**** Yvonne De Carlo Appreciation Thread ****

Stunning woman. Right up there with Ava and Liz when it comes to natural onscreen beauty.

None.

Stunningly beautiful, but impossible to work with. She was the opioid crisis 70 years ahead of its time

Her biggest box office movie was "The Ten Commandments" where she played the role of Sephora, the wife of Moses (Charlton Heston), and her beauty was toned down.

The Lily Munster opportunity came out of the blue, just as the walls were really closing in on Yvonne. She hated herself, but she had to take it.

Did she die bitter and resentful about Lilly Munster or was Fred Gwynn the bitter one?

Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster)'s memoir has been held up by lawsuits from the heirs and legatees of both the Yvonne de Carlo and Fred Gwynne estates, but they can't keep it up forever, and when it breaks Eddie's memoir will blow the roof off everything we think we know about the Munsters

Stunningly beautiful back in the day.

But she was so good at it. For this little gayling, she showed what real presence is, how to hold the screen without doing a damn thing. Her comedic timing in the show is always on point and very dry. She didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

And if she hadn’t done the show, would Sondheim have ever considered her? The Munsters gave Yvonne deCarlo a spot in popular culture that never would’ve come to her in the movies.

Despite her many movies and beauty she will always be best known for playing the role of Lily Munster in The Munsters TV show.

She pulls off “trashy” pretty easily...

A couple of discreet hem hikes would’ve gotten the point across, girl.

[quote] Her comedic timing in the show is always on point and very dry.

She was the perfect balance to the more over the top Herman and Grandpa.

Appeared with John Wayne in McLintock! in 1963.

In her glory days she appeared in "Criss Cross" with hunky Burt Lancaster.

Her best work was in multiple award nominee “Oscar”.

Yvonne De Carlo. Born September 1, 1922. Died January 8, 2007 (84).

In Russ Meyer's trashy movie, The Seven Minutes.

The podcast You Must Remember This recently did an Yvonne Decarlo episode.

Funny political gif.

She was a big conservative and believed in strong men and that women should serve them. Look it up.

She said that she played Lily Munster as a Donna Reed type mother/wife.

1313 Mockingbird Lane.

R20, I can believe that. (Even if it's not true.) I started looking at old movies very young and was never a fan of hers. She always seemed plodding and humorless and wooden. No tenderness in her voice (unlike gorgeous dark-haired Kay Francis). You couldn't imagine that she'd bother reading a book. Just venal. She was no dog, but there was no delicacy or singularity to her face.

Thanks! R48 there comments on being reminded by her of "a cow chewing its cud." Spot on, that.

I loved the show as a child, and it wasn't until years later that I realized that Grandpa Munster was basically playing an ultra-Orthodox character from Yiddish comedy theatre. Keep the accent, remove the makeup and change the costume slightly, and you have a Hasidic demon.

[quote]She said that she played Lily Munster as a Donna Reed type mother/wife.

One could say the same thing about her Mrs. Moses.

She did do a good job in Criss Cross, with Burt Lancaster, whom she may have been fucking at the time.

She looks like Catherine Zeta Jones

R4 I have to agree that her role as Sephora is unforgettable. I love this scene in the Ten Commandments where she basically sells Moses on the idea of choosing a shepherd girl for a wife...

After seeing The Munsters, I thought her comic timing was much stonger than her dramatic ability, and never understood why producers didn't recognize and utilize that more, earlier in her career.

In the original pilot Lily was played by Joan Marshall, but recast because she was too similar to Carolyn Jones.

Al Lewis said he and Fred Gwynne were dead set against De Carlo. We said to the producers "She was a bona fide movie star, she's not going to like this role, she won't fit in doing this sort of comedy parody." Then he added, "What can I say, we were wrong, very wrong."

R7 No surprise that Fred Gwynne's estate is balking, since, sadly, he was that cast's Robert Reed or Tina Louise. I'm sure it's Terry, the chilly widow, who's pissing on the fire.

But apparently Butch and Yvonne got along well, even later in life, so what could be the problem for her estate?

I'm still here.

The episode where she and Herman fall in love at the welding yard all over again is quite romantic!

A DL trifecta: Movie Star, The Munsters and Follies.

OMG that podcast You Must Remember This at r18 is unlistenable!

Yvonne De Carlo in Follies. She was about 50ish at this time.

How strange that after all those years co-starring in forgotten Universal B pictures, Yvonne was chosen by Cecil B de Mille to star in a pivotal role in The Ten Commandments, one of the biggest films of the decade.

Guess she aced the audition for C.B

I was going to get the role, but my future husband talked me out of it.

In his memoir, Frank Langella wrote of Yvonne giving him head in his dressing room during the filming of the television movie "The Mark of Zorro" in 1974.

I could play her in 30 or 40 years (with old age makeup). I’ll file this idea away for then. Dearest appreciation, OP.

R41 Yvonne's movies did consistently well at the box office and she starred with some big names. She was still a commodity and Cecil B. DeMille wanted her - she was just right for the role.

Talented but not as good as Nancy Reagan at giving head.

