Best Known As: Batgirl on the 1960s TV series Batman
A veteran actress and former member of the famed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo dance company, Yvonne Craig is most fondly remembered for her year as the plucky Batgirl on the 1960s TV series Batman. She also played the green-skinned temptress of Captain Kirk in the episode "Whom Gods Destroy" of the TV series Star Trek.
Craig appeared in two Elvis Presley movies: It Happened At the World's Fair (1963) and Kissin' Cousins (1964)... Her co-stars on Batman were Adam West (in the title role) and Burt Ward (as Batman's sidekick Robin)... The role of Batgirl was handled by Alicia Silverstone in the 1997 movie Batman and Robin, with Batman played by George Clooney.
Career Highlights: The Gene Krupa Story, Jarrett, Ski Party
First Major Screen Credit: The Gene Krupa Story (1959)
Biography
American actress Yvonne Craig trained for a ballet career from age 10 onward. While in high school, Yvonne was accepted by George Balanchine for the School of American Ballet, but she chose instead to tour with the Ballet Russe. Stopping over in Los Angeles, Ms. Craig was approached by a producer asking if she'd like to be in movies. She turned him down, but was more responsive to Hollywood after she later broke her contract with the Ballet Russe. Yvonne's first film was The Young Land (1957), but it remained on the shelf for two years, thus Eighteen and Anxious (1957) was the moviegoers' first introduction to the actress. The Young Land earned Yvonne a contract with Columbia pictures, where because of her exotic looks and flowing black hair she was cast in teen-aged "femme fatale" roles, such as the seductress in The Gene Krupa Story (1960) (though quite thin, she was actually larger than her frail Krupa co-star Sal Mineo, which caused a minor crisis when the script called for Mineo to hold Yvonne in his arms). Amidst movie assignments of off-and-on quality, Yvonne tested for West Side Story, but lost out to Natalie Wood. She did, however, hold the distinction of appearing with Elvis Presley twice in It Happened at the World's Fair (1962) and Kissin' Cousins (1964). In 1967, Yvonne was called upon to replace an incapacitated Mary Ann Mobley as Batgirl (aka Barbara Gordon) on the once-popular TV series Batman. Ms. Craig did her best in a sketchily written part, and was proud of the fact that she handled her motorcycle-riding scenes without a double, but Batman was on its last legs, and was cancelled in early 1968. When acting roles became repetitive--and few and far between--Yvonne drifted out of show business, making her last film in 1971. She co-produced industrial shows for a time, then went into the real estate business, where she did quite well for herself. Though she did appear (at the producer's request) in a low-budget video film in 1991, Yvonne Craig elected not to play the Hollywood Game anymore, and was content to limit her public appearance to film-fan conventions and Batman retrospectives. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Yvonne Craig was born in Taylorville, Illinois. She was originally trained to be a ballet dancer and was a member of the corps de ballet of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the 1950s.[1] Gradually, she moved into acting, and in 1959 appeared in three films: The Young Land, The Gene Krupa Story, and Gidget. In 1960, she appeared as a busty young coed with Bing Crosby in High Time, where she met and married singer/actor Jimmy Boyd. In the following year, she appeared with Cesar Romero in Seven Women from Hell. Romero would later play one of the primary villains in Batman. Another connection to Batman occurred when Craig appeared in "The Case of the Lazy Lover", a 1958 episode of the television series Perry Mason, which also featured Neil Hamilton as her stepfather. Hamilton would later play her father in Batman.
In the mid-1960s, with film roles beginning to taper off, she moved into television, notably as Marta, a green-skinned Orion in the third season Star Trek episode "Whom Gods Destroy" (1968). In this episode, she is interned in an insane asylum and does a memorable dance number.
In a 1965 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ("The Brain Killer Affair"), she helps solve the mystery of a brain-endangering poison.[2][3] In 1966 U.N.C.L.E. released a theatrical film, One Spy Too Many. This was made from a two-part episode plus new footage with more violence and risque content than seen on television. Craig was hired to do a semi-nude sunbathing scene and carry on a flirtatious relationship with Napoleon Solo.
In a 1966 episode of The Wild Wild West ("The Night of the Grand Emir"), she plays an assassin who does an exotic Arabian dance. She also played an exotic dancer in an episode of McHale's Navy ("Pumpkin Takes Over", 1965). And she appeared in an episode of The Big Valley with Lee Majors and Barbara Stanwyck.
But her fame would come with the cult 1960s television series Batman.
Most famously, in Batman, she had the role of Batgirl (and her alter ego, librarian Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon's daughter). She appeared in the final 1967–1968 season.[4] Batgirl's true identity was unknown to Batman and Robin, and their true identity was unknown to her.
Although the Batman TV show has been criticized as "campy," many have praised Yvonne Craig's portrayal as having paved the way for many other television heroines in the years that followed. Craig appeared in the last season of the series and was often put in "perilous" situations, along with Batman and Robin.
Craig felt some connection to the character and complained to DC Comics about her fate after Barbara Gordon was shot/paralyzed by The Joker in the 1988 graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke.
Craig eventually moved into private business. For a time, she was a coproducer of industrial shows, after which she worked successfully in the real estate business. She maintains her own internet website.
