Lorenzo Semple Jr.

Lorenzo Semple, Jr., was a writer known for creating the popular 1960s TV series Batman and for his work on several popular feature films of the 1970s.

Semple, who was born in New Rochelle, New York, matriculated at Yale University but left school in 1941 to drive an ambulance for the Free French Forces. He survived a battle in Libya, for which he earned France's Croix de Guerre. He was later drafted into the Army and received a Bronze Star.

Following his discharge from the military, he studied writing at Columbia University and began writing plays. Two of his works, Tonight in Samarkand and The Golden Fleecing, had brief runs on Broadway.

After relocating to Los Angeles, he began writing for television, earning credits on such series as The Alcoa Hour, Breaking Point, The Rogues, Burke’s Law and The Rat Patrol.

Producer William Dozier hired Semple to create Batman. In addition to helping establish the show's signature tongue-in-cheek tone and Pop Art graphics, Semple wrote the first four episodes and served as a script or story consultant on all of the others. He also wrote the Batman movie, released in July 1966 between the show's first two seasons.

Following Batman, he worked primarily as a screenwriter, with credits that included Pretty Poison, Papillon, The Parallax View, The Drowning Pool, Three Days of the Condor, King Kong Flash Gordon and Never Say Never Again.

Most recently, he and former studio exexutive Marcia Nasatir collaborated on Reel Geezers, a YouTube series in which the two would  bicker as they reviewed movies.

Semple died March 29, 2014. He was 91.