Ghouls on Film

Yvonne De Carlo, creepiest mom on the block?

Once billed as “the world’s most beautiful woman,” Yvonne De Carlo became one of the first Scream Queens of both the silver and the small screen.  Born on September 1, 1922, De Carlo was typecast by Paramount and later Universal as an “exotic” type during Hollywood’s studio days in the 1940s. By 1964, however, the Canadian actress stepped back from spotlight to care for then-husband, Hollywood stuntman Bob Morgan and their three children.  Depressed and in debt, Yvonne was sacked with medical bills resulting from her husband’s career-ending injury when he lost a leg due to a stunt gone wrong on the set of “How the West Was Won.” Things would change that year for De Carlo when she took on the role of monster matriarch, Lily, on the 1960s TV series, “The Munsters.”

Actress Joan Marshall who starred as “Phoebe” (later renamed “Lily”) in the pilot episode was nixed from “The Munsters” cast and Yvonne De Carlo stepped into the role.  The series only ran for two years and spawned two movies, but the role of the sweet, yet sensible vampiress Lily introduced Yvonne to a new, younger audience and reignited her career.

Not entirely unrecognizable from her full-tilt glam studio days, Yvonne wore green makeup and a long, black fright wig with a silver streak as the wife of Frankenstein’s monster-esque Herman Munster.  In a way, (along with Carolyn Jones as Morticia on “The Addams Family,” which also ran from 1964-66) Yvonne De Carlo’s Lily may have helped to spawn early goth chic, introducing long black hair, flowing empire-waisted gowns, and bat necklaces to the mainstream public.

De Carlo's Killer Ride

De Carlo relished the role, going so far as to have her black 1966 Jaguar sedan tricked out by Hollywood customizer George Barris with spiderweb hubcaps, gold coffin rails in place of a luggage rack, and coffin-shaped door handles.  The pièce de résistance?  The traditional Jaguar hood ornament was replaced with a brass wolf’s head with gleaming ruby eyes.

During the later years of her career, Yvonne used her Scream Queen status granted by “The Munsters” to propel her career towards a second wind in B-horror movies to help pay the bills.  Quite often, she was cast in the role of a seemingly innocuous housewife. Lurking beneath the surface of her famous, sparkling gray eyes, Yvonne’s characters harbored a startlingly evil nature, capable of killing someone in cold blood.

In 1977’s “Satan’s Cheerleaders,” she played Emma Bub, wife to John Ireland’s archetypal Sheriff Bub. In the film, the Bubs (Get it?! BeelzeBUB?!) are high-ranking members of a Satanic cult who intend to offer up the bus load of stranded, scantily clad cheerleaders.

Still can't look at Grant Wood's picture the same way.

A decade later, she played the role of Ma opposite Rod Steiger’s Pa in “American Gothic” as the overly-religious parents of a brood of homicidal, mentally challenged middle-aged “kids” residing on a rural island. As an intrusive tribe of yuppies invade their island when their charter plane crashes, Ma and Pa deliver some fatal ass-whoopings “in the name of God” to the remaining visitors that “the kids” didn’t already kill.  Initially coming across as a homily-spouting, homespun housewife shoving heapin’ helpings of hospitality to company, Yvonne hammed it up, dishing lines like “Don’t you want to be a member of the Clean Plate Club?” Later is becomes clear that she’s a mixture of sweet and sinister when she tells her horrified guests about how she and Pa made some unwanted trespassers into “big dollies” in their basement.

In 1980’s “Silent Scream,” De Carlo starred alongside another original Scream Queen, the legendary Barbara Steele (in a thoroughly wasted, non-speaking performance).  As a boarding house matron to a bunch of smarmy college kids, Yvonne plays Mrs. Engels, a woman who houses her crazy daughter (Steele) in the attic and savagely kills off the little bastards.  It’s actually a mercy killing for the audience since none of the characters are particularly sympathetic and none of the actors are very good.

Not always a happy n’ horrible housewife, in “Play Dead” (a 1985 Troma film — which means you know you’re in for a camptastic treat!), Yvonne got a chance to be glamorous and evil as the wealthy, beautiful and bitter spinster, Aunt Hester.  The real kicker is that Aunt Hester uses a cuddly Satanic Rottweiler named Greta to systematically kill off the offspring of her younger sister who stole the love of her life.  She alternates between playing a seemingly caring, doting aunt to her dunderhead kin and secretly plotting their demise.  As per any Troma film, the ends Hester sentences her relatives to are completely ridiculous. She’s helped by a pooch trained to carry out her lethal agendas — including teaching the dog to fetch and pour liquid Draino into an unsuspecting victim’s cup of tea.

Yvonne even got a chance to play the role of a calculating cougar in 1983’s “Vultures.” De Carlo is only in a third of this flick, but boy, does she pack a wallop. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Lily Munster drop the f-bomb, her utterance of one line involving not being able to boink and think at the same time makes this otherwise terrible film worth watching. Right out of the gate, Yvonne’s 50-something cougar is seen sharing a bed with a strapping young stud.  For the rest of the time she is in the movie, De Carlo’s character boozes and cusses her way through the film until she is mowed down by a car.

However, my favorite of Yvonne De Carlo’s horror/comedy character creations was her character, Jugula, in the awesomely awful vampire-disco movie, “Nocturna.”  Sweet and motherly with a bit of added “bite,” Yvonne’s appearance lent some much-needed credibility to the 1978 vanity project under the writing and direction of belly dancer Nai Bonet (who stars in the title role of Dracula’s disco-loving granddaughter).  As Jugula, the former paramour of an aged Dracula, Yvonne reunited with her occasional “Munsters” co-star, John Carradine.  Along with Carradine and Brother Theodore, De Carlo is one of the film’s few bright spots as she alternates between genuinely caring friend to Nocturna and vampiric seductress, bent on getting back her coffin-bound stud muffin.

De Carlo starred in several other horror (and non-horror) films and parlayed her career renaissance into a brief stint on Broadway as a member of the original cast of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.”  She retired from film in 1995 and passed away at the age of 84 in 2007.  Nevertheless, Yvonne De Carlo lives on in syndication in the role that made her a star all over again and gave creepy kids everywhere a macabre monster mommy to look towards.