After a two-year battle with cancer, the woman best known as TV’s Batgirl has passed away at 78 years old.
Although she holds nearly 90 film and television roles to her credit — including parts in It Happened At The World’s Fair, Kissin’ Cousins (both alongside Elvis Presley), and the original incarnations of both The Man From U.N.C.L.E and McHale’s Navy, Yvonne Craig is perhaps best remembered as Batgirl from the 1960’s Batman TV series starring Adam West. Unless you’re a Star Trek fanatic, that is, in which case you’d probably recognize her as Marta, the green-skinned Orion slave girl from the episode “Whom Gods Destroy.”
In addition to her plethora of acting roles, Craig was a trained dancer who studied at the prestigious Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and toured for three years. Unfortunately, today brings the saddening news that she passed away in her Pacific Palisades, Calif home on Monday, after complications from her two-year battle with lung cancer spread to her liver.
Craig’s family posted a statement on her website this morning, which read:
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. 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 will be dearly missed, and is survived by her husband, Kenneth Aldrich, as well as by her sister, Meridel Carson, and nephews Christopher and Todd Carson.
Source:Deadline
