Yvonne Joyce Craig

Yvonne Joyce Craig, May 16 1937 until August 17, 2015. Craig was an American actress and ballet-dancer most well-known for her role as Batgirl in the 1960s' TV series Batman and Marta her character, the Orion slave girl Marta as seen in Star Trek's episode "Whom Gods Deceive" (1969). The Huffington Post called her "a pioneer in female superheroes" on television. Yvonne Craig was born and raised in Taylorville, Illinois. Her family in 1951 moved to the Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, where she attended W. H. Adamson High School and then Sunset High School, from where she failed to finish her education due to the absence of "a single PE credit". After being discovered by Alexandra Danilova, a ballerina as well as an instructor, Craig joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as the youngest corps de ballet participant. As she performed as Batgirl the training proved very beneficial. In 1957, she resigned from the ballet company "over a dispute on changes to casting". Then, she moved to Los Angeles in hopes of getting back into dance. But she soon found herself in film roles. One of her first television performances was in the TV series Perry Mason ("The Case of the Lazy Lover") in 1958 , alongside Neil Hamilton. Hamilton later played Batgirl's stepfather, Police Commissioner James Gordon. Following her appearances in The Young Land, The Gene Krupa Story (all 1959), and Gidget (all 1958) she also guest-starred as Beverly Mills on the TV show Mr. Lucky (also 1959). Craig was seen in the films Bing Crosby and Seven Women from Hell (1960), in which she was joined by Cesar Romero. In 1962, she was a guest star in Western Laramie's "The Long Road Back" episode. She also starred with Bing Crosby in High Times (1960) and Seven Women from Hell (1961) and Seven Women from Hell (1961), both of which included Cesar Romero. Craig also starred in two Elvis Presley films: It Was at the World's Fair (1963), and Kissin Cousins (1964). She also appeared in the science fiction film Mars Needs Women (1966) and was in In Like Flint (1967) as an in-character Russian ballet dancer alongside James Coburn.