HAPPY BIRTHDAY BURT WARD! — Retro, Cool, Nerd.

Jul 6

Jul 6 HAPPY BIRTHDAY BURT WARD!

Holy Birthday Celebrations! Burt Ward turns 74 today. Born Bert John Gervis Jr. on this day, July 6th, in 1945. It would be 19 years later,after his agent suggested the name change “Burt Ward”, the he first punched his way into our hearts as Robin on the Batman TV show. Ward would go on to play the Boy Wonder in the full length feature Batman (1966), and television specials Legends of the Superheroes, and Challenge of the Super Heroes. He would also portray himself along side long time friend and co- star Adam West in the TV movie Return to the Batcave.

Now, with his wife Tracy, Burt donates most of his time to their Gentle Giants Dog Food and Gentle Giants Rescue and Adoptions .

Some time ago during a conversation with Burt I asked him what was at the bottom of the Bat- Poles set on stage? Was there just a pit, did you have to climb back out? He responded:

Actually there was a double set up. There was the one in Wayne Study, where the door slid open the bookcase slid open we slid down, probably about 7 feet- something like this. You know what I mean 7-8 feet. And then they would give us a ladder to get out. The bigger one was the actual sliding down the Bat- Pole into the Batcave were we had to climb up. I only did it once- but believe me, they could never get me to do it again. I had to climb up the inside of a sound stage, and if you see how big a sound stage is, if you look inside a sound stage, they have these old rickety wooden stairs, OK? And these stairs you can see thru each step as you climb higher and higher, and higher. I just don’t understand why they did this, but they had these 2 poles that were about 65 feet tall, maybe 70 feet tall. And we got to a place on a ledge, OK? Where we had to jump to the poles. We couldn’t reach out, we had to jump to the poles. And there was no net. We could have been killed or as Adam would say, “Or worse.” So we both, you know we had our gloves on and our boots, and they told us, “ When you jump to the poles, don’t you dare miss that. You better hold on.” they crafted the inside of our soles, we wrapped around the poles. And the inside of our gloves holding on. As we slid down you kind of have to time it just right, if you hold on too tight, you don’t slid. If you don’t hold on enough yo fall. So there is that happy medium. You know what i mean? Of sliding down the pole, which we kind of practiced on smaller poles before we had to do the big one. But, I’ve never been son scared. Jumping off, no net, no nothing. It would have curtains for Batman and Robin.