The quintessential exotic beauty of form and pulchritude Yvonne De Carlo passes at the age of 84 on Wednesday. Most of the Bushido's readers will remember Ms. De Carlo as the ghoulish matriarch, of equal parts brain and beauty, Lilly Munster the perfect balance to the square-headed, accidentally destructive Herman Munster on the 60's television show "The Munsters". The show only aired for two years (1964-1966) but the two spin-off movies and Nickelodeon syndication kept De Carlo a significant part of the pubescent-male's coming of age for generations.
Ms. De Carlo was born Peggy Yvonne Middleton (Sept. 1, 1922) in Vancouver, B.C. She moved
to L.A. and signed with Paramount Pictures in 1942, where her exotic appeal type-casted her into the "sex and sand" genre of films (i.e. "Slave Girl", "Scheherazade" and "Casbah") After rocking the "Casbah", De Carlo was cast as Moses' (Charlton Heston) wife, Sephora in "The Ten Commandments". In 1954, she became the first American film star to cross the pond and star in a foreign-film, "La Castiglione" where she disproved the sterotypes of Americans and spoke perfect French. De Carlo's unique voice gave her an easy cross-over to the stage, starring in Steven Sondheim's Tony Award winning play, "Follies".
Ms. De Carlo was born Peggy Yvonne Middleton (Sept. 1, 1922) in Vancouver, B.C. She moved
to L.A. and signed with Paramount Pictures in 1942, where her exotic appeal type-casted her into the "sex and sand" genre of films (i.e. "Slave Girl", "Scheherazade" and "Casbah") After rocking the "Casbah", De Carlo was cast as Moses' (Charlton Heston) wife, Sephora in "The Ten Commandments". In 1954, she became the first American film star to cross the pond and star in a foreign-film, "La Castiglione" where she disproved the sterotypes of Americans and spoke perfect French. De Carlo's unique voice gave her an easy cross-over to the stage, starring in Steven Sondheim's Tony Award winning play, "Follies". 
De Carlo was connected to such heart-throbs and titans of Hollywood as Burt Lancaster, Howard Hughes and Robert Stack. The starlet was the "belle of the ball" in her day, as I so embarrassingly found with an audience of females in my office as the first photo displayed on a Google Image search is quit revealing. The link takes you to the aforementioned search, I hope you picked up on my caveat. In the play, "Follies" she belted out a memorable performance of "I am still here", Yvonne, we wish you were, RIP!(Photos from Voltini.com)
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