- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMargaret Yvonne Middleton
- Nicknames
- Peggy
- Technicolor Queen of Hollywood
- The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
- Queen of Technicolor
- Height5′ 4¼″ (1.63 m)
- Yvonne De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was three when her father abandoned the family. Her mother turned to waitressing in a restaurant to make ends meet--a rough beginning for an actress who would, one day, be one of Hollywood's elite. Yvonne's mother wanted her to be in the entertainment field and enrolled her in a local dance school and also saw that she studied dramatics. Yvonne was not shy in the least. She was somewhat akin to Colleen Moore who, like herself, entertained the neighborhood with impromptu productions. In 1937, when Yvonne was 15, her mother took her to Hollywood to try for fame and fortune, but nothing came of it and they returned to Canada. They came back to Hollywood in 1940, where Yvonne would dance in chorus lines at night while she checked in at the studios by day in search of film work. After appearing in unbilled parts in three short films, she finally got a part in a feature.
Although the film Harvard, Here I Come! (1941) was quite lame, Yvonne glowed in her brief appearance as a bathing beauty. The rest of 1942 and 1943 saw her in more uncredited roles in films that did not quite set Hollywood on fire. In The Deerslayer (1943), she played Wah-Tah. The role did not amount to much, but it was much better than the ones she had been handed previously. The next year was about the same as the previous two years. She played small parts as either secretaries, someone's girlfriend, native girls or office clerks. Most aspiring young actresses would have given up and gone home in defeat, but not Yvonne. She trudged on. The next year, started out the same, with mostly bit parts, but later that year, she landed the title role in Salome, Where She Danced (1945) for Universal Pictures. While critics were less than thrilled with the film, it was at long last her big break, and the film was a success for Universal. Now she was rolling.
Her next film was the western comedy Frontier Gal (1945) as Lorena Dumont. After a year off the screen in 1946, she returned in 1947 as Cara de Talavera in Song of Scheherazade (1947), and many agreed that the only thing worth watching in the film was Yvonne. Her next film was the highly regarded Burt Lancaster prison film Brute Force (1947). Time after time, Yvonne continued to pick up leading roles, in such pictures as Slave Girl (1947), Black Bart (1948), Casbah (1948) and River Lady (1948). She had a meaty role in Criss Cross (1949), a gangster movie, as the ex-wife of a hoodlum. At the start of the 1950s, Yvonne enjoyed continued success in lead roles. Her talents were again showcased in movies such as The Desert Hawk (1950), Silver City (1951) and Scarlet Angel (1952). Her last film in 1952 was Hurricane Smith (1952), a picture most fans and critics agree is best forgotten.
In 1956, she appeared in the film that would immortalize her best, The Ten Commandments (1956). She played Sephora, the wife of Moses (Charlton Heston). The film was, unquestionably, a super smash, and is still shown on television today. Her performance served as a springboard to another fine role, this time as Amantha Starr in Band of Angels (1957). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Yvonne appeared on such television series as Bonanza (1959) and The Virginian (1962). With film roles drying up, she took the role of Lily Munster in the smash series The Munsters (1964). However, she still was not completely through with the big screen. Appearances in such films as McLintock! (1963), The Power (1968), The Seven Minutes (1971) and La casa de las sombras (1976) kept her before the eyes of the movie-going public. Yvonne De Carlo died at age 84 of natural causes on January 8, 2007 in Woodland Hills, California.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Denny Jackson
- SpouseBob Morgan(November 21, 1955 - June 1974) (divorced, 2 children)
- ChildrenMichael MorganBruce Morgan
- ParentsMarie De CarloWilliam Shelto Middleton
- RelativesMichele "Michael" De Carlo(Grandparent)Margaret Purvis(Grandparent)
- Her portrayals of affectionate, devoted wives in The Ten Commandments (1956) and The Munsters (1964)
- Long dark chestnut hair
- Blue-gray eyes, which sparkle in her Technicolor films
- Deep sultry voice
- In the early part of her career, she often portrayed exotic roles (saloon singers, desert princesses, pirate women, etc.)
- Took the role of Lily Munster on The Munsters (1964) to help pay husband Bob Morgan's medical bills. Morgan, an actor and stuntman, had suffered near-fatal injuries while filming How the West Was Won (1962). By her own admission, De Carlo never imagined, at the time, that the show would become such a hit. She also had mixed feelings about the show; she was grateful it returned her to the spotlight but felt its popularity tended to overshadow the rest of her career.
- Regarded The Ten Commandments (1956) as her best film. She was nominated for the Laurel Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. In her autobiography and in a book about the film, she said that it is a timeless film that her descendants will see.
- She was greatly admired by Italian actress Sophia Loren, who grew up watching De Carlo's early films. In 1965, Loren told columnist Dick Kleiner: "Particularly I loved Yvonne De Carlo - she was my favorite [actress]. Others too, like Rita Hayworth, but I used to dream I was Yvonne De Carlo. And I liked that little one - what was her name? - June Allyson, too. But for me there was only one Yvonne De Carlo". At the 1954 Berlin Film Festival, De Carlo and Loren posed for a photograph with Gina Lollobrigida.
- In her final years, she resided at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital.
- Eva Perón, First Lady of Argentina from 1946 to 1952, was a great fan of hers. According to De Carlo's autobiography, Perón told the Hollywood film star that she enjoyed every one of her movies and that her favorite was Buccaneer's Girl (1950). Perón also said that she wanted De Carlo to portray her in a biopic. Before De Carlo left Argentina, Perón gave her a copy of her autobiography in which she inscribed: "A remembrance of your passing through Argentina, with my gratitude for your kindness toward me. With my best wishes for your happiness always and a big hug - Eva Perón".
- I was on cloud nine all the time. After I made my hit in Salome, Where She Danced (1945), Universal sent me to New York so I could learn to be a proper movie star. I lived at the Sherry-Netherland for two months and I went to the John Robert Powers school. They taught me things like how to walk off a New York curb and how to enter a room in a manner befitting a big-time movie star.
- 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.
- [on The Munsters (1964)] It meant security. It gave me a new, young audience I wouldn't have had otherwise. It made me "hot" again, which I wasn't for a while.
- [on Howard Hughes] A man came over... he said "Mr. Hughes would like to meet you." Well, I was not too much aware of Mr. Hughes at the time - who he was or anything. So, I said, "Oh, yes, fine." And so I looked and I thought, "Wow, this would be a terrific boyfriend for my aunt."
- [on one of her scenes in Salome, Where She Danced (1945)] 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.
- Satan's Cheerleaders (1977) - $25,000
- The Ten Commandments (1956) - $25,000
- Casbah (1948) - $25 .000
- Harvard, Here I Come! (1941) - $35
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