Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  After graduating from Montour High School, he spent two years at Kent State before dropping out and moving to Pittsburgh, where he ended up as a cameraman for a cable TV station and worked as a stagehand on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He then honed his comedy skills in Pittsburgh area nightclubs, before moving to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, where he began performing at The Comedy Store. “I never bought into any comedy ‘rules,’ such as that certain words are funny,” he said. “I tried to find my own timing, rhythm and spin. Without sounding too pretentious, I tried to style myself like certain jazz musicians who find that real dissonant chord or that extra beat, which makes the music more interesting. Without being too esoteric, that’s probably where it comes from.”149

  It was around this time that he changed his professional name from Douglas to Keaton, since there was already a Mike Douglas in broadcasting and a Michael Douglas who was doing quite well as an actor. He took his new last name in honor of actress Diane Keaton.150 Performing in comedy clubs led Keaton to guest starring shots on TV shows like Maude (1977) and The Tony Randall Show (1978), and recurring roles in the shows Working Stiffs (1979) and Report to Murphy (1982). His big break came in 1982, when he co-starred with Henry Winkler in Ron Howard’s comedy Night Shift, followed by the phenomenally successful Mr. Mom (1983). After Clean and Sober, he went to Canada to co-star with Christopher Lloyd and Peter Boyle in the comedy The Dream Team. It was while shooting that film in the summer of 1988 that the news broke that he had been cast as the Caped Crusader, creating a firestorm in the Batman fan community, who felt their beloved Batman was about to be lampooned on the big screen.

  Warner Bros. went on the defensive. They began by enlisting the aid of Bob Kane, who said, “When I heard about Michael Keaton, I admit, I kind of panicked.”151 Speaking to Jeff Gelb of Comics Interview magazine, Kane said, “They asked me five years ago, I told them to go for a young Cary Grant, a young Robert Wagner, and they came up with a guy who’s 5’10”, kind of slight in a way, and the hair is kind of funny.”152 Warners arranged a screening of Clean and Sober to show Kane that Keaton was capable of doing a non-comedic role. He also got assurances from Tim Burton that the film would not be turned into a comedy. “I was confused, and then Tim and I discussed this,” said Kane. “What Tim was looking for was a three- dimensional human being, not a cardboard cutout from the comic book, and not the TV show. He was looking for a Mr. Ordinary, and my concept, of course, was Mr. Extra-ordinary. In other words. how does an ordinary guy react when his parents are killed, and then when he puts on this awesome costume he becomes the idealized image of the ordinary person he is...in other words, if you’re already idealized to begin with, then why put on a costume? Where’s the connection? As Tim says, if he’s 6’2” and strong and husky, he can just go out in a ski mask and beat the hell out of criminals. But just think, if you take an ordinary guy as Bruce Wayne, like anybody in the movie theater, and all of a sudden he becomes this superhero as Batman, then there’s a reason for putting on this awesome costume.”153

  In August, Kane made an appearance at the San Diego Comic Con, where he very publicly lauded the casting of Keaton.154 He told the fans that Keaton would look awesome in his Bat-costume, and asked them to “give the guy a chance.”155 But the fans remained skeptical. “Most people are dismissing Bob Kane, saying Warner is paying him to say nice things about the movie,” said Comics Buyer’s Guide co-editor Don Thompson. “No one seems to have taken him seriously.”156

  In addition to Kane, the studio sent specialty press publicist Jeff Walker to science fiction and comic book conventions to let the fans know that Warner Bros. was definitely not planning to make fun of the character. At the 46th annual World Science Fiction Fest in New Orleans, Walker’s Batman presentation was met with boos and hisses. Maggie Thompson, co-editor of The Comics Buyers Guide, said, “It’s the talk of the comic world. Some fans have even taken ads out, directing letter-writing campaigns to DC and Warner Bros. If you’ve followed the new Batman comics, you know that his is a dark and brooding tale, with hints that he may even be psychotic. So the question is, can Keaton do this?”157 When fans complained that Keaton was too slight for the role, Walker revealed that Batman would wear a type of body armor underneath his outfit to add some musculature.158 “Comic book people are very specific; they have a very strong image in their minds,” said Tim Burton. “But it’s a real source of argument because every comic book fan has a different opinion. When we went into (Batman) we decided to try to be true to it, but to do our own thing also.”159

