Biography

William Dozier was an American TV and movie producer who made it to the top of the TV heap briefly in the mid-1960s with his show Batman (1966). Born on February 13, 1908 in Omaha, Nebraska, Dozier was also known for his wives. After divorcing his first wife, he was married to Oscar-winner Joan Fontaine from 1946 to 1951 and to movie star Ann Rutherford from 1953 to his death on April 23, 1991.

In 1948, he and Fontaine launched Rampart Productions, which produced Max Ophüls' Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) starring his wife, and You Gotta Stay Happy (1948), which starred Fontaine and James Stewart. He served as executive producer on both pictures.

Turning to TV as the new decade of the Fifties dawned, Dozier produced the series Danger (1950), which ran for five years from 1950-55. In the Fifties and Sixties, he continued his career as a TV producer, bringing to the tube the short-lived TV series Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers (1953) (1953), The Loner (1965) (1965).

In 1966, he achieved the height of TV success with "Batman" which ran for three seasons and was a cultural sensation. The TV show spun off a Batman: The Movie (1966) feature film. That same year, he also launched , a modest success, and The Tammy Grimes Show (1966), a notorious flop that shot five episodes and was canceled after four.

Dozier retired as a producer after the 1969 movie _The Big Bounce (1969) flopped, though he enjoyed a modest second career as an actor in the Seventies and early Eighties.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jon C. Hopwood

[on the TV series Batman (1966)] As long as they write about the show I really couldn't care less what they have to say about it. Ahhh, criticism has never really bothered me; if you let it, as you well know, you can eat your heart out about every other morning for breakfast.

[on how 'Batman' (1966) came about]: I bought a dozen of the comic books from various vintages, so I read all these things, and I thought they must be outer their minds. It was all so juvenile and so then a very simple idea came to me and that was to over do it. And if you over did it I thought it would be funny for adults and yet would be stimulating for kids, you had to appeal on both levels to have a chance.

[on 'Batman' airing twice-a-week]: It wasn't planned for two nights originally, we shot them as one hour shows and then decided to break them up into two half hour shows.

[on the budget of 'Batman'] It was a very expensive show to do, the sets were expensive, the special effects were expensive, and the cost was killing us.

[on having famed director Otto Preminger make a guest villain appearance on 'Batman'] Otto I had known for a long time, and he called me from New York and said 'Bill, I must do a "Batman." If you don't do a "Batman" my children won't let me come home.'