Yvonne Craig

Yvonne Joyce Craig (May 16, 1937 – August 17, 2015) was an American actress who is best known for her role as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in the 1960s television series Batman. Other notable roles in her career include Dorothy Johnson in the 1963 movie It Happened at the World's Fair, Azalea Tatum in the 1964 movie Kissin' Cousins, and as the green-skinned Orion Marta in the Star Trek episode "Whom Gods Destroy" (1969).
The Huffington Post called her "a pioneer of female superheroes" for television.
Craig was a philanthropist and "an advocate for workers unions, free mammograms, and equal pay for women".
Craig was born in Taylorville, Illinois, the first of Maurice Melvin and Pauline Virginia (née Rogers) Craig's three children. Craig's father's work caused the family to move in 1951 from Columbus, Ohio to the Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. Craig first attended W. H. Adamson High School for a semester and then Sunset High School for three years.
She did not graduate high school due to the lack of "a single PE credit". Craig explained the lack of credit, saying "The funny thing about the PE credit is, I was going to the Edith James School of Ballet, and she'd have recitals at the art museum, and [the PE teacher] would come see me dance my little legs off, and then I'd come in to PE class, wrapped up, and claim I'd sprained and couldn't play a sport". Craig had enough credits to get into college and attended UCLA, but did not graduate.
Craig started studying ballet at the age of 10 at the Edith James School of Ballet in Dallas. She was discovered there by the Russian ballerina Alexandra Danilova. While still in high school, Danilova helped her obtain a scholarship to the School of American Ballet in New York City. While there, the 16 year-old Craig lived with roommate and future comedienne Carol Burnett at the Rehearsal Club on West 53rd Street.
In 1954 and at 17 years of age, Craig joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as its youngest corps de ballet member. She was a professional ballerina with the company for three years. This training was helpful when she performed stunts while playing Batgirl. She left the ballet company in 1957 "over a disagreement on casting changes" and moved to Los Angeles in the hopes of continuing her dancing career.
Craig explained how her acting career started in Los Angeles, saying "...this guy invited me to his office and said, 'I'm making a movie, do you want to be in it?' I said, 'No, I'm a ballet dancer and working my way toward soloist... I don't want to be an actress'. But we became friends, so one night we're out to dinner, and this man comes to the table and said John Ford's son Patrick was going to make a movie with John Wayne's son, who was also named Patrick. He asked, 'Are you an actress?' I couldn't talk - I had my mouth full - and the guy who took me out said,'She is, and I'm her manager, what can we do for you?'". The movie was 1959's The Young Land, which also starred Dennis Hopper. Craig was paid US $750 a week (equivalent to $8,090 in 2024) to act in the film, versus the $94 a week she had earned in ballet.
One of her earliest television roles was in an episode of the TV series Perry Mason ("The Case of the Lazy Lover", 1958) alongside Neil Hamilton, who played her stepfather (later Hamilton played Police Commissioner James Gordon, Batgirl's father). Shortly afterwards, she appeared in three films—The Young Land, The Gene Krupa Story, and Gidget (all 1959)—and also guest-starred in the TV series Mr. Lucky as Beverly Mills in the episode "Little Miss Wow" (also 1959).
In 1960, Craig appeared with Bing Crosby in High Time, where she met her costar and soon–to–be husband Jimmy Boyd. In 1961, she appeared in Seven Women from Hell, featured alongside Cesar Romero, and, in 1962, she guest-starred on the Western Laramie in the episode "The Long Road Back". Boyd and Craig divorced that year.
Craig appeared with Elvis Presley in two films: It Happened at the World's Fair (1963) and Kissin' Cousins (1964). She also starred in the low budget science fiction film Mars Needs Women (1966) with Tommy Kirk and appeared in In Like Flint (1967) as a Russian ballet dancer opposite James Coburn.
During the 1960s, Craig regularly appeared in television drama series. She appeared five times on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, portraying five separate girlfriends for the titular character between 1959 and 1962. In 1960, she played Jo, a young photographer with Charles Bronson in Man with a Camera. In 1964, Craig guest-starred as Carol, an underwater photographer, on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea ("Turn Back the Clock"). In 1965, Craig appeared in The Big Valley ("The Invaders") and Kentucky Jones ("Kentucky′s Vacation"),
Craig played a Navy nurse with exotic Arabian dance skills in an episode of McHale's Navy ("Pumpkin Takes Over") and in an episode of The Big Valley with Lee Majors and Barbara Stanwyck; both aired in 1965. That same year, she appeared in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ("The Brain-Killer Affair"), where she helps solve the mystery of a brain-endangering poison. The following year, she came back as an U.N.C.L.E. employee in a theatrical film, One Spy Too Many, expanded from the episode "The Alexander the Greater Affair". In an episode of The Wild Wild West ("The Night of the Grand Emir") in 1966, she played an assassin who performs an exotic Arabian dance. In a 1968 episode of The Ghost & Mrs. Muir ("Haunted Honeymoon"), she played Gladys Zimmerman, a bride-to-be who was stranded overnight at Gull Cottage.
Craig played a main character as well did the vocals for part of the soundtrack for Ski Party (1965) with Frankie Avalon. She was also Natasha, the Russian ballerina, in the spy film parody In Like Flint (1967) starring James Coburn.
From September 1967 until March 1968, Craig appeared in her highest-profile role as Batgirl/Barbara Gordon for the third and final season of the 1960s ABC TV series Batman. As Batgirl, she wore a purple and yellow outfit and rode a "purple motorcycle with white lace trim", whereas her alter ego Barbara Gordon was the librarian daughter of Commissioner Gordon. The New York Times praised her for "add[ing] a scrappy girl-power element" to a TV series it described as "campy".
