Yvonne De Carlo

Remembering the life of Yvonne De Carlo for her Birthday! A vibrant performer with a rich voice, Yvonne DeCarlo achieved stardom in the 1940s. Best known, because of TV syndication, as the sensible but ghoulish Lily Munster on the CBS horror spoof sitcom The Munsters (1964-66), she was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia, De Carlo's mother enrolled her in a local dance school when she was three. By the early 1940s, she and her mother had moved to Los Angeles, where De Carlo participated in beauty contests and worked as a dancer in nightclubs. She began working in motion pictures in 1941, in short subjects. She sang "The Lamp of Memory" in a three-minute Soundies musical and in 1942 signed a three-year contract with Paramount Pictures, where she was given uncredited bit parts in important films. Her first lead was for independent producer E. B. Derr in the James Fenimore Cooper adventure Deerslayer in 1943. De Carlo was cast as an island girl in Road to Morocco (1942) opposite Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. She obtained her breakthrough role in Salome, Where She Danced (1945), a Universal Pictures release produced by Walter Wanger, who described her as "the most beautiful girl in the world." The film's publicity and success turned her into a star, and she signed a five-year contract with Universal. Universal starred her in its lavish Technicolor productions, such as Frontier Gal (1945), Song of Scheherazade (1947), and Slave Girl (1947). Cameramen voted her "Queen of Technicolor" three years in a row. Tired of being typecast as exotic women, she made her first serious dramatic performances in two film noirs, Brute Force (1947) and Criss Cross (1949). The first American film star to visit Israel, De Carlo received further recognition as an actress for her work in the British comedies Hotel Sahara (1951) and The Captain's Paradise (1953).

Her film career reached its peak when eminent producer-director Cecil B. DeMille cast her as Moses' Midianite wife, Sephora, her most prominent film role, in his biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956), which was immensely successful at the box office. Her success continued with starring roles in Flame of the Islands (1956), Death of a Scoundrel (1956), Band of Angels (1957) with Clark Gable, and The Sword and the Cross (1958), in which she portrayed Mary Magdalene. She fell in love with stuntman Bob Morgan while visiting the filming of The Ten Commandments in Egypt in 1954. They married in 1955, and their first son, Bruce, was born in 1956. DeMille became Bruce's godfather. Her second pregnancy meant she had to turn down the role of the female pirate DeMille had given her in his next production, The Buccaneer (1958). De Carlo released an LP record of standards called Yvonne De Carlo Sings in 1957. Orchestrated by future film composer John Williams under the pseudonym "John Towner" De Carlo put together a nightclub act and toured with it in South America. She guest starred on Bonanza ("A Rose for Lotta", 1959), Death Valley Days ("The Lady Was an M.D", 1961) and Burke's Law ("Who Killed Beau Sparrow?", 1963). She also played Destry Rides Again in summer stock. De Carlo's husband had been permanently crippled while working as a stunt man on How the West Was Won (1963), eventually losing his leg. De Carlo took any job going, appearing in night club acts across the country as well as a play in stock, Third Best Sport.

To help out, John Wayne offered her the supporting role of Louise Warren, the title character's cook in McLintock! (1963), with Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. She was second billed in a Western Law of the Lawless (1964) and played the Spanish dancer Dolores in the Bob Hope comedy A Global Affair (1964). She was in debt by 1964 when she signed a contract with Universal Studios to perform the female lead role in The Munsters opposite Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis. She was also the producers' choice to play Lily Munster when Joan Marshall, who played the character (originally called "Phoebe"), was dropped from consideration for the role. When De Carlo was asked how a glamorous actress could succeed as a ghoulish matriarch of a haunted house, she replied simply, "I follow the directions I received on the first day of shooting: 'Play her just like Donna Reed.'" After the show's cancellation, she reprised her role as Lily Munster in the Technicolor film Munster, Go Home! (1966), partially in hopes of renewing interest in the sitcom. Despite the attempt, The Munsters was cancelled after 70 episodes.

After The Munsters, she starred in Hostile Guns (1967) and Arizona Bushwhackers (1968), a pair of low-budget westerns released by Paramount Pictures. During this time, she also had a supporting role in the 1968 horror thriller The Power, co-starring George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette. After 1967, De Carlo 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 and she did a five-month tour in Hello Dolly. Later she toured in Cactus Flower. De Carlo continued to appear in films such as The Delta Factor (1970) and had a notable part in Russ Meyer's The Seven Minutes (1971). Her defining stage role was as "Carlotta Campion" in Harold Prince's production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies in 1971–72. Playing a washed-up star at a reunion of old theater colleagues, she introduced the song "I'm Still Here". De Carlo says she was told the part was written especially for her. De Carlo appeared in The Girl on the Late, Late Show (1974), The Mark of Zorro (1974), Arizona Slim (1974), The Intruder (1975), Blazing Stewardesses (1975), It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1975), Black Fire (1975), La casa de las sombras (1976) and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976). She continued to appear on stage, notably in Dames at Sea, Barefoot in the Park and The Sound of Music. She was seen in Satan's Cheerleaders (1977), Nocturna (1979), Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), Fuego negro (1979), The Silent Scream (1979) and The Man with Bogart's Face (1980). She guest starred on shows like Fantasy Island. De Carlo was in the TV reunion movie The Munsters' Revenge (1981), then Liar's Moon (1982), Play Dead (1982), Vultures (1984), Flesh and Bullets (1985), and A Masterpiece of Murder (1986) (with Bob Hope). De Carlo's later films included American Gothic (1988), for which she won the Best Actress Award from International Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Show (Fantafestival); Cellar Dweller (1988); and Mirror Mirror (1990). She had a supporting role as the title character's Aunt Rosa in the Sylvester Stallone comedy Oscar (1991). Aunt Rosa is present when Oscar's father, played by Kirk Douglas, extracts "a deathbed promise" from his son. Of her role, De Carlo said, "Mine is a small part—but funny." She was in The Naked Truth (1992), Seasons of the Heart (1993), and the "Death of Some Salesmen" episode of Tales from the Crypt (1993).

She had a small cameo role in Here Come the Munsters, a 1995 television film remake of The Munsters. De Carlo, along with Al Lewis, Pat Priest, and Butch Patrick. Her final performance was as Norma, "an eccentric Norma Desmond lookalike", in the 1995 television film The Barefoot Executive, a Disney Channel remake of the 1971 film of the same title. In her autobiography, De Carlo considered director Billy Wilder "the first big love of my life." They met in 1943 when she was under contract to Paramount Pictures. Although she described him as the physical "antithesis of my lifelong dream man," she fell in love with him and admired his "endless charm and wit." He was separated from his wife and lived in a rented house while they were together. Their short-lived relationship ended when he left her for actress Doris Dowling. De Carlo suffered a minor stroke in 1998. She later became a resident of the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, in Woodland Hills, where she spent her last years. She died from heart failure on January 8, 2007 and was cremated.