Canadian gothic

Today would have been the 90th birthday of the luminously beautiful Miss Yvonne De Carlo, probably (to her detriment) best remembered for her role as "Lily" in The Munsters ("They told me to play her just like Donna Reed").

She was, of course, a far wider-reaching talent than that, and in a seven-decade career not only starred on the big screen alongside such luminaries as John Wayne, Clark Gable, Maureen O'Hara, Alec Gunness, Charlton Heston, Vincent Price and Yul Brynner, but also had a long stage and musical career - she sang in operatic productions such as Strauss's Die Fledermaus, and was the very first "Carlotta Campion" in Sondhem's Follies ("He wrote it for me, just for me!", she said). Miss De Carlo premiered the standard I'm Still Here:

Yvonne de Carlo - I'm Still Here

In 1957 she released an LP of standards called Yvonne De Carlo Sings (unsurprisingly, we are proud possessors of a copy in our extensive collection), including such joys as But Not For Me and One For My Baby. She could also play the "vamp" - and as treat, here she is singing Monsieur, You Have But To Say The Word (not quite a "standard" admittedly) in the film Buccaneer's Girl:

Yvonne de Carlo - Monsieur, You Have But To Say The Word

Facts about Yvonne De Carlo:

• She was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, Canada, and nicknamed 'Peggy'.
• Apparently she was the illegitimate child of her mother's affair with a New Zealand Maori.
• One of her earliest roles was as as a hula dancer in the stage revue Waikiki.
• She was supposedly signed to Paramount in the 1940s due to her slight resemblance to Dorothy Lamour.
• Her lovers allegedly included Howard Hughes, Burt Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Taylor, Billy Wilder, Aly Khan and an Iranian prince.
• In Buccaneer's Girl above, Miss De Carlo (Lily Munster) was musically directed by none other than the marvellous Elsa Lanchester (The Bride of Frankenstein)!

Yvonne De Carlo (1st September 1922 - 8th January 2007)