For those who might be a bit worried about poor Alfred working his fingers to the bone for Bruce Wayne, fear not; the life of Batman’s butler is actually quite lucrative.

According to Alan Napier, who played Alfred Pennyworth in the popular 1960s series, Batman, he was quite fortunate.

“I was actually the first person hired for Batman before Batman or Robin or anybody,” said Napier, according to The Official Batman Batbook by Joel Eisner. Napier was familiar with the assistant of series creator William Dozier. The assistant recomennded Napier for the role, despite the actor’s lack of experience with comic book adaptations.

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“I had never read comics before I did it,” said Napier. “My agent rang up and said, ‘I think you are going to play on Batman.’ I said, ‘What is Batman?’ He said, ‘Don’t you read the comics?’ I said, ‘No, never.’ He said, ‘I think you are going to be Batman’s butler.’ I said, ‘How do I know I want to be Batman’s butler?’ It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard of. He said, ‘It may be worth over $100,000.’ So I was Batman’s butler.”

The role secured Napier’s finances, and incidentally didn’t require Napier to dive very deep into a character study for Alfred Pennyworth. “It was very clever casting - the whole thing was,” said Napier. "I didn’t have much character guidance in the first episode. When I went to see Dozier about my moustache - I wanted to know if he wanted me to shave it off or not - I asked him about his ideas about the character. He said, ‘I just want you to be yourself.’ The character of Alfred has a last name of Pennyworth in the comics, but we never used it on the series.”