  In October, Jim Waley, manager of the Dragon Lady comic shop in Toronto, Canada, got 1,200 of his customers to sign a petition denouncing Keaton, which he then sent to Warner Bros. He took a copy of the petition to the Chicago Comic Con, where he had it signed by “most of the people who work for DC Comics and the editor-in-chief of the Batman books,” said Waley, “but they have little or no control over the film.”160

  News reports of the outrage over Keaton’s casting continued into the fall of 1988, as the actor arrived in London for rehearsals. “I am shocked-slash-fascinated,” said Keaton. “I’m telling you, man, these people must have the same lobbyists as the NRA. These guys have some clout; I can’t believe it. I mean, how many are they? It’s just funny to me.”161 It wasn’t so funny to producer Jon Peters, who had millions riding on the public’s acceptance of Keaton as Batman. “It was the same concern of Batfanatics all over the world, and there are millions of them,” said Peters. “They felt that we were bastardizing the concept in the movie. I mean, these were very aggressive people.”162

  Peters and his co-producer Peter Guber were particularly concerned when the august Wall Street Journal printed a front-page story by Kathleen A. Hughes on November 29, 1988 headlined, “Batman Fans Fear The Joke’s on Them In Hollywood Epic—They Accuse Warner Bros. of Plotting a Silly Spoof of the Caped Crusader.”163 The article quoted Batfans like Beau Smith of Ceredo, West Virginia, who said of Keaton, “If you saw him in an alley wearing a bat suit, you would laugh, not run in fear. Batman should be 6-2, 235 pounds, your classically handsome guy with an imposing, scary image.”164 J. Alan Bolic, a real-estate appraiser from Suwanee, Georgia, said that Warner Bros. was “after the money of all the people who only remember Batman as a buffoon with a twerp for a sidekick in the campy TV series from the ‘60s. Hollywood is just in it for the money, and Warner Bros. has been doing a bit of duplicity. I don’t think Mr. Burton has any intention of making a serious Batman movie. But Batman has been part of everyone’s childhood. He deserves a bit of respect.”165

  “A huge contingent rose up against this picture being made with Michael Keaton,” said Peters. “Fifty thousand letters of protest arrived at Warner Bros. A lot of people in the company lobbied against it. One of the most powerful men in Hollywood went so far as to call (Warner chairman) Steve Ross and tell him casting Michael Keaton was such a horrible idea it would bring Warners to its knees. That the entire studio would crash and burn as a result. Heaven’s Gate revisited. Whatever happens, I know one thing: This movie’s going to make Michael Keaton a folk hero.”166 Ultimately, Keaton used the protests as a motivator. Before filming got underway, he began training with Dave Lea, a British martial arts and kickboxing champion, learning the swift moves that would make Batman a lethal combatant.167 “There was something in that negative response that stirred in me what I’m going to call a healthy ‘attitude,’” said Keaton. “I secretly liked the challenge, and was determined to prove that I could nail it.”168 But, ever the comedian, Keaton lampooned all the controversy by quipping to Time magazine, “After all, it’s only a movie. I am a little nervous, though, about the scene where I fantasize making love to Mary Magdalene.”169

  SUPPORTING PLAYERS

  Another casting choice was controversial for a different reason. For the role of Vicki Vale, the filmmakers chose Sean Young, who had gained international attention as Harrison Ford’s love interest in the futuristic detective thriller Blade R
unner (1982). She had a steamy coupling with Kevin Costner in the 1987 political thriller No Way Out, and a bit part in Wall Street (1987) as the wife of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), but by 1989 she was making headlines not for her film roles but rather for allegedly harassing actor James Woods, with whom she co-starred in 1988’s The Boost. Woods accused Young of terrorizing him and his then-fiancée, leaving a mutilated doll on Woods’s doorstep and trampling the couple’s flowerbed. Young has always adamantly denied the accusations. Woods sued the actress, and the case was settled out of court in 1988. Young hoped that a role in a blockbuster movie would put the lurid allegations behind her and steer her career back on track.

