Before
Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman, before Joanna Cameron’s Isis, before
Scarlett Johannsson’s Black Widow, Yvonne Craig was a pioneer of female
superheroes on screen.
As an actress, she originated the role of
Batgirl in the 1960s “Batman” television series. As a trained dancer,
she did her own stunts.
Craig died this week after a long two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 78.
The cancer metastasized to her liver, and she died Monday in her home in Pacific Palisades.
“She
had been in chemo almost continuously for the past two plus years since
being diagnosed and that had weakened her immune system as well as her
body,” her family said in a statement late Tuesday night.
“This
didn’t dampen her sense of humor or her spirit, she intended to fight
and win this battle. In the end, her mind still wanted to fight but her
body had given up.”
Craig originated the role of Batgirl in the
show’s third and final season in 1967, kapowing and zzonking the bad
guys alongside Adam West and Burt Ward’s dynamic duo of Batman and
Robin.
“I hear from women that I was their role model,” she
said in an interview earlier this year. “‘When I was a little girl, I
realized that girls could kick butt just like guys,’ [they’d say].”
She
also had a memorable role as the green-skinned Orion slave girl Marta
who wanted to kill Captain Kirk in a third-season episode of “Star
Trek.”
But even beyond those two well-remembered roles, Craig had a
long and illustrious career that began as the youngest member of a
ballet company.
Accidental actress
Craig explained in news interviews how she got into acting while she was still touring as a dancer.
“I was invited to dinner by a man who was a producer, who wanted to put me in movies and I said I wasn’t interested,” she said.
“[Director]
John Ford’s son walked by and asked ‘Excuse me, are you an actress?’
And as I shook my head and tried to swallow, [the producer said], ‘She
is and I’m her manager. What can I do for you?’ Typical Hollywood.
“They were doing a movie with John Wayne’s son Patrick, and they were looking for a leading lady. And I became it.”
That was 1959’s “The Young Land.”
She
went on to appear in several films, including two with Elvis Presley —
“It Happened at the World’s Fair” and “Kissin’ Cousins.”
She then
parlayed her success into television roles, guest starring in several
series, most notably several episodes of “The Many Loves of Dobie
Gillis” and “77 Sunset Strip.”
Then came her role as Batgirl.
A hero is born
DC
Comics was asked to create a new Batgirl to help get the show a third
season, and Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, Barbara, took on the
identity of the newest masked avenger in Gotham City, both on TV and in
the comic books.
“It was a wonderful experience,” Craig said.
“The
crew liked one another, the cast liked one another. It doesn’t happen
often, and when it does, it’s a joy to go to work every day. I got to
work with people that I would never have the chance to work with. We had
Ethel Merman, I would never have met Milton Berle, I got to work with
him, and he was a delight.”
Craig described the characters of Barbara Gordon and Batgirl as “very close to who I am.”
She clearly had an impact.
“Most
of the joy in my current life can be traced back in some way to seeing
Yvonne Craig be amazing as Batgirl, my first real life hero,” said Gil
Simone, a former writer of the Batgirl comics.
Among Craig’s biggest fans is the man running her website now, Scott Sebring.
“As
a kid, I looked up to her as a superhero on television. As an adult, I
looked up to her as a human being,” Sebring said. “She and her sister
Meridel became these two of the coolest aunts in my life. And our
friendship is something that I will never forget.”
Her
post-“Batman” TV stint lasted several years and spanned many of the hit
shows of the time, including “The Six Million Dollar Man” and the “Mod
Squad.”
The later years
In later years,
Craig worked as a real estate broker, did voice over work for the
Nickelodeon cartoon “Olivia,” and, with her sister, went into the
prepaid phone card business.
She wrote a memoir, “From Ballet to
the Batcave and Beyond,” and was publicly vocal about her support for
free mammograms for women who couldn’t afford them.
“She was one
special lady and my best friend, so will be missed terribly,” the
sister, Meridel Carson, said early Wednesday morning.
As news broke of her death, fans shared what Craig meant to them.
Craig leaves behind her husband, Kenneth Aldrich; her sister and two nephews.
The
family will hold a private service but hasn’t set a date. They asked
that, instead of flowers, donations be made to the cancer research and
treatment center, the Angeles Clinic Foundation.
Source===Fox8===
She added that may be locked with explosives.
