Yvonne De Carlo

Yvonne De Carlo

CountryCanada Canada
GenderFemale
BirthdaySep 1, 1922
Death2007-01-08
BiographyMargaret Yvonne Middleton (September 1, 1922 – January 8, 2007), known professionally as Yvonne De Carlo, was a Canadian-American actress, dancer and singer. She became a Hollywood film star and sex symbol in the 1940s and 1950s, made several musical recordings, and later acted on television and stage.

De Carlo was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was enrolled in a local dance school by her mother when she was three. By the early 1940s, she and her mother had moved to Los Angeles, where De Carlo entered beauty contests and worked as a dancer in nightclubs. In 1942, she signed a three-year contract with Paramount Pictures, where she got uncredited bit parts in important films. Her first lead was for producer E.B. Derr in the 1943 James Fenimore Cooper adventure Deerslayer.

She obtained her breakthrough role in Salome, Where She Danced (1945), a Universal Pictures release produced by Walter Wanger, who described her as "the most beautiful girl in the world." The film's publicity and success turned her into a star, and she signed a five-year contract with Universal. Universal starred her in its lavish Technicolor productions, such as Frontier Gal (1945), Song of Scheherazade (1947), and Slave Girl (1947). Cameramen voted her "Queen of Technicolor" three years in a row. Tired of being typecast as exotic women, she made her first serious dramatic performances in two film noirs, Brute Force (1947) and Criss Cross (1949).

The first Canadian film star to visit Israel, De Carlo received further recognition as an actress for her leading performances in the British comedies Hotel Sahara (1951), The Captain's Paradise (1953), and Happy Ever After (1954). Her career reached its peak when eminent producer-director Cecil B. DeMille cast her as Moses' Midianite wife, Sephora, in his biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956). For this role, she won a Laurel Award for Topliner Supporting Actress. Her success continued with other notable starring roles in Flame of the Islands (1956), Death of a Scoundrel (1956), Raw Edge (1956), Band of Angels (1957), and The Sword and the Cross (1958), in which she portrayed Mary Magdalene.

She starred in the CBS sitcom The Munsters (1964–1966), playing Herman Munster's glamorous ghoulish wife, Lily, a role she reprised in the feature film Munster, Go Home! (1966) and the TV film The Munsters' Revenge (1981). In 1971, she played Carlotta Campion and introduced the popular song "I'm Still Here" in the Broadway production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies. Yvonne, her best-selling autobiography, was published in 1987. A stroke survivor, De Carlo died of heart failure in 2007. She was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to motion pictures and television.

Biography from the Wikipedia article Yvonne De Carlo. Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
In the Eye of the Storm
Running

In the Eye of the Storm

In the Eye of the Storm Megastorms like 2021's Hurricane Ida and the 2023 Maui Wildfires were captured by onlookers who found themselves in the wrong place at the right time and boldly held up their camera phones to document their experiences. 

Beat Shazam
Running

Beat Shazam

Beat Shazam is a unique and interactive game show in which teams of two race against the clock and each other as they attempt to identify the biggest hit songs of all time. In the end, the team with the highest score will outlast the competition and go against Shazam, the world's most popular song identification app, for the chance to win a cash prize.

GenreMusic
Beyond the Gates
Running

Beyond the Gates

Beyond the Gates is set in a leafy Maryland suburb just outside of Washington D.C., and in one the most affluent African American counties in the United States. Here you'll find a posh gated community with winding tree-lined streets and luxurious mansions to call home. At the center of this community are the Duprees, a powerful and prestigious multi-generational family that is the very definition of Black royalty. But behind these pristine walls and lush, manicured gardens are juicy secrets and scandals waiting to be uncovered. And those that live outside these gates are watching closely. These are the places where our characters live, love, work and play. Those who have "made it" and those who haven't are all trying to navigate life … and some with more grace than others.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Running

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Set thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, this epic drama follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.

Survivor
Running

Survivor

Eighteen to twenty castaways will compete against each other on Survivor. All castaways will compete to outwit, outplay, outlast and ultimately be crowned Sole Survivor.