  The cast was rounded out with an eclectic mix of relative newcomers and old pros. Former stand-up comic Robert Wuhl, coming off a pair of hits after roles in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and Bull Durham (1988), was given the role of Alexander Knox. Wuhl said he was cast due to “Tim Burton’s momentary loss of senses.” To prepare for the role, he studied reporters who worked for the New York Daily News.170

  Billy Dee Williams, best known to international audiences as Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), played District Attorney Harvey Dent. “The last thing I expected was to be a part of Batman,” said Williams. “I was doing Fences on stage on Broadway and told a friend I was dying to play a supervillain in a movie. Two weeks later, he called to say they wanted me to play a good-guy role in Batman.”171

  For Commissioner Gordon, the producers chose veteran character actor Pat Hingle, an actor whose film debut came in 1954 as a bartender in On the Waterfront. He went on to be an almost constant presence in TV and movies from the 1960s through the 1980s, portraying policemen, judges, bankers, and salesmen. Hingle once said, “I played so many law enforcement officers that at Brooks Costumes in New York, they had ‘the Hingle cop costume;’ then all they had to change were insignia and cap badges!”172

  When it came to casting the role of Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth, Tim Burton chose Michael Gough. Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1917, Gough made his film debut in the 1948 version of Anna Karenina, with Vivien Leigh in the title role. He played supporting parts in a wide array of British films, but is best known to horror fans for his roles in Horror of Dracula (1958), Horrors of the Black Museum (1959), Konga (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962), Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), The Skull (1965) and Trog (1970). “I was in a play in New York,” said Gough, in producer Constantine Nasr’s Batman Returns special features DVD documentary. “It was called Breaking the Code, and I won an award for it, and as I was getting the award, apparently Tim saw this, and he said, ‘I know that man! You’d believe anything he said! We’ll have him.’ Then he asked me to play Alfred. And he was sweet because he told me about what he felt about Alfred, but very much encouraged me to have ideas about Alfred. It’s got to be your idea of a servant who is totally honorable, totally straight and totally square, you know.” Gough based Alfred on an actual butler that he knew, and also observed the butler at Knebworth House, where the Wayne Mansion scenes were filmed.173

  For crime boss Carl Grissom, the producers chose Jack Palance, who was born Volodymyr Palanyuk in Pennsylvania coal country in 1919. After winning a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina, the 6’4” athlete became a professional heavyweight boxer in the late 1930s, fighting under the name Jack Brazzo. He won 15 fights before enlisting at the outbreak of World War II. After being discharged in 1944, he worked a variety of jobs before landing on Broadway as the understudy of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. He eventually replaced Brando for a performance, and his good notices for that and succeeding plays won him a contract with 20th Century Fox. He made his film debut in director Elia Kazan’s Panic in the Streets (1950), and was nominated for back-to-back Best Supporting Actor Oscars for his third and fourth film roles, in Sudden Fear (1952) and Shane (1953). Over the next 35 years, he starred in numerous films and ventured into TV with guest-starring roles on a variety of series and title roles in TV productions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1973). “Because Jack Nicholson is such a strong, cinematic figure, there aren’t many you can imagine as his boss,” said Burton, “but Jack Palance fills out the role perfectly, and is, in fact, able to make Nicholson look like a kid at times.”174

  Grissom’s moll, Alicia, was played by Texas-born fashion model Jerry Hall, who ventured into acting in 1980 with a role in Urban Cowboy but was known mostly as Mick Jagger’s fiancée; they married in 1990. Hall was shooting a commercial at Pinewood Studios when she happened to meet Batman’s set decorator, Peter Young. “I was on a 15-minute break and saw the sun filtering through a window in a corridor,” said Hall. “I went to take a look. Peter ran into me and that’s how I got the part.”175

  The cast gathered for rehearsals in London in September, along with screenwriter Warren Skaaren, who was continuing to hone the shooting script. “We had a week or two of rehearsals in London,” said Skaaren, “where we would sit around a big table and read things through and read it through again. I would go write at night, make changes, and start again in the morning. The set was built all around us while we were doing that. We got to the point where we could actually rehearse on the set, block things out, and I would make more changes. It was exciting.”176

