A Beetlejuice Star Was Meant To Be The Joker's Victim In Tim Burton's Batman

Before Michael Keaton played Batman for director Tim Burton, they worked together on "Beetlejuice." Keaton going from the chaotic and sinister Ghost with The Most to the stoic Dark Knight earned some backlash, but Burton fought for Keaton's casting in "Batman," and history proved him right.

There was even a scrapped cameo in "Batman" that would've upped the "Beetlejuice" reunion from two to three people. Indeed, the dearly-missed legend Catherine O'Hara, who had appeared in "Beetlejuice" as Lydia Deetz's (Winona Ryder) eccentric stepmother Delia, was planned to have a small death scene in "Batman."

O'Hara was cast in "Batman" as late as October 1988, when "Batman" began filming at Britain's Pinewood Studios. Ads in DC comics published at that time listed her in the film's cast as "a victim of the Joker." In September 1988, O'Hara also told the Toronto Star that Burton had offered her a part in "Batman" after they worked together on "Beetlejuice" ... and apologized to her, because it was a death scene. O'Hara recalled that Burton sold her on the part like this: "It's really small but it's really important. It's the only way people are going to see how the Joker is going to destroy the world."

But which victim of the Joker (Jack Nicholson) would O'Hara have played? Was it a part cut altogether, or a recast? Let's follow Batman's example and do some detective work. 

Somehow, I don't think O'Hara was ever Burton's pick for Carl Grissom (Jack Palance), a crime boss who the Joker murders. (But she could've pulled it off!) Joker's abused girlfriend Alicia (Jerry Hall) seems more plausible, but she appears in several scenes before dying offscreen. My theory is that O'Hara was the original pick to play the female newscaster who dies from Joker's Smylex gas (see above).

The script for "Batman" underwent a lot of revisions, but by October 1988, the screenplay was largely finalized and included the scene of the newscaster dying. The whole context of the scene is that the Joker hijacks a news broadcast and stages an "advertisement" for Smylex. The poison causes people to literally die laughing, and the Joker has hidden Smylex inside several toiletries and beauty products shipped out across Gotham. 

The newscaster, named Becky Narita and played by Kit Hollerbach, got a dose of Smylex-by-shampoo. While reporting on some recent Smylex deaths, she, too, begins to convulse with laughter. The close-up of her dead, rictus grin face has never left me. 

If Catherine O'Hara was the original pick for this part, then that explains her saying Tim Burton offered her a death scene in "Batman." This scene is also the public debut of Smylex, so it fits Burton's comment about O'Hara's character showing how the Joker will destroy the world. Plus, O'Hara had a distinctive laugh, which this scene would have twisted for horrific effect.

If there's one bit in "Batman" that always gets me, it's the Smylex ad. The Joker should be not just deadly but funny and scarier for it. This scene is one of the best demonstrations of that in any "Batman" movie. But it could've been even better if O'Hara was, in fact, going to play the Joker's victim. 

The scarce details about O'Hara's scrapped "Batman" cameo mean it's not clear why she dropped out, especially since she sounded enthusiastic about the movie when speaking to the Toronto Star. Whatever the reason, she showed up to the "Batman" premiere and kept acting in Burton's movies, so there were clearly no hard feelings between them.