The Mystery Behind Yvonne Craig’s Missing Batgirl Costume
Do you love a good mystery? Here’s a fun one for you, and it has everything to do with the classic TV series, Batman.
After the show was cancelled in 1968, actress Yvonne Craig inquired about perhaps taking one of her Batgirl costumes with her as a memento of her time fighting crime in Gotham City. However, all she heard from the folks at 20th Century Fox was crickets.
© 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved, Courtesy: Everett Collection
Ultimately, Yvonne forgot about the request and moved on to other things. Lots of other things, in fact. I remember seeing her on shows like The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, It Takes a Thief, the Mod Squad, and of course, Star Trek. What a memorable role that one was! Who can forget Yvonne as an Orion slave girl in the Season Three episode, “Whom Gods Destroy”?
Everett Collection
Then in 1972. Yvonne was asked if she might be interested in returning to the role of Batgirl along with series co-star Burt Ward, who played Robin, one more time for a public service announcement about the Federal Equal Pay Act, which was a law passed back then to ensure that men and women were paid the same amount of money for doing the same job. The irony of that PSA is that during the third season of Batman, when Yvonne was brought on board, she was paid substantially more than Burt. Burt’s always seemed like an amiable feller, but you never know, something like that could cause someone to act out in the oddest ways. More on that in a moment.
© 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved, Courtesy: Everett Collection
Let’s get back to Yvonne being asked to be Batgirl one more time for this PSA. Yvonne agreed to do it on one condition: somehow they would need to acquire one of her original costumes if they truly wanted her to fly into action again. At first, that kind of seemed to be a deal-breaker. Yvonne was told that there wasn’t a Batgirl suit intact, and that, at least from Yvonne’s point of view, kind of put an end to the whole thing. But then, from out of the blue, Yvonne was told that an original costume had been found and that it was in the possession of the Boy Wonder himself. Burt told everyone that it belonged to a friend, but that he would be able to get it if Yvonne agreed to join him and actor Dick Gautier, who was standing in for Adam West, in the PSA. After filming was complete, Yvonne had hoped to take the costume home with her, but Burt was insistent that it needed to be returned to his “friend.”
20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection
Whenever Yvonne told this story later on at conventions and the like, she would frequently make air quotation marks with her hands when saying the word “friend.” Why? I believe that she was somewhat skeptical about the whole thing.
From everything that I can tell, Burt is a wonderful feller, a real stand-up guy who was loyal to his friend Adam until the very end. That said, could acquiring the only intact Batgirl costume after the show ended be Burt’s way of protesting the inequality of pay that he had been subjected to during Batman’s final season? If it was, I can’t say that I blame him much. And boy, oh boy, if he still has that costume, it has got to be worth a pretty penny now.
You did it, old chum. Way to play the long game!