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Batman actor Adam West has died at the age of 88.

He was best known as the star of the 1960s hit TV series Batman.

Adam West died peacefully in Los Angeles after a brief battle with leukemia, a family spokesperson said.

The actor’s tongue-in-cheek portrayal of Batman and the superhero’s alter ego Bruce Wayne won a cult following.

However, Adam West later struggled to find acting work. He most recently played a character in the animated comedy Family Guy.

Image source Wikipedia

“Our dad always saw himself as The Bright Knight, and aspired to make a positive impact on his fans’ lives. He was and always will be our hero,” Adam West’s family said in a statement, reported in Variety.

The Batman TV series, with its onscreen fight-scene graphics of Wham! and Pow! became an unexpected hit. Adam West and his co-star Burt Ward, who played Batman’s sidekick Robin, won widespread acclaim for their kitsch portrayal of the Dynamic Duo.

In a 2010 interview with the website Slice of SciFi, Adam West said the TV series had benefitted from very good writers.

“They saw the craziness, the comedy. You know, just as he’s about to put her in (jail), Batman says to Catwoman, <<You give me curious stirrings in my utility belt>>. That’s funny stuff.”

When the series ended, Adam West struggled to break free from the character, but over a long career appeared in nearly 50 movies including Drop Dead Gorgeous, An American Vampire Story and Nevada Smith.

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The Batmobile used by actor Adam West in the original TV series of Batman has sold for $4.2 million at a US auction.

The car was bought by Rick Champagne, a logistics company owner from Phoenix, Arizona.

Rick Champagne, 56, who was just 10 when the high-camp TV series began in 1966, said it “was a dream come true”.

The Batmobile design was based on a 1955 Lincoln Futura, a concept car built in Italy by the Ford Motor Company.

It was the first time that car had come up for public sale since it was bought in 1965 by car-customizer George Barris, who transformed it in 15 days, at the cost of $15,000, into the superhero’s famous vehicle.

It had a V-8 engine, arguably one of the first in-car phones, and parachutes, which were deployed to help Batman turn sharp corners.

The Batmobile used by actor Adam West in the original TV series of Batman has sold for $4.2 million at a US auction

The Batmobile used by actor Adam West in the original TV series of Batman has sold for $4.2 million at a US auction

George Barris told reporters at the auction: “The car had to be a star on its own. And it became one.”

Since the show was cancelled in 1968, he has toured the Batmobile and was eventually housed in a private showroom in California.

Adam West, now 84, played the caped crusader in 120 episodes in four years of programming, with Burt Ward starring as the “boy wonder” Robin and comedian and actor Cesar Romero as Batman’s arch nemesis, The Joker.

The 60s show was camp in its portrayal of Batman. More recent incarnations of billionaire Bruce Wayne and his alter-ego – such as British director Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy – have had a much darker tone.

The newer Batmobiles have reflected the more brutal portrayal of Gotham City’s savior, such as the “Tumbler” of 2005’s Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale.

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