Craig did her own stunts on the show. "Although they didn't want me to do my stunts (and I ultimately did my own stunts), I mean, I kind of talked them into it. They knew that I danced and what they didn't know was that I rode a motorcycle so I could do the stuff on the bikes." She did complain about riding the Batgirl Cycle. "They had taken off the shock absorbers to put on the bat wings, so, whenever I went over a bump, it was like jumping off a table stiff-legged." The Batgirl Cycle was a customized 1967 Yamaha YCS1 Bonanza 180.
Co-star Burt Ward described working with Craig, saying "Yvonne was a dear friend and a wonderful actress to work with. We had a great time on Batman. We were friends. She got along great with Adam and myself and everybody else. She was just a delightful person with a sparkling personality. She had an energy and brightness to her that was just uplifting".
While acting on Batman, Craig appeared as a contestant on the game show The Dating Game in 1967.
After Batman ended, Craig continued to act in television. She appeared in guest roles in It Takes a Thief, The Mod Squad, Mannix, and Emergency!
In 1969 Craig appeared on Star Trek as Marta, a green-skinned Orion woman in the episode "Whom Gods Destroy". In the episode, former Starfleet Captain Garth (Steve Ihnat), is incarcerated in a mental asylum on a distant planet. Garth lures Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to visit him in order to escape by hijacking the Enterprise. In the Star Trek canon, Orion women are described as "...like animals. Vicious. Seductive. They say no human male can resist them". Garth uses Marta, also an escaped inmate, in an attempt to have her seduce Kirk through dance and then murder him.
Craig related the problems in having to wear green body makeup from head to toe in the episode. "Susan [Oliver, who portrayed the Orion "Vina" in the show's pilot episode "The Cage"] and I were supposed to be from the same planet. Only they couldn’t remember how they got Susan green in the first season episode – they somehow had lost the makeup. So, they had to devise a substitute formula. I had skid marks because the makeup wouldn’t stay on. Then, they sprayed me with Liquid Bandage, which has to be removed with acetone, so my skin was all burned – I was a walking disaster. When you perspire, Liquid Bandage won’t stick, so here I was, walking around with moss hanging from my armpits. It was just hideous. I would take two showers at the studio, then go home and take an oil bath, and then take another shower to get the remainder of it off. Then, I would start all over again the next day".
Craig discussed having to provide her own choreography, saying "When they had to audition me they said, 'Can you do a three-minute dance?' and I said, 'Unless you're doing The Red Shoes, three minutes is a long time,' but I said, 'Yes, I can do a three-minute dance if you want it, but you'll probably just have to cut it to pieces, because that's crazy'. It's nuts, but it was fun to do".
From 1969 to 1972, she appeared in four episodes of the comedy series Love, American Style. In a 1970 episode of Land of the Giants ("Wild Journey"), she played one-half of a humanoid, time-observing duo (with Bruce Dern), who chase two of the Earth castaways (series stars Gary Conway and Don Marshall) into the past, ultimately forcing them to relive the flight that sent them to the giants' planet.
In 1973 Craig reprised her Batgirl role in a public service announcement (PSA) promoting equal pay for women sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.
In the PSA, Batman and Robin were tied to a post threatened by a ticking time bomb. Batgirl arrives but refuses to release them because she is paid less than Robin, in violation of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The PSA was written and directed by Sidney Galanty, and narrated by the Batman TV series creator and producer William Dozier. Dick Gautier played Batman, due to Adam West distancing himself from the character.
In 1973, Craig appeared in a first-season episode of Kojak ("Dark Sunday"), and in 1977, she made a guest appearance in The Six Million Dollar Man ("The Infiltrators").
When her Hollywood career slowed in the 1980s, Craig ventured into private business after tiring of the roles she was offered. She said "I was being offered the same kinds of roles all the time and just thought, 'Why would you bother repeating yourself?'"
In 1988, Craig married Harvard educated lawyer, investor, and real estate developer Kenneth Charles Aldrich. Briefly a co-producer of industrial shows, Craig began a new career as a real estate broker.
Craig was the producer for Comic Book Kid (1993).
From 2009 to 2011, she voiced Grandma on the animated children's series Olivia.
In the 1980s Craig attended many comic and fan conventions, signing photos and talking with fans.
Marvel and DC comic book letterer Steve Haynie remembered Craig's interaction with convention goers, saying "Yvonne Craig's first convention appearance was at the 1988 Magnum Opus Con in Columbus, Georgia. She was going to give away autographed photos, but a few of us talked her out of that by pointing out that other guests supported themselves by selling photos. We warned her about the autograph dealers that would swoop in to take advantage of her generosity. She gave in with, 'OK, then. How about fifty cents?' We told her no again. I took off for a few minutes, and when I came back she agreed to go as high as two dollars apiece. All the money was donated to a charity the local Star Fleet chapter worked with... Yvonne Craig enjoyed meeting fans".
Fellow actor Julie Newmar said of Craig when she attended conventions, "My memory of her, especially, was her ebullience... that’s the kind of person she was... A smile, always a smile. And she would always show up in these marvelous clothes. They were all made of this silky kind of material. It’s body-hugging. It’s what our Catwoman and Batgirl costumes should have been made out of. Kind of similar but very clinging and comfortable. She was buxom and adorable... Everyone liked her".
Craig published an autobiography called From Ballet to the Batcave and Beyond (2000).
Craig died at age 78 at her home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California, on August 17, 2015, from breast cancer that had spread to her liver. She was survived by her husband of 27 years Kenneth Aldrich.
Craig appeared in the documentary film Ballets Russes (2005).