  At that time, the screenplay still contained a horse-riding scene with Vicki and Bruce Wayne. One day, Sean Young and Michael Keaton went to practice their horsemanship and Young ended up falling from her mount, seriously injuring her shoulder.177 “Sean fell off a horse two days before we started shooting and we didn’t get a chance to shoot with her,” said Burton. “I’m only happy that she didn’t get killed or that we weren’t five weeks into it, because then we would have all been in trouble.”178 The director didn’t want to lose the actress. “I kept saying, ‘Are you sure you broke your arm, you can’t do it? You can’t?’ At first, I couldn’t believe it.”179 In the book Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood, authors Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters wrote that Jack Nicholson wasn’t so sorry to see Sean Young depart; he had found her difficult in script readings and had supposedly expressed his doubts about the actress to Warner Bros., leading some to joke that she hadn’t fallen from the horse—she was pushed.180

  The producers and Burton knew they would have to replace Young. They

  briefly considered Michelle Pfeiffer, but Michael Keaton had just broken off a romance with the actress the year before and felt it might be awkward to work with her. Jon Peters called Mark Canton at Warner Bros., and the two eventually decided on Kim Basinger.181 Born in Athens, Georgia in 1953, Basinger had been a model before moving to Hollywood and embarking on an acting career. A number of TV appearances in the late 1970s eventually led to a co-starring role in 1983’s Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery’s final 007 film. After that high-profile turn, she found herself much in demand, from period dramas like The Natural (1984) to the erotic thriller Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986) to the Blake Edwards comedy Blind Date (1987). Basinger recalled, “I got a call on Friday night in California that they wanted me Monday morning and I said, ‘You’re out of your mind. To fly to London and be there Sunday?’ I said, ‘You’ve lost it.’ Ten minutes later, I was on a plane in my mind. I knew I would wind up doing it.”182

  Reading the script, Basinger saw parallels between Batman and The Phantom of the Opera. “That’s a story and a theme that I’ve always loved and I always saw this as,” said Basinger. “I love Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera—those themes, which I think this is in a way. It’s a human being who dresses up like a bat. It has a very operatic feel, in the sense of the characters—a man in a bat suit and a guy turned into a clown. They’re operatic in the sense of just good clear images, just strong, simple, classic images based in psychology. I love that about it. That’s not the main thrust, but it
’s a feel which I think is nice. The Batcave is basically the underground of Paris. It’s a guy hiding behind a mask, it’s a guy who has internal scars as opposed to external, and it’s all of those themes, very classic stuff.”183

  Basinger joined the cast and crew in the final week of October.184 “I’ve got to hand it to Kim,” said Burton. “It can’t have been easy to join a movie which we’d already started shooting. Kim has added a lot to it. She has a positive, ‘let’s get going’ attitude which is also very much part of the Vicki Vale character. In short, she has been great for the movie.”185

  Comic book fans had become used to seeing Batman in a blue and gray costume that was a slight variation of the union-suit-with-a-cape model initiated by Superman. For the movie, the filmmakers took a different approach. Having cast an actor who didn’t have the bodybuilder physique of the Bruce Wayne of the comics, they decided to incorporate “muscles” into the costume, explaining them as “body armor.” And, in Tim Burton’s vision, this Batman would truly be a creature of the shadows, in an outfit that was almost entirely black from head to toe, the only exceptions being the yellow utility belt and the oval surrounding the bat insignia on the chest. To make the costume a reality, Burton turned to Bob Ringwood. Like Jerry Hall, Ringwood got the job by being in the right place at the right time. He had come to Pinewood Studios to see about joining the crew of the James Bond film Licence to Kill. While there, he ran into Batman’s British co-producer, Chris Kenny, with whom he had worked previously on director Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun (1987), for which Ringwood was nominated for an Academy Award for Costume Design. Kenny recommended that Ringwood meet with Burton.186 “I had spent about ten minutes meeting with Tim Burton when he hired me to design the costumes for Batman,” said Ringwood. “I think he’d never met anyone who talks as much as I do.”187