Julie Newmar, TV's original Catwoman, says Batman is getting too dark

Long before Anne Hathaway donned the Catwoman suit, actress Julie Newmar became a star playing the same role on the 1960s Batman TV series.

Newmar recently expressed dissatisfaction over the tone Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy has taken.

"It's dark," she said. "I think that we had so much fun in the '60s - 1966 to 1968. And then Vietnam came and things got darker and darker and darker."

Newmar, 78, added that she has yet to see the newest film, The Dark Knight Rises, but is a fan of another Catwoman, Michelle Pfeiffer, who played the role in Batman Returns (1992).

"I do admire Michelle Pfeiffer as an actress and I haven't seen the new show, I haven't seen Anne yet and I'm sure she's divine," Newmar said.

Newmar is one of three actresses who played Catwoman on the Batman series.

The others are Eartha Kitt, who died in 2008, and Lee Meriwether, who played the role in the show’s 1966 theatrical film. Halle Berry also played the role in Catwoman (2004).

Newmar also said that, unlike Hathaway, she did not endure months of training to do fight scenes.

"I remember sitting back in the fight scenes - Catwoman would just sort of sit back in the fight scenes and file her nails like that, you know, she couldn't be bothered with all that nonsense," Newmar laughed.

The actress has spent recent years being online.

“I love the computer -- that's my life now," Newmar said. "And all my work and all my play and all the communication is really done on the computer. Thank God for the computer."

When not online, Newmar works on her garden.

"Nature, it tells about life more than anything in the world about how long it takes for something to grow," she said. "It seems to reward you with whatever secrets are within."