Yvonne De Carlo (September 1, 1922 – January 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American film and television actress, best known for her role as "Lily Munster" on the 1964-1966 CBS television series The Munsters.
The daughter of an aspiring actress, Marie De Carlo, and a salesman, William Middleton, De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia. "I was named Margaret Yvonne - Margaret because my mother was very fond of one of the derivatives of the name. She was fascinated at the time by the movie star Baby Peggy, and I suppose she wanted a Baby Peggy of her own." Her maternal grandfather, Michael de Carlo, was Sicilian-born, and her maternal grandmother, Margaret Purvis, was Scottish-born. Her father abandoned her family when she was 3. As a teenager, “Peggy” was taken by her mother to Hollywood where she enrolled her in dancing school. Unable to find work, they returned to Canada. The pair made several such trips until 1940, when De Carlo was first runnerup to "Miss Venice Beach" and was hired as a showgirl at Florentine Gardens. She made her first film appearance in 1941, but could only find bit parts for the next few years.
She was a Paramount starlet, but the studio apparently signed her mainly for her slight resemblance to Dorothy Lamour, as it was common then for studios to sign lookalikes in order to remind the stars in question that they easily could be replaced should their behavior become difficult or their box-office appeal begin to wane. When she moved to Universal Studios, she was utilized as a B-movie version of Maria Montez, one of the studio's reigning divas.
Her break came in 1945 playing the title role in Salome, Where She Danced. Though not a critical success, it was a box office favorite, and De Carlo was hailed as an up-and-coming star. Of the role, she was less sure, saying of her entrance, "I came through these beaded curtains, wearing a Japanese kimono and a Japanese headpiece, and then performed a Siamese dance. Nobody seemed to know quite why."
In 1947 she played her first leading role in Slave Girl and then in 1949 had her biggest success. As the female lead opposite Burt Lancaster in Criss Cross, she played a femme fatale, and her career began to ascend. The 1957 film Band of Angels featured her opposite Clark Gable in an American Civil War story, along with Sidney Poitier and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
The actress worked steadily for the next several years, although many of the films failed to advance her career.
Cast in The Ten Commandments (1956) in a leading role (as Zipporah, also spelled Sephora, Moses' wife), De Carlo became part of a major hit. The film was a huge success and De Carlo was praised for her restrained work in an epic in which several other performances were considered somewhat over-the-top.
Her most famous role that led her to pop culture legacy is of Lily Munster in the cult television series The Munsters (1964-1966), which allowed De Carlo to demonstrate a comic flair that her films had failed to utilize. She also played Lily in the 1966 feature film Munster, Go Home and the 1981 TV movie The Munsters' Revenge.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Yvonne De Carlo was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6124 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 6715 Hollywood Blvd. for her contribution to television.
Trained in opera and a former chorister at St Paul's Anglican Church, Vancouver, when she was a child, De Carlo possessed a powerful contralto voice and released an LP of standards called Yvonne De Carlo Sings in 1957. This album was orchestrated by the movie composer John Williams. She sang and played the harp on at least one episode of The Munsters.
From 1967 onward she 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, performing 2 shows per night. But her defining stage role came with her big break on Broadway in the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies, which ran from February 1971 until July 1, 1972. Notable in the role of Carlotta Campion, she introduced the song "I'm Still Here". The show opened later in Los Angeles with the original Broadway cast on July 22, 1972, and closed 11 weeks later. She was the last lead female performer from the original production to die (having been predeceased by Alexis Smith, Dorothy Collins, Fifi D'Orsay, and Ethel Shutta).
She also received recognition for her work in various horror movies, spoofs and thrillers, such as The Power, The Seven Minutes, House of Shadows, Sorority House Murders, Cellar Dweller, The Man With Bogart's Face, Mirror, Mirror, Blazing Stewardesses, and American Gothic.
De Carlo circa 1979.
De Carlo's last-released big-screen appearance was as Aunt Rosa in the 1991 Sylvester Stallone comedy Oscar, directed by John Landis.
De Carlo also had a small cameo role on the Munsters TV movie remake "Here Come the Munsters" in 1995.
Her last TV movie appearance was as Norma, in the 1995 Disney remake of The Barefoot Executive, opposite Eddie Albert.
Her last TV interview appearance was on January 20, 2002 in a segment of Larry King Live which also featured Richard Hack, author of Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters.
She was married to the stuntman Robert Morgan from November, 1955 to June, 1974, when they divorced; they had two sons, Bruce and Michael. Morgan had a daughter, Bari, from a previous marriage. De Carlo was a naturalized citizen of the United States. In her autobiography, published in 1987, she listed 22 intimate friends, including Aly Khan, Billy Wilder, Burt Lancaster, Howard Hughes, Robert Stack and Robert Taylor.
Her son Michael died in 1997 as did her mother, Marie. De Carlo had a stroke the following year. Later, she moved to a home in the Black Lake retirement community near Solvang, California but in declining health, she then became a resident of the Motion Picture & Television Hospital, in Woodland Hills, California, where she spent her last years. There, on January 8, 2007, she died of natural causes. A memorial service was held a few days later at The Woodland Hills MGM Theater. She is survived by her son Bruce R. Morgan. She was cremated. Her ashes were either given to a friend or family.
