First you’re another
Sloe-eyed vamp,
Then someone’s mother,
Then you’re camp.
Then you career from career
To career.
I’m almost through my memoirs.
And I’m here.
These were the lyrics inspired and sung by Yvonne De Carlo from Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.” Never have they been truer. NBC announced Portia de Rossi will become the iconic Lily Munster in the re-make of that cult classic and beloved 60s sitcom “The Munsters”. Jerry O’Connell will play Herman Munster and Eddie Izzard is set to play a revamped Grandpa.
Before the “The Munsters” in 1964, Yvonne De Carlo appeared in 
dozens of films, TV and Broadway. Born in Canada in 1922, Yvonne was 15, when her mother took her to Hollywood but nothing happened. Returning back in 1940, she danced in chorus lines until, Harvard, Here I Come! (1941). It took until Salome Where She Danced (1945) for Hollywood to notice. Frontier Gal (1945), Song of Scheherazade (1947), Brute Force with Burt Lancaster (1947) and many more followed. She is well known for The Ten Commandments (1956) with (Charlton Heston), Band of Angels with Clark Gable (1957) and a supporting role in “McLintock!” (1963) would prove one of De Carlo’s most enduring screen appearances.
In TV programs “Bonanza” (1959) and “The Virginian” (1962) and that smash series “The Munsters” (1964), paid the bills and made her the television’s most recognizable star.
Little known fact: De Carlo was a singer with a powerhouse contralto voice. In 1951 she was cast in the role of Prince Orlovsky in the opera Die Fledermaus at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1957 she released an LP of standards called Yvonne De Carlo Sings orchestrated by the film composer John Williams. She sang and played the harp on “The Munsters.” Starting in 1967 she appearing in off-Broadway productions of Pal Joey and Catch Me If You Can (not to be confused with the 2002 movie, or the 2009/2011 musical). In early 1968 she joined Donald O’Connor in Little Me staged between Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas. It was in 1971, Broadway called, and in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies, as “Carlotta Campion” she introduced the song “I’m Still Here.”
To learn more her self titled book Yvonne: An Autobiography, in 1987. On January 8, 2007, we lost the beautiful and extremely talented Miss De Carlo at the age of 84.
Posted by Suzanna Bowling
on June 14, 2012. Filed under ENTERTAIMENT,Theatre,TV.
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