There were a lot of talented and attractive actresses back in the day and the stunning Yvonne De Carlo was definitely one of them.
She catapulted to fame through starring in the CBS sitcom The Munsters, only for a tragic accident to suddenly halt her career.
The legendary Yvonne De Carlo was a sultry and versatile actress with a movie career spanning over six decades. Born in 1922, she’s definitely one of the most prominent celebrities to come out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
As a young girl, De Carlo was abandoned by her father. She was raised by her mother in poor circumstances – but she always knew that she wanted to be an actress, and De Carlo wrote her own plays as a 13-year-old. During her time in Hollywood, the blue-eyed brunette proved that she was the real deal – she could do it all. It wasn’t just the fact that her beauty was overwhelming, De Carlo seemed to be a very down-to-earth lady as well.
Her career in movies and television is a testimony to her strength of character and determination. Among many other things, she played Moses’ wife in the