Yvonne De Carlo

Yvonne De Carlo

Yvonne De Carlo, born Margaret Yvonne Middleton, actor (b at Vancouver 1 Sep 1922; d at Los Angeles, Ca 8 Jan 2007). Yvonne De Carlo attended King Edward High School in Vancouver and Le Conte Middle School in Hollywood. She studied at the BC School of Dancing and at 15 years old was taken to Los Angeles by her mother. "Peggy" Middleton landed a job in the chorus of a Hollywood nightclub but was soon deported back to Canada because her mother didn't have the proper papers and Middleton was underage. Determined to make her daughter a movie star, Mrs Middleton made another attempt a few years later.

At 19 years old, and now Yvonne De Carlo, she made the rounds of the movie studios and was eventually signed by Paramount. Her first film was Harvard Here I Come! in 1942, followed by bit parts the same year in the film noir classic This Gun for Hire and the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope comedy Road to Morocco. Her big break came in 1945 with the lead in Salome - Where She Danced with fellow Canadian Rod CAMERON.

This was followed by The Song of Scheherazade and Slave Girl in 1947, and Yvonne De Carlo was typecast as a sultry temptress, representing Hollywood's idea of an "Arabian Nights" beauty. When not wearing harem attire, she was cast as a Western heroine or dance hall girl. On the rare occasion when she was given the opportunity to act, she showed a special knack for light comedy in the British-made Hotel Sahara (1951) and The Captain's Paradise (1953). She played opposite Charlton Heston as the wife of Moses in Cecil B. De Mille's epic The Ten Commandments (1956). Her other films include For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Brute Force (1947), Criss Cross (1948), Fort Algiers (1953), McLintock! (1963) and the Canadian-produced It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1975). For television she had guest roles in series like Bonanza and The Virginian, and she became well known when she portrayed Lily Munster in the ghoulish television series The Munsters (1964-66), later appearing in 2 Munsters films.

In 1971, Yvonne De Carlo appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's Follies and further stage work continued with nightclub acts and cruise ship shows. Onscreen she was seen in Oscar with Sylvester Stallone in 1991, in The Sorority House Murders and Seasons of the Heart in 1993, and in The Barefoot Executive in 1995.