This month we are learning a bit about the Batman villains and their careers. No study of Batman’s favorite nemesis would be complete without Cat Woman, Julie Newmar. Julie shared the role of Cat Woman with Eartha Kitt who appeared the final television season and Lee Meriwether who was so catty in the Batman movie. What else did Julie Newmar do during her career? Let’s find out.

Born Julia Chalene Newmeyer in 1933, Julie Newmar as she is known in the acting world, was a television and film actress, dancer, singer, and stage performer. But, as they say in the commercials, that’s not all. She also was known for writing, designing lingerie, and managing real estate investments.

Newmar was born in LA. Her father Don was head of the physical education department for the Los Angeles College. Her mother, of both Swedish and French descent, was a fashion designer under the name Chalene and later worked in real estate.

Julie began dancing early in life and performed as a prima ballerina with the Los Angeles Opera when she was only 15. With an IQ of 135, Newmar graduated from John Marshall High School at age 15. She continued dancing in films in the early fifties. At age 19, she was also working as a dancer/choreographer for Universal Studios. In 1954, she appeared in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers as Dorcas, one of the seven brides.

In 1955 she got her first Broadway appearance in “Silk Stockings.” She continued her movie and Broadway careers throughout her years in entertainment, appearing in 33 films in all.

Television is where Newmar gained most of her fame. Her first television appearance was on The Phil Silvers Show in 1957 and then Ominbus in 1959. But it was in the sixties that she became a household name. She started the decade in Adventure in Paradise in 1960, followed by a variety of shows including The Defenders, Route 66, and The Twilight Zone in the early sixties.

In 1964 she was offered the role of Rhoda on My Living Doll, where she played a robot. She was not enthralled with the choice of Bob Cummings as her costar and did not seem to enjoy her time on this show. She said that “They originally wanted Efrem Zimbalist Jr. It was not a flip part—it needed a straight actor who could play opposite this bizarre creature so the comedy would come off. That quality was lost when they hired Bob. The show could have been wonderful. I think it would have run for many seasons had they hired Efrem because he had the right qualities.”

After appearing in several comedies including The Beverly Hillbillies and F Troop, she received another recurring role as Cat Woman in Batman. She would appear in the series 13 times, 12 as Cat Woman, the only villain to make Batman question his morals, because we knew he was in love with her, and if she showed any sign of remorse, who knows where things might have gone. Her Cat Woman costume now lives at the Smithsonian Institution.

Newmar lived in Beekman Place in New York in the mid-sixties. One weekend her brother had come to visit her from Harvard. They were sitting around chatting when the phone rang. She was asked if she would like to play Cat Woman on the Batman series. She was a bit miffed because they said they were casting in California, and the role started on Monday. Her comment was “That’s how television is done: they never know what they are doing until yesterday.” When her brother heard Batman, he jumped up and said that was the favorite show at Harvard and they even skipped classes to watch it. He told her to take the role, so she did.

After Batman, she finished out the sixties in The Monkees, Star Trek, Get Smart and It Takes a Thief. With 11 seventies offers, you can see her in shows such as Bewitched, Columbo, McMillan and Wife, Love American Style, The Bionic Woman, and The Love Boat. One of my favorite made-for-tv movies was The Feminist and the Fuzz. It had an exceptional cast, including Newmar who appeared in the movie along with Barbara Eden, David Hartman, Jo Anne Worley, Farrah Fawcett, Harry Morgan, Herb Edelman, Penny Marshall, and John McGiver. This ensemble was directed by Jerry Paris, who directed so many great shows from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Happy Days.

Her other starring role in the seventies was a marriage to J. Holt Smith, an attorney. After the wedding, Newmar moved to Forth Worth, Texas until 1984 when they divorced.

The eighties was a more quiet decade for the actress but she did accept roles on CHiPs, Fantasy Island, and Hart to Hart. In 1992, she appeared in George Michael’s music video, “Too Funky,” She was still working in 2016 and 2017 in Batman animation features.

If you were a fan of Batman and Dark Shadows in the sixties, you were in luck when Newmar took on the role of Dr. Julia Hoffman (played in the original series by Grayson Hall) in Dark Shadows: Bloodline, the audio drama miniseries.

She was not just a pretty face, however. She received two US patents for pantyhose and one for a bra, under the name Nudemar. She also began investing in LA real estate and was credited with helping to improve the neighborhoods of La Brea Avenue and Fairfax Avenue. In one episode of My Living Doll, Rhoda is asked to play Chopin’s “Fantasie Impromptu” on the piano. Newmar played the piece herself. She had studied under concert pianist Dr. MacIntyre, and she said that scene is the only one she’s done with her playing the piano which had been her career choice before acting. One of Julie’s comments about herself was “Tell me I’m beautiful, it’s nothing. Tell me I’m intellectual—I know it. Tell me I’m funny, and it’s the greatest compliment in the world anyone could give me.”

Julie also enjoys art and gardening. She has a rose, a day lily, and an orchid named for her. Her gardens are often chosen as a spot for holding charity events.

Like Barbara Feldon from Get Smart, Julie Newmar is beautiful, bright, and funny. I hope she enjoyed her career. Obviously, she could have been a brain surgeon or any other profession of her choice. She seems like she would be a fun person to just hang out with and the conversation would never run out. Thank you, Julie Newmar for choosing the entertainment business over medical science for our sakes.