Julie Newmar gained her most enduring fame by playing Catwoman on the Batman television show of the 1960s, but she had been a presence on the stage and screen long before she ever donned the catsuit.
Newmar frequently played a role that was a staple in a certain kind of comedy: the attractive woman who leave men discombobulated simply by walking to a room.
In 1958, LIFE photographer Ralph Morse took his turn shooting Newmar, for a role that would win her a Tony for Best Featured Actress. The show was a comedy called The Marriage-Go-Round, and Newmar played Katrin Sveg, a woman who comes from Sweden to stay with an older university couple—she’s the daughter of a colleague and suddenly grown up. Newmar’s character throws her hosts’ lives life into chaos by walking around wearing only a towel and asking the husband, a professor, to sire her a child, so the offspring will be the ultimate combination of beauty and brains.
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