Monday, September 1, 2008
Lily of the Valley
MISS YVONNE DE CARLO
(September 1, 1922 - January 8, 2007)
She began her career as a sloe-eyed vamp, then someone's mother (Moses was her babies' daddy in 1956's The Ten Commandments), then she was camp (TV's The Munsters, 1964-1966). But through it all, Yvonne De Carlo was a spectacular beauty and exuded the aura of stardom, even if top-level stardom eluded her. In 1971, her movie and television stardom well behind her, Yvonne made her Broadway debut with a knowing performance as a former glamour queen in Stephen Sondheim's Follies (1971). She introduced the immortal "I'm Still Here," and won rave reviews. In her later years, television interviews revealed Yvonne De Carlo as a warm, witty, funny lady who obviously relished the colorful life she led. She passed away of natural causes in 2007. To a truly glamorous star, we say Happy Birthday, Yvonne De Carlo!
What was the name of that movie where she played a mixed-race girl in New Orleans?
ReplyDelete"Band of Angels" (1957) with Clark Gable.
ReplyDeleteMixed-race...now I'm thinking of a truly AWFUL film starring Julie London (!) as a mulatto (!!) marrying into San Francisco society, with Agnes Moorehead (!!!) as her racist gorgon of a mother-in-law, "Night of the Quarter Moon."