Lorenzo Semple Jr., TV's 'Batman' screenwriter, dies

Lorenzo Semple Jr. was one of the hottest screenwriters in Hollywood in the 1970s and '80s, working on star-studded films such as "Papillon," with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman; "Three Days of the Condor," headlined by Robert Redford; and "Never Say Never Again," Sean Connery's last movie as James Bond.

But, rare in the trade, Semple didn't much mind if he was not the sole writer on a film. He simply loved the craft of writing, and he had little use for the rest of what went into moviemaking, except as fodder for hilarious stories he would tell about star egos and meetings with studio executives.

One of his favorite projects came before any of the blockbuster movies. He was the first writer and executive story editor on the wacky, highly irreverent and successful "Batman" TV series that debuted in 1966.

"I think 'Batman' in general was much the best thing I ever wrote," Semple said of the show, which was done without a lot of oversight by executives. " 'Batman' was a lot of fun. But already, when I got to doing a couple other things, you had to have meetings and talk to people, and it wasn't any fun."

Semple died of natural causes at his home in Brentwood on March 28, a day after his 91st birthday, said his wife, Joyce.

After not being active in the movie business for a couple of decades, he experienced a new surge of popularity in 2007 in front of the camera on "Reel Geezers," a series of online shows he did with veteran agent Marcia Nasatir in which they would review current films and bicker. "He could always make you laugh," Nasatir said of her friend of more than 40 years.

Semple was born in Mount Kisco, Westchester County. His uncle was playwright Philip Barry, who wrote "The Philadelphia Story."

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Semple attended Yale for a couple of years but left in 1941 to drive an ambulance for the Free French Forces in the Middle East. After a year, he returned to the United States, where he was drafted and sent back to the war front. During his military service, he earned a Bronze Star.

Finishing his degree at Columbia University, Semple wrote for magazines and penned two plays that made it to Broadway. He wrote some episodic TV and teamed with producer William Dozier to try to get on the ground floor of a TV series. They had little success until Semple, living in Spain, got a cable from Dozier to meet in Madrid.

Dozier told him with derision that ABC wanted them to create a live series based on the "Batman" comic books. Semple recognized that the show could be done in a flippant, satirical manner by making the main character a supremely naive good guy trying to set an example for young sidekick Robin.

"Our Batman was unbelievably innocent," he said on an episode of "Reel Geezers." "For example, when they'd be chasing the Joker, he would refuse to park if there was a 'No Parking' sign. He'd drive around the block and let the Joker get away."

With the show's runaway success, Semple leaped into films. His first assignment on a major project was to adapt the thriller novel "Six Days of the Condor." "We cut it down to 'Three Days of the Condor' because there wasn't that much to happen," he said in a 2011 Writers Guild interview.

Though he sometimes agreed with critics who panned films on which he received credit, he felt reviewers were too dismissive of his 1976 remake of "King Kong," which starred Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. "It's a losing game, remaking a classic," Semple said.

In addition to his wife, survivors include daughters Johanna and Maria, and son Lorenzo.