |url=https://variety.com/1993/scene/people-news/jennifer-raine-bissell-102962/ |title=Jennifer Raine Bissell |date=14 January 1993 |magazine=Variety |access-date=3 November 2018 |language=en-US}}

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.

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."{{cite magazine |title=Alan Napier |magazine=Films in Review |date=February 1979 |volume=XXX |issue=2}} 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.{{Cite web|url=https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/not-just-batmans-butler/|title=Not Just Batman's Butler - McFarland|website=mcfarlandbooks.com}}

Partial filmography

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Partial television credits

References

{{reflist}}

External links

{{Portal|Biography}}

  • {{IMDb name|0621002}}
  • {{IBDB name}}
  • {{Iobdb name|34046}}

{{s-start}}

{{succession box

| before = Eric Wilton

| title = Alfred Pennyworth Actor

| years = 1966–1968

| after = Michael Gough}}

{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Napier, Alan}}

Category:1903 births

Category:1988 deaths

Category:20th-century English male actors

Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

Category:Burials at Chapel of the Pines Crematory

Category:English expatriate male actors in the United States

Category:English male film actors

Category:English male television actors

Category:Male actors from Birmingham, West Midlands

Category:People educated at Clifton College