The official obituary on Craig’s website says she passed away at her home in Pacific Palisades, surrounded by her immediate family and comforted by Hospice on Monday night. She had undergone chemotherapy treatment for two years.
Advertisement
“She had been in chemo nearly continuously for the past two plus years since being diagnosed and that had weakened her immune system as well as her body”.
But it was her performance as librarian Barbara Gordon, who secretly moonlights as Batgirl, that defined her career.
“It’s fun because you’re meeting young women who thought that you were a role model then”, Craig said in a 1998 interview with Femme Fatales Magazine.
Trained as a dancer, the Illinois-born Craig joined the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo when she was 17, making her the youngest member of the troupe. She had been able to do this with joy and much laughter and she wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Craig was the first performer to portray the role of Batgirl in live-action, introduced in 1967 on the show’s third and final season.
Among Craig’s biggest fans is the man running her website now, Scott Sebring.
She also enjoyed TV roles in Star Trek, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Starsky and Hutch and The Six Million Dollar Man.
More recently, Craig did voice work on a cartoon series for Nickelodeon and was the executive producer on the documentary film “BIRTH”.
In 2000, Craig wrote a book entitled “From Ballet to the Batcave and Beyond”, which covered some of her years in the ballet as well as her theatrical career.
“She was one special lady and my best friend, so will be missed terribly”, the sister, Meridel Carson, told CNN early Wednesday morning.
Advertisement
Craig is survived by her husband Kenneth, her sister and two nephews. A private service is being planned with no date set at the present time.
