Yvonne De Carlo

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Yvonne De Carlo
Yvonne De Carlo, circa 1979
Birth name	Margaret Yvonne Middleton
Born	September 1, 1922 Vancouver, British Columbia
Died	January 8, 2007 (aged 84) Woodland Hills, California
Years active	1941 – 2003
Spouse(s)	Bob Morgan (1955-1974) Divorced
Official site	None
Notable roles	Ṣippôrāh in The Ten Commandments Lily Munster in The Munsters (TV)

Yvonne De Carlo (born Margaret Yvonne Middleton) (September 1, 1922 - January 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American film and television actress, best known for her role as "Lily Munster" on the 1964-1966 CBS television series The Munsters.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Film career 1.3 The Munsters 1.4 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 1.5 Other entertainment activities 1.6 Personal life 1.7 Last appearances and later life 2 Filmography 3 TV work 4 Book 5 Footnotes 6 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

The daughter of an aspiring actress, Marie De Carlo, and a salesman, William Middleton, De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia. "I was named Margaret Yvonne - Margaret because my mother was very fond of one of the derivatives of the name. She was fascinated at the time by the movie star Baby Peggy, and I suppose she wanted a Baby Peggy of her own."^[1] Her father abandoned her family when she was 3. As a teenager, “Peggy” was taken by her mother to Hollywood who enrolled her in dancing school. Unable to find work, they returned to Canada. The pair made several such trips until 1940, when De Carlo was first runner up to "Miss Venice Beach" and was hired as a showgirl at Florentine Gardens. She made her first film appearance in 1941, but could only find bit parts for the next few years.

She was a Paramount starlet, but the studio apparently signed her mainly for her slight resemblance to Dorothy Lamour, as it was common then for studios to sign lookalikes in order to remind the stars in question that they easily could be replaced should their behavior become difficult or their box-office appeal begin to wane. When she moved to Universal Studios, she was utilized as a B-movie version of Maria Montez, one of the studio's reigning divas.

[edit] Film career

Her break came in 1945 playing the title role in Salome, Where She Danced. Though not a critical success, it was a box office favorite, and De Carlo was hailed as an up-and-coming star. Of the role, she was less sure, saying of her entrance, "I came through these beaded curtains, wearing a Japanese kimono and a Japanese headpiece, and then performed a Siamese dance. Nobody seemed to know quite why."

In 1947 she played her first leading role in Slave Girl and then in 1949 had her biggest success. As the female lead opposite Burt Lancaster in Criss Cross, she played a femme fatale, and her career began to ascend. The 1957 film Band of Angels featured her opposite Clark Gable in an American Civil War story, along with Sidney Poitier and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

For the next several years, she was constantly working although many of the films failed to advance her career.

Cast in The Ten Commandments (1956) in a leading role (as Zipporah, also spelled Sephora, Moses' wife), De Carlo was part of a major hit. The film was a huge success and De Carlo was among those to be praised for her restrained work.

[edit] The Munsters

However, her most famous role that led her to pop culture legacy is of Lily Munster in the cult television series The Munsters (1964-1966), which allowed De Carlo to demonstrate a comic flair that her films had failed to utilize. She also played Lily in the 1966 feature film Munster, Go Home and the 1981 TV movie The Munsters' Revenge.

[edit] Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Yvonne De Carlo was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6124 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 6715 Hollywood Blvd. for her contribution to television.

[edit] Other entertainment activities

Trained in opera and a former chorister when she was a child in Vancouver, De Carlo possessed a powerful contralto voice and released an LP of standards called Yvonne De Carlo Sings in 1957.This album was orchestrated by the movie composer John Williams. She sang and played the harp on at least one episode of The Munsters.

From 1967 onward she became increasingly active in musicals, appearing in off-broadway productions of Pal Joey and Catch Me If You Can. In early 1968 she joined Donald O'Connor in a 15 week run of Little Me staged between Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas, performing 2 shows per night. But her defining stage role came with her big break on Broadway in the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies, which ran from February 1971 until July 1, 1972. Notable in the role of Carlotta Campion, she introduced the song "I'm Still Here". The show opened in Los Angeles with the original cast on July 22 of that year, and closed 11 weeks later. She was the last lead female performer from the original production to die (having been predeceased by Alexis Smith, Dorothy Collins, Fifi D'Orsay, and Ethel Shutta).

She also received recognition for her work in various horror movies, spoofs and thrillers, such as The Power, The Seven Minutes, House of Shadows, Sorority House Murders, Cellar Dweller, The Man With Bogart's Face, Mirror, Mirror, Blazing Stewardesses, and American Gothic.

De Carlo worked in both film and television, playing her most recent role in the television production of The Barefoot Executive (1995).

[edit] Personal life

She was married to the stuntman Robert Morgan from Nov 1955 to June 1974, when they divorced; they had two sons, Bruce and Michael. Morgan had a daughter, Bari, from a previous marriage. De Carlo was a naturalized citizen of the United States. In her autobiography, published in 1987, she listed 22 lovers, including Aly Khan, Billy Wilder, Burt Lancaster, Howard Hughes, Robert Stack, and Robert Taylor.

[edit] Last appearances and later life

De Carlo's last-released big-screen appearance was as Aunt Rosa in the 1991 Sylvester Stallone comedy Oscar, directed by John Landis.

Her last TV movie appearance was as Norma, in the 1995 Disney remake of The Barefoot Executive, opposite Eddie Albert.

