Remembering Yvonne De Carlo at 100 | Entertainment

A stunningly beautiful actress of the 1940s and ’50s, Yvonne de Carlo first rose to fame on the silver screen of classic cinema before finding her way into areas many major movie stars of the era never thought possible. He branched out and joined the cast of a 1960s sitcom.

Born 100 years ago in September in Vancouver, British Columbia, the actress’s name still conjures images of exotic Hollywood mystery women. She died in 2007, so it’s no wonder that Carlo was the perfect choice for her first lead role, the voluptuous Anna Her Marie, in 1945’s Salome She Danced.

In 2011, I asked Bruce Morgan to share some insights about his famous mother.

“I was probably in my early twenties and saw a movie that was shown in someone’s screening room,” recalls Morgan. “It was my mother, but I was very impressed with her early talent. She was only 22 when she made the film. She had complete control over herself.” was doing.”

Ten years later, in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 biblical epic The Ten Commandments, De Carlo continued to captivate audiences as the glamorous Sephora, the desert shepherd and wife of Moses (Charlton Heston). rice field.

Yvonne De Carlo’s rise to stardom began in various theaters and nightclubs across Canada before moving to Hollywood where she briefly worked as a dancer in the Gardens of Florence before working for several years as a film extra at Paramount. .

“Basically, the studio didn’t quite know what to do with her,” Morgan said. Her big break was imminent when DeMille considered her first lead role in The Story of Dr. Wassel (1944), but her contract fell through.

“DeMille turned to Yvonne and discovered her long before The Ten Commandments,” Morgan said.

De Carlo continued to act in films throughout his 50-year film career, appearing on the big screen with big stars such as Burt Lancaster, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Alec Guinness, Peter Ustinov and Rock Hudson.

She may have faded into oblivion for movie stars like Norma Desmond, but De Carlo reinvented herself in the 1960s by accepting the comedic role of TV’s Lily Munster. Did.

“Long before ‘The Munsters’ came out, my mom loved spooky people and enjoyed spooky movies,” Morgan explained. “She loved Dracula so much I had to laugh when she played the role of Lily Munster because something was supposed to happen. She also starred in the hit TV series She knew what it meant to appear on Fame, she said, “It made me hot again!”

But De Carlo wasn’t the first choice for the pale but charming, misfit Monster TV mom.

“That was Joan Marshall,” Morgan said. “She was good, but she looked too much like Carolyn Jones from The Addams Family. was told.”

But aside from the “normal” looking daughter Marilyn Munster (played by Pat Priest, who took over the role from Beverly Owen midway through the first season), the series isn’t your typical sitcom. Far from it, the rest of the cast portrayed creepy family but harmless monster-like characters.

Preparing for a shoot was hard work for the actors, and Morgan remembers escorting his mother to the studio in the early hours of darkness.

“I was watching Abe Haberman spend the requisite three to five hours doing her makeup with all the base makeup and highlights designed for a black and white shoot,” he recalled. “The make-up was green and blue and was designed for the panchromatic film that was used. Green was not the same as blue because black-and-white films see color as shades of grey.” I thought it was a TV show.The set was done right and the number of mechanical effects per show was amazing.It was not an easy series.

“The Munsters” was a CBS hit, and even behind the heavy-duty layers of makeup, De Carlo’s star status continued to shine. And while she spent most of her career in movies, like many others who had success on popular sitcoms in the ’60s, she forever identified with her character on one TV. will be

Morgan believes her mother’s acting career was also inevitable. One of his reasons, he says, is because his grandmother described herself as “a frustrated performer and dancer who transferred that ambition to her daughter.” But I also remember his mother describing a trip to California in 1932 when she visited the main library in downtown Los Angeles when he was ten years old.

“I had a feeling she was going to be famous one day,” he recalls. “Whether she was real or imagined, she was endeared for her sense of destiny.”

This interview with Bruce Morgan is an edited summary of Nick Thomas’ book Raised by the Stars. Thomas teaches at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama and has written feature articles, columns and interviews for many magazines and newspapers. See www.getnicckt.org.