Yvonne Joyce Craig

Yvonne Joyce Craig, May 16, 1937 from May 16, 1937 until August 17, 2015. She was an American actor and ballet dancer popular for her performances as Batgirl on the 1960s TV show Batman and Marta who played Marta, the Orion slave girl Marta from Star Trek's episode "Whom Gods Deceive" (1969). The Huffington Post referred to her as "a pioneer in female superheroes" in the world of television. Yvonne Craig was born and was raised in Taylorville, Illinois. Her family in 1951 moved to the Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, where she was a student at W. H. Adamson High School as well as Sunset High School, from which she was not able to complete her studies due to the absence of "a single PE credit". Craig was accepted into Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as the the youngest dancer in the corps de ballerina, after being noticed by Alexandra Danilova who is a dancer and teacher. It was a wonderful experience that allowed her to do stunts in the role of Batgirl. The ballet company she was with ended in the year 1957 "over disagreements over casting decisions" and relocated to Los Angeles in the hopes of continuing her dancing career. However, she found herself being cast in films. The first time she was seen was in an episode of the TV episode of Perry Mason ("The Case of the Lazy Lover"), alongside Neil Hamilton. Hamilton later became the Batgirl's police commissioner James Gordon. In the following years, she was in three films - The Young Land, The Gene Krupa Story The Gene Krupa Story, and Gidget (all 1959)--and she also appeared in the TV series Mr. Lucky as Beverly Mills in the episode "Little Miss Wow" (also 1959). Craig played alongside Bing Crosby (1960), and Seven Women from Hell (1961), which featured Cesar Romero. In 1962, she appeared as the guest on Western Laramie's "The Long Road Back" episode. Craig also appeared with Bingcrosby in High Timing (1960) as well as 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), as well as Kissin' Cousins (1964). In the year 1966, she appeared in Mars Needs Women. In 1967, she appeared as a Russian dancer on In Like Flint.