In addition, Yvonne De Carlo has two unreleased science fiction films: ‘Project Loadstar’, and ‘Saucer Syndicates’, in which of these she plays a psychic, and ‘Ghost Camera’ in which she plays a nun in a New York Orphanage.

Her son Michael died in 1997. De Carlo had a stroke the following year. Former Munsters co-star Butch Patrick said on the September 25, 2006, edition of the Howard Stern Show that De Carlo was by then a resident of the Motion Picture & Television Hospital, in Woodland Hills, California, where she spent her last years, and where on January 8, 2007, she died of natural causes at the age of 84. A memorial service was held a few days later at The Woodland Hills MGM Theater. She is survived by her son Bruce R. Morgan.

[edit] Filmography

• I Look at You (1941) (short subject)
• Harvard, Here I Come! (1941)
• The Kink of the Campus (1941) (short subject)
• This Gun for Hire (1942)
• Road to Morocco (1942)
• Youth on Parade (1942)
• Lucky Jordan (1942)
• Rhythm Parade (1942)
• The Crystal Ball (1943)
• Salute for Three (1943)
• So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (film) (1943)
• Let's Face It (1943)
• Deerslayer (1943)
• True to Life (1943)
• Standing Room Only (1944)
• The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)
• Fun Time (1944) (short subject)
• Kismet (1944)
• Rainbow Island (1944)
• Here Come the Waves (1944)
• Practically Yours (1944)

Bring on the Girls (1945)

• Salome, Where She Danced (1945)
• Frontier Gal (1945)
• Song of Scheherazade (1947)
• Brute Force (1947)
• Slave Girl (1947)
• Black Bart (1948)
• Casbah (1948)
• River Lady (1948)
• Criss Cross (1949)
• Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949)
• The Gal Who Took the West (1949)
• Buccaneer's Gal (1950)
• The Desert Hawk (1950)
• Tomahawk (1951)
• Hotel Sahara (1951)
• Silver City (1951)
• The San Francisco Story (1952)
• Scarlet Angel (1952)
• Hurricane Smith (1952)
• Sombrero (1953)
• Sea Devils (1953)
• The Captain's Paradise (1953)
• Fort Algiers (1953)
• Border River (1954)
• Happy Ever After (1954)
• Passion (1954)
• Shotgun (1955)
• The Contessa's Secret (1955)
• Flame of the Islands (1956)
• Raw Edge (1956)
• Magic Fire (1956)
• The Ten Commandments (1956)
• Death of a Scoundrel (1956)
• Band of Angels (1957)
• The Sword and the Cross (1958)
• Timbuktu (1959)
• McLintock! (1963)
• A Global Affair (1964)
• Law of the Lawless (1964)
• Forbidden Temptations (1965) (documentary)
• Munster, Go Home (1966)
• Hostile Guns (1967)
• The Power (1968)
• Arizona Bushwhackers (1968)
• The Delta Factor (1970)
• The Seven Minutes (1971)
• Black Fire (1975)
• Blazing Stewardesses (1975)
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1975)
• House of Shadows (1976)
• Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
• Satan's Cheerleaders (1977)
• Nocturna (1979)
• Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979)
• Black Fire (1979) (Spanish version)
• The Man with Bogart's Face (1980)
• Silent Scream (1980)
• Liar's Moon (1981)
• National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982)
• Vultures (1983)
• Play Dead (1985)
• Flesh and Bullets (1985)
• American Gothic (1988)
• Cellar Dweller (1988)
• Mirror, Mirror (1990)
• Oscar (1991)
• The Naked Truth (1992 direct-to-video)
• Desert Kickboxer a.k.a. Desert Hawk (1992 direct-to-video; unconfirmed^[2])
• Seasons of the Heart (1993) (voice only)
• Project Loadstar (Unreleased)
• Saucer Syndicates (Unreleased)

In addition Yvonne De Carlo has two unreleased sci-fi films "Project Loadstar "and "Saucer Syndicates " in which she plays a psychic and "Ghost Camera" in which she plays a nun in a New York Orphanage.” This entry is supported by two press releases 1)ReuterUK Speigelman Jan 10th 2007 2)Examiner.com Jan 20 -25 2007^{[citation needed]}

[edit] TV work

• The Munsters (1964 - 1966)
• The Girl on the Late, Late Show (1974)
• The Mark of Zorro (1974)
• The Munsters' Revenge (1981)
• Murder, She Wrote: Jessica Behind Bars (1985) (guest star)
• A Masterpiece of Murder (1986)
• Here Come the Munsters (1995) (cameo)
• The Barefoot Executive (1995)

[edit] Book

• De Carlo, Yvonne; Warren, Doug (1987). Yvonne: An Autobiography (Hardcover). USA: St Martins Press. ISBN 0312002173. 

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ De Carlo, Yvonne (1987) Yvonne, An Autobiography. ISBN 0312002173
2. ^ Credit appears only on the volunteer-user Internet Movie Database, with no corroborating source on the Internet

[edit] External links

• Yvonne De Carlo at the Internet Movie Database
• AP report at CNN.com (January 10, 2007): "Yvonne De Carlo, 'Munsters' star, dead"
• Media Newswire press release: 'Munsters' Television Star Yvonne De Carlo Dies at 84
• "Yvonne de Carlo", Obituary, Daily Telegraph, 12 January 2007.