Robin Actor Burt Ward Was Sent To The Hospital On His First Day Of Shooting Batman

Burt Ward did everything Adam West did, but backwards and in elf shoes.

William Dozier’s 1966 “Batman” required a lot of stunt work. Every single episode, Batman (West) and Robin (Ward) would get into a full-on fight with a group of henchmen, often landing punches with outsize, on-screen onomatopoeia. ZAP! BOFF! POW! KRETCH! However, because Batman wore an over-the-head cowl, West could easily be replaced in the fight scenes by a fight double. Ward, who only wore a small Domino mask, had a more visible face, and couldn’t be replaced by a stunt worker as often. As such, Ward was required to learn the choreography for almost every single one of the show’s many fights. “Batman,” by the way, lasted 120 episodes, so that’s a lot of choreography.

Playing Robin, it seems, came with a host of physical challenges, even beyond the extensive fight training. Ward admitted in his autobiography, “Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights,” that the show’s producers were worried that his genitals would be visible through his green trunks, and that they handed him special pills to, uh, shrink him. Ward, who was trying to have a child at the time, picked up the pills, but never actually swallowed them. He didn’t know what kind of side effects the mysterious pills might have.

But the stunts were the hardest part, especially since Ward was not a trained stuntman. Indeed, the first four days Ward spent playing Robin were the most harrowing, as bad stunts forced him to the emergency room every day. The first day involved almost falling out of the Batmobile while it was traveling 55 miles per hour. Ward talked about his experiences at a Los Angeles Cookie Con, an event transcribed by the Hollywood Reporter in 2017.

Ward recalled getting into the Batmobile (the best Batmobile) on the first day of shooting, and seeing Adam West’s stunt double (likely his regular double, Hubie Kerns) sitting in the driver’s seat. Ward knew that he had his own stunt double as well, a man named Victor Paul, and recalls seeing Paul having coffee with West while he was preparing to do the Batmobile stunt. Ward asked the episode’s director why his stunt double wasn’t in the car, and the director merely said that Victor Paul didn’t look enough like him. The young Burt Ward would have to, as was hastily explained, do the stunt himself. Ward then turned to Kerns to ask what they were doing. By Ward’s recollection:

“He says, ‘They don’t want to take a chance of Adam getting hurt, so they hired me to do it.’ I said, ‘Oh. Is it really dangerous?’ (…) He says, ‘Oh yeah! In fact, the more bones I break, the more money I make!'”

Ward wasn’t encouraged, but he did the driving stunt anyway. For it, the Batmobile swung around a curve, the passenger-side door flung open, and the young actor was nearly thrown out. He recalls barely holding on for dear life, and injuring his hand as a result. This, mind you, was a shoot scheduled for 7:30 a.m. Ward wouldn’t be taken to the emergency room for hours. As he remembered it:

“I instinctively threw my arm back and managed to catch my little finger around the gearshift knob, which pulled it right out of the joint, but it kept me in the car. (…) Even with the glove on, my hand was twice the size. I was in incredible pain. (…) I got to the emergency hospital at noon. That was the first of four days in a row.”

One might wonder if Ward considered quitting.

The constant injuries led to an awkward moment at the hospital, as Ward had to eventually explain himself. He said:

“Each day I came back (to the hospital), and it happened to be the same emergency room doctor. ‘Are you accident-prone? Whatever you are doing, this is dangerous stuff. You need to be more careful!'”

Luckily, after those first four days, Ward didn’t go back to the hospital. On the “Batman” DVDs, however, West once admitted that the sidecar to the Batcycle wasn’t always reliable, and Ward, riding in the sidecar, was once detached while the cycle was still in motion. He ended up rolling down a pier and into the ocean. Luckily, Ward could swim and was totally safe. By West’s recollection, though, Ward hated every minute of the Batcycle scenes, because he would roll out of control frequently. “Batman,” it seems, was a pretty shoddy affair.

Ward continued to act after “Batman,” although the show brought him so much notoriety, casting directors had trouble seeing him as anyone other than Robin. Many of his post-“Batman” TV appearances were Robin-adjacent, or instances where he plays himself. His movie career fared better, as he acted in numerous low-budget genre films that are fun to watch. And he was always wholly professional. Now 79, Ward continues to run his dog-rescue charity Gentle Giants with his wife. The man is a titan, and we need to cherish him. Holy Popcorn, Batman!