How To Know When You're Getting Old: When you read obits for women on whom you once had crushes.
The fact that Yvonne Craig was 78 didn't make me feel old. To me, no matter how old she was, she was and always will be the age when I first saw her on TV. Oddly enough, it was not seeing her play Batgirl that aroused my interest. It was seeing her not play Batgirl. She couldn't be that beautiful to me in the costume because you couldn't see her face. Call me perverted if you like but I think the most attractive part of any attractive person is their face, especially around the eyes and smile.
Yvonne Craig had a great face. The rest of her was nice too but I sure liked that face.
The crush did not last long. Back then — back when she was on the Batman show and I was fifteen — my crushes ran hot for an average of about three weeks…and hey, why not? I mean, it's all fantasy, right? If you're going to fall in love with women you'll never meet, why not play the field? Yvonne was actually one of my longer crushes. I think she held the title for a little over ninety days, finishing ahead of Abby Dalton though falling several months shy of Mary Tyler Moore in her Laura Petrie days.
During my Yvonne crush, I didn't think I'd ever get closer to her than the publicity photo at below right. That's her pretending to be reading a copy of Detective Comics #359, the issue containing the debut of Batgirl and — and this of course is why this issue is so valuable now to collectors — a letter in the letters page from me. Based on the expression on Yvonne's face, it seemed obvious to me that she was reading my letter when this photo was taken.
But I did meet her. Around the turn of the century, the Hollywood Collectors Show hosted one of the 87,000 cast reunions for the Batman show. Those people saw more of each other at reunions and conventions than they ever did on the set. It was at the Beverly Garland Hotel and they had Adam and Burt and Julie and Frank and a few others…and Yvonne. An agent I knew named Fred Wostbrock had booked most of them in and he was there, protecting his clients from…well, just about everybody.
We chatted for a while and then Fred took me around to introduce me. Somehow, I found myself seated between Yvonne Craig and Julie Newmar — a place I once would have foregone my inheritance to sit in. We talked while they both signed autographs for a long line and I was impressed with how nice and tolerant they both were with their fans. Most were no trouble but one out of about every twenty-five seemed to have been green-screened into our world. The ladies were even nice to them.
They both struck me as being very smart and very aware. You meet a lot of show business performers who are clueless about who they really are and what people like about them and what, if anything, they represent to their fans. Not these two ladies. They knew.
One of the photos Yvonne was selling and signing was the above pic of her with the comic book and I couldn't resist. I told her I had a letter published in that issue. She was way more impressed than she should have been.
A few fans later, a guy about my age had a copy of Detective Comics #359 that he wanted her to sign. Her handler collected the fee, Yvonne signed it and as she was about to hand it back to the gentleman, she asked me, "Is this the issue with your letter in it?" I told her it was and she began paging through it to find the letter page.
I looked at the owner of the comic. He had an uneasy look about her handling it so much. I knew that look. From a near-lifetime of being around collectors, I knew he was very, very interested in preserving its resale price and therefore feared her creasing or marring the pages. Actually, I knew that before she went searching through it because he'd declined to have her personalize the autograph.
Ms. Craig finally located the letter page and instantly had the exact same expression as in the photo. I guess her memory wasn't the greatest because she didn't seem to remember reading my letter when the photo was taken in 1967. Here — I'll let you see that letter. It's one of the better things I ever wrote…
That's it. Wish I could write like that now.
Yvonne read it aloud and I had to explain to her who the Elongated Man was. She then passed the issue over to Julie to read and be impressed. Ms. Newmar handled it with even less care and I could see its owner wondering if he should or could snatch it from the claws of Catwoman in order to preserve its near-mint condition. But then he really freaked out when he heard Yvonne say, "Hey, Mark. You should sign it too."
There was no way in the friggin' world that guy wanted me scrawling anything on his precious copy of Detective Comics #359. He yelled "No thanks" with much more urgency than was necessary. Yvonne said, "Oh, don't worry. He won't charge you for it." Then she handed me her signing pen and urged me to write my name in it.
I saw the guy cringe. Then when I handed the pen back to her and said, "I think he just wanted your signature on it," I saw him uncringe. He thanked me most sincerely and got away from there with his comic before anyone could do anything else to it.
And then I looked at Yvonne and saw her snicker. She knew exactly what she was putting him through. Like I said: Very smart and very aware.
I should probably end this here but there's one other incident that happened a few minutes later that I will never forget. You have to trust me here, dear readers. The first part of this, you'll have no trouble believing. In fact, you'll easily believe the whole thing up until the last line but I swear it's true.
A rather nervous man also around my age approached the table and purchased several photos of Ms. Craig and Ms. Newmar in the skimpiest of apparel. They had many pics from which one could choose. He picked all the ones of Yvonne in a bikini and all the ones of Julie in lingerie. He paid a hefty fee for the photos and he asked that Yvonne and Julie personalize their signatures, which they were glad to do. He had prepared little 3×5 cards for each with his difficult-to-spell first name and both ladies complimented him on being so thoughtful.
Before he moved on, he addressed the two of them as if he'd written and rehearsed a little speech. He said, "I'd like to thank both of you for helping me through a difficult age of my life. I used to tune in the Batman show every time it was on to see you two. I was very disappointed, Miss Newmar, when there were episodes you were not in and very outraged when they had other women playing Catwoman. Nothing against Miss Eartha Kitt, of course, but for me there was only one Catwoman."
"That's very sweet of you," Julie said.
"I also maintained two scrapbooks, one for each of you, and every time I came across a photo of either of you, it would go into the appropriate scrapbook. Sad to say, I lost them in a flood but while I had them, they were very special to me. The photos of you two were very special to me as these will be."
"That's so nice of you," Yvonne said. Her tone of voice contained a subtle hint that that he should move on and let the next person in line make their purchases but he went on. He wasn't going to move on until he was certain he'd conveyed his message.
"I hope you understand. Looking at those photos of you made me feel so good. They just lightened up my life because you were both so lovely and wonderful and I wanted to make sure you understood."
"We understand," Yvonne said. "Thank you so much and now, if you'd let the others who've been waiting in line have their turns." He thanked them both five more times then finally slithered away with his purchases.
Once he was gone, Yvonne Craig turned to me and said, so no one else could hear: "Another guy who wants to make sure we understand that he masturbated to our photos."