Napier is best remembered for portraying Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler in the 1960s live-action Batman television series.

He was educated at Packwood Haugh School and,[6] after leaving Clifton College,[7] he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1925.

As Napier recalled, his "ridiculously tall" 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) height[9] almost cost him his position immediately after he secured it.

[11] Napier made his American stage debut as the romantic lead opposite Gladys George in Lady in Waiting.

[10] Though his film career had begun in Britain in the 1930s, he had very little success before the cameras until he joined the British expatriate community in Hollywood in 1941.

In 1949, Napier made an appearance on the short-lived television anthology series Your Show Time as Sherlock Holmes, in an adaptation of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band".

[12] In the 1950s, he appeared on TV in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and guest starred on Dale Robertson's NBC western series Tales of Wells Fargo.

[13]Napier's career extended into the 1980s with roles on television, including the miniseries QB VII, The Bastard, and Centennial, and the drama The Paper Chase.

[1] In the early 1970s, Napier wrote a three-volume autobiography which was not published at the time because, as he joked, "I haven't committed a major crime and I'm not known to have slept with any famous actresses.

"[16] In 2015, McFarland Press published the book under the title Not Just Batman's Butler, with Napier's original text annotated and updated by James Bigwood.