Julie Newmar

Julie Newmar is an American actress, dancer, and singer known for a variety of stage, screen, and television roles. She is also a writer, lingerie designer, and real estate mogul. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Katrin Sveg in the 1958 Broadway production of The Marriage-Go-Round, and reprised the role in the 1961 film version, earning Newmar a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer - Actress. In the 1960s, she starred for two seasons as Catwoman in the television series Batman. Her other stage credits include Ziegfeld Follies in 1956, Lola in Damn Yankees in 1961, and in 1965, as Irma in regional productions of Irma la Douce.
Newmar appeared in the music video for George Michael's 1992 single "Too Funky" and had a cameo as herself in the 1995 film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Her voice work includes the animated feature films Batman: [Return of the Caped Crusaders] and Batman vs. Two-Face, for which she reprised her role as Catwoman, 50 years after the original television series.

Early life

Newmar was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 16, 1933, as the eldest of three children born to Don and Helene Newmeyer. Her father was head of the physical education department at Los Angeles City College, and had played American football professionally in the 1920s with the 1926 Los Angeles Buccaneers of the National Football League. Her Swedish-French mother was a fashion designer, who used "Chalene" as her professional name, and later became a real estate investor.
Newmar has two younger brothers: Peter Bruce Newmeyer, who was killed in a skiing accident, and John A. Newmeyer, who became a writer, epidemiologist, and winemaker. She began dancing at an early age, and performed as a prima ballerina with the Los Angeles Opera when she was 15.

Career

Early work and stage career

Newmar appeared in bit parts and uncredited roles in films as a dancer, including a part as the "dancer-assassin" in Slaves of Babylon and the "gilded girl" in Serpent of the Nile, in which she was clad in gold paint. She danced in several other films, including The Band Wagon and Demetrius and the Gladiators. She also worked as a choreographer and dancer for Universal Studios beginning at the age of 19. Her first major role, billed as Julie Newmeyer, was as Dorcas, one of the brides in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. She was also the female lead in a low-budget comedy, The Rookie.
Newmar made her Broadway debut in 1955 as Vera in Silk Stockings, starring Hildegarde Neff and Don Ameche. In the following year she created the role of Stupefyin' Jones in the Broadway production of Li'l Abner. She stayed with the production for its entire run from November 1956 through July 1958, and also appeared in the film version, released in 1959. A few months later, The Marriage-Go-Round opened on Broadway, with Newmar in the role of Swedish vixen Katrin Sveg, for which Newmar won the 1959 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She later re-created this role for the 1961 film adaptation, starring James Mason and Susan Hayward. In 1961, she appeared in the Sam Spewack play Once There Was a Russian, which lasted only one performance. She later starred opposite Joel Grey in the national tour of Stop the World – I Want to Get Off, staying with the tour from March to October 1963. In 1973, Newmar was slated to return to Broadway in the David Rabe play Boom Boom Room, opening on November 8, 1973, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. Director Julie Bovasso fired Newmar during rehearsals, and she was replaced by her understudy, Mary Woronov. Bovasso was then replaced as director during previews.

Television work

Newmar's fame stems mainly from her television appearances. Her statuesque form and height made her a larger-than-life sex symbol, most often cast as a temptress or Amazonian beauty, including an early appearance in a sexy maid costume in The Phil Silvers Show. She starred as Rhoda the Robot in the television series My Living Doll, and is known for her recurring role in the 1960s television series Batman as the villainess Catwoman. Newmar modified her Catwoman costume—now in the Smithsonian Institution—and placed the belt at the hips instead of the waist to emphasize her hourglass figure.
In 1962, Newmar appeared twice as the motorcycle-riding, free-spirited heiress Vicki Russell in Route 66, filmed in Tucson and in Tennessee. She guest-starred in The Twilight Zone as the devil in "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville", F Troop as a girl kidnapped as a child and raised by Native Americans, Bewitched as a cat named Ophelia given human form, The Beverly Hillbillies as a Swedish actress who stays with the Clampetts to learn their accents and mannerisms for a role, and Get Smart as a double agent, posing as a maid, assigned to Maxwell Smart's apartment. In 1967, she guest-starred as April Conquest in an episode of The Monkees, in which the main characters all fall in love with her, and played the pregnant Capellan princess, Eleen, in the Star Trek episode "Friday's Child". In 1969, she played a hit woman in the It Takes a Thief episode "The Funeral is on Mundy" with Robert Wagner. In 1983, she reprised the hit-woman role in Hart to Hart, Wagner's later television series, in the episode "A Change of Hart". In the 1970s, she had guest roles in Columbo and The Bionic Woman.

Later roles

Newmar appeared in several low-budget films during the next two decades. She guest-starred on TV, appearing in The Love Boat, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, CHiPs, and Fantasy Island. She was featured in the music video for George Michael's "Too Funky" in 1992. She appeared as herself in the 1995 film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar and a 1996 episode of Melrose Place.
In 2003, Newmar appeared as herself in the television movie Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt alongside former Batman co-stars Adam West, Burt Ward, Frank Gorshin, and Lee Meriwether. Julia Rose played Newmar in flashbacks to the production of the television series. However, due to longstanding rights issues over footage from the Batman TV series, only footage of Meriwether taken from the feature film was allowed to be used in the television movie. In 2016, she provided the voice of Catwoman in the animated film Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders. In 2017, she reprised her role in the animated sequel Batman vs. Two-Face. Newmar also appeared on The [Home and Family Show] in May 2016, where she met Gotham actress Camren Bicondova who portrays a younger Selina Kyle.
In 2019, Newmar played the role of Dr. Julia Hoffman in the audio drama miniseries Dark Shadows: Bloodline.

Inventor and entrepreneur

In the 1970s, Newmar received two U.S. patents for pantyhose and two for a brassiere, one being a design patent. The pantyhose were described as having "cheeky derriere relief" and promoted under the name "Nudemar". The brassiere was described as "nearly invisible" and in the style of Marilyn Monroe.

Title	Patent Number	Publication Date
Design Patent for Brassiere	US-D235389-S	1975-06-17
Pantyhose with shaping band for cheeky derrière relief	US-3914799-A	1975-10-28
Brassiere	US-3935865-A	1976-02-03
Pantyhose with shaping band for cheeky derrière relief	US-4003094-A	1977-01-18

Real estate entrepreneur

Newmar's parents engaged in real estate investing in the 1940s and 1950s, purchasing buildings in the La Brea and Fairfax Avenue areas of Los Angeles. Her father owned property on Fairfax and Rosewood Avenue in the 1940s. As a young actress, she ran the real estate enterprise. In the 1970s, Newmar returned to UCLA to study real estate and had expanded her continued management of the real estate investor business practice of her parents. She had made notable investments in the La Brea and Melrose Avenue area. Melrose Avenue passes through the Fairfax District, where her parents had been property owners in an earlier time, as shown on the map to the right. She was considered to have significantly contributed to the area's development. Newmar was described as having had contributed significant time in community advocacy as well.

Personal life

After a broken engagement to novelist Louis L'Amour and romances with comedian Mort Sahl and actor Ken Scott, Newmar married J. Holt Smith, a lawyer, on August 5, 1977, and moved with him to Fort Worth, Texas, where she lived until their divorce in 1984. They had a son in 1981.
Newmar has Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, an inherited neurological condition that affects one in 2,500 Americans.
A legal battle with her neighbor, actor Jim Belushi, ended amicably with an invitation to guest-star in his sitcom According to Jim in an episode that poked fun at the feud.
An avid gardener, Newmar initiated at least a temporary ban on leaf blowers with the Los Angeles City Council. She supported the presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and Ron Paul in 2012.
Newmar, whose brother is gay, has been a vocal supporter of LGBT rights. In 2013, she was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing organization in Los Angeles.
Newmar is a classically trained pianist.

In popular culture

In 2012, Bluewater Comics released a four-issue comic miniseries titled The Secret Lives of Julie Newmar.