Was Batman Star Adam West Kicked Out of an Orgy for Staying in Character?
This anecdote truly originated with actor Adam West, who wrote about the incident in his memoirs and has told the story in several interviews. However, West's co-star Frank Gorshin said he had no memory of the event. Sex is a popular topic on social media. Comics are popular, too. But rarely do we get a crossover trend that hilariously combines the two. Thats what happened in June 2021, after Variety published an article about the subversion of the super hero genre. More specifically, Variety reported that the producers of the adult animated series Harley Quinn had asked the show to remove a scene in which Batman performed oral sex, saying heroes dont do that.  This sparked a conversation about sex, masculinity, and Batmans love life. As this conversation was churning away on social media, Amanda Wong, a Vancouver artist who was worked on shows such as Carmen Sandiego and Rick and Morty, posted a screenshot of a piece of text that supposedly relayed a story told by Adam West, the actor who portrayed Batman on TV in the 1960s, about how he was once kicked out of an orgy because he refused to break character. The recent news story that Batman is not allowed to go down on Catwoman has led me to discover this delightful story of Adam West (The 1960s Batman) and Frank Gorshin getting kicked out of a Hollywood orgy because they wouldnt break character pic.twitter.com/XfjO44KDG7  Amanda Wong  (@amandawtwong) June 14, 2021  This anecdote comes from an interview West gave to the entertainment news website Blastr (now Syfy Wire) in 2014. He defined that role so well. Well, I think one of my favorite memories is that Frank and I were invited to a party one night and we decided to go, a Hollywood party we didnt know anything about. We were kind of laughing and having a few beers and said, Lets go over there. We walked in  and it was an orgy. So I immediately went into the Batman character, and Frank went into the Riddler character, because we were getting the big giggles. It was so funny to us, what we walked into. And we were kicked out. We were expelled from the orgy. West also wrote about this incident in his 1994 book Back to the Batcave, and told this story during an appearance on actor Gilbert Gottfrieds podcast in 2014. You can hear West tell this story around the 44-minute mark. While West told this story for decades before his passing in 2017, we havent been able to find any other sources to corroborate this chain of events. The one person who would have been able to confirm this story, Frank Gorshin (the actor who played The Riddler in the TV series), who was supposedly with West during this odd orgy, said that he did not remember the incident. 20 Apr 1997, Sun Asbury Park Press (Asbury Park, New Jersey) Newspapers.com  The Asbury Press published a brief Q&A with Gorshin in 1997. The newspaper included an excerpt from Wests book and then asked Gorshin about the event:  Once, we walked into a party where clothing was unwelcomed, West wrote in Back to the Batcave, his 1994 book. However, after Frank and I got comfortable amid the sea of legs and breasts, I felt a little silly so I began to do Batman. Somewhere across the room, Frank became the Riddler, and it was so ridiculous in that setting that we couldnt stop laughing. Gorshin: Wed go out and tip a few, you know (laughs). I dont remember closing any bars. It was never that serious. Gorshin: No. We cant confirm that Adam West was really kicked out of an orgy for refusing to break character as Batman. While this anecdote truly did originate with the actor, his co-star (and alleged co-conspirator) said he had no memory of the event. If this story really is true, we imagine it looked something like this: