Before Billy Dee Williams played the pre-disfigured version in the 1989 film Batman or Tommy Lee Jones took on the character in 1995’s Batman Forever or Aaron Eckhart in 2008’s The Dark Knight, show creators for the 1960s TV series wanted Clint Eastwood to play Harvey Dent. Eastwood, fresh off his success from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, was reportedly in talks to play the iconic character. It was easy for the Rawhide star to mosey over to spaghetti westerns, but audiences never got the chance to see him transition over to Batman villain Harvey Dent, a/k/a Two-Face. While the campy action series was extremely popular with kids, it wasn’t so much with adults and was canceled after two seasons.
It would have been quite interesting to see Eastwood play Dent, a once bright and upstanding district attorney of Gotham City who was hideously scarred after mob boss Sal Maroni threw acidic chemicals on him during a court trial. He subsequently goes insane and adopts the "Two-Face" persona, becoming a criminal like the very ones he once dedicated his life to ridding the streets of Gotham City. Nevertheless, no harm was done to Eastwood, as he went on to star in a string of Dirty Harry movies, along with other hit films that he’s directed and produced. As for what could have been, sci-fi author Harlan Ellison wrote a story treatment and in 2015, DC Comics put out a one-shot comic titled Batman '66: The Lost Episode that used Ellison's original story treatment. Martin Grams, a pop culture author who has written over thirty books on shows like The Twilight Zone and The Green Hornet, says that he’s seen production papers that say Two-Face was "almost a certainty" with "Clint Eastwood slated for the role.”
Yesteryear’s Stars Were Eager to Become a Part of Batman’s Zap, Bam, and Pow!
According to Martin Grams, actors were begging to be on the show to play a villain, some motivated by their children. Some of those stars from Hollywood’s Golden Era included Greer Garson and Joan Bennett. Celeste Holm called the studio for a part after seeing Anne Baxter play Olga, Queen of the Cossacks. Joan Crawford would have starred if it were not for being tied up in her Pepsi contract. Shirley Jones, Agnes Morehead, Robert Morley, and Rod Steiger were among others who were eager to play the part of a Batman adversary.
One of the best things about the 1966 Batman series with Adam West and Burt Ward as his sidekick, Robin, was its roster of villains. Cesar Romero as The Joker (complete with painted-over mustache), Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, Vincent Price as Egghead, Frank Gorshin as The Riddler, Carolyn Jones (Addams Family’s Morticia Addams) as Marsha, Queen of Diamonds, Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt both took a turn playing Catwoman. Yes, Gotham City’s villains, with all their special quirks, are like no other.