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Batman actor Burt Ward was ‘told to take pills to shrink his penis’ for Robin role

Actor claimed his bulge was considered ‘too large for television’

Roisin O'Connor
Saturday 11 January 2020 11:54 GMT
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Batman and Robin fight The Riddler and his gang in classic scene

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Burt Ward, who starred as Batman‘s sidekick Robin in the popular Sixties TV series, has claimed the show’s network asked him to take pills to “shrink” his penis.

Speaking to Page Six, the actor claimed executives thought Robin “had a very large bulge for television”, unlike Batman actor Adam West, who apparently had “Turkish towels in his undershorts”.

ABC reportedly sent Ward to a doctor, who prescribed medication to “shrink me up”. However, he quit taking the pills he was given almost immediately.

“I took them for three days and then I decided that they can probably keep me from having children,” he said. “I stopped doing that and I just used my cape to cover it.”

Ward also revealed that he may have missed out on a career as a nuclear physicist because he was taking part in the show, which ran between 1966-1968.

“I was a straight-A student at UCLA. In fact, the Dean at UCLA was upset with me when I left in my third year to do Robin because she said I should have been a nuclear physicist.” he said. ”I was in the top 3 per cent in the United States in science and math.”

Earlier this week, Ward unveiled his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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