Mrs Michael Douglas @R46 you can only wish for Yvonne's striking grey eyes,

"I fucked Yvonne De Carlo"

Real name: Margaret Yvonne Middleton. They always changed their names back in the day.

De Carlo and Gable in Band Of Angels.

r7 By that time, anyone who'd be interested in reading it will be dead.

She certainly steamed up the screen dancing with a young pre stardom Tony Curtis in Criss Cross as Burt Lancaster looks on with deep longing.

She steamed up the screen because the director was the brilliant Robert Siodmak, who made some of the great noirs, including "The Killers," Burt's debut. The cutting in that sequence is masterful and recalls the orgiastic drumming scene in his "Phantom Lady." He had her keep her mouth shut and move her ass, which she did quite capably.

During Boston previews for FOLLIES, Yvonne was all over intern Ted Chapin until Dorothy Collins took her aside and told her to leave him alone.

Was Ted Chapin gay back then at the Colonial Theater in Boston?

[quote]But apparently Butch and Yvonne got along well, even later in life, so what could be the problem for her estate?

R33 Maybe they just want to be cut in.

Here's a recent Parade puff piece on Butch. His Wikipedia is interesting. He struggled with addiction most of his life, had a run-in with the law, got clean and then was diagnosed with prostate cancer. But it was caught early enough so the prognosis is good. Hang in there, buddy -- we wanna read your tell-all.

When we stayed at the Chelsea Pines Inn in New York in 1996 we were given the Yvonne DeCarlo room. Don't know if they still have rooms dedicated to stars of yesteryear. It was a great room. On the top floor at the back - very quiet.

She was married to stuntman Bob Morgan who was severely injured in 1962 in How the West was Won when during the filming of a gunfight that takes place on a moving railroad flatcar loaded with logs, one of the chains that held the logs snapped, and Morgan was crushed by the falling timber and lost a leg. It took him five years to recover from his injuries. John Wayne gave Yvonne de Carlo the work in McClintock because her husband's injuries left them in financial difficulties. He always employed Morgan on his later films as an extra or advisor as well. She took the role on the Munsters for the same reason, no money when her husband was severely injured. She must have liked stuntmen because in his autobiography "Bad" Chuck Roberson, another of the famed fifties and sixties stuntmen, the ones who invented the profession, described her as the love of his life.

She is that rare combination of exceptional beauty and great comedic timing. And she didn't have to stoop to slapstick to get a laugh.

Agreed. Aside from The Munsters, she was under appreciated for her comedic ability .

She put out an album with John Williams?

R63, what was she comedic in? Buccaneer Girl? Song of Scheherazade? The 10 Commandments?

She made a couple of comedies with Alec Guinness.

R67, "Munster Go Home"

Gave Rosalind Russell a run for her money!

On Joe Franklin...

R71 That interview ends just as it's about to get interesting.

[quote]"...and a few truck drivers, in between..."

Saucy wench!

In her 1987 memoir, she listed 22 of her lovers, who included Howard Hughes, Burt Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Aly Khan and an Iranian prince.

[quote] 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

aka 4351 Wisteria Lane. It remained a house of horror. Amongst others in the earlier seasons the two gay guys lived there.

I saw her in a tour of Hello, Dolly! back in the late 1960s and she was wonderful. Warm, engaging, fine voice and superb comic timing. She played the part with an Irish brogue (Dolly GALLAGHER Levi). I've seen the show many times since over the years and she's still one of my favorite Dollies. She did at least one tour and also played in several regional productions of the show.

It's been said she never sang I'm Still Here the same way twice.

That might be because she was famous for regularly going up the lyrics. It's a long song and she rarely made it all the way through without flubbing somewhere.

Thank you everyone for the trip down Memory Lane. Wow.

Does anyone believe Miss DeCarlo was brought on to be a new Hedy Lamar, Gene Tierney, Ava Gardener? She certainly had the looks and sultriness those 3 A-listers had.

Actually R86, she was brought to Universal after toiling as a bit player at Paramount to replace the increasingly tempermental and not all that talented Maria Montez. Yvonne's first picture for Universal, Salome where she danced, was pretty bad, but a hit, and Montez was pretty much shown the door at Universal.

Salome with those eyes...…..

Lady of leisure.

Maria Montez was no Magdalena Montezuma.

She fucked everyone in Hollywood and still wound up a C-list studio B-picture "star".

R91 Maybe she was somewhat less than, shall we say... discreet?

R86,no.

R93 Yvonne could easily hold her own with the other stunning beauties back in the day.

She liked dick.

ewwww

And, R95, dick reciprocated.

Yvonne, Charlton Heston and John Derek in The Ten Commandments.

I like the costume.

R98, did you read what Darwin Porter wrote about their hot three way?

The scenes between Heston and Derek in The Ten Commandments were intensely homoerotic.

I thought she was just stunning even as Lillian Munster..A simply gorgeous vampiress.

Foxstar doco on Yvonne (c. 2000), narrated by Peter Graves...

R103, thanks for that. My estimation of her increased. She was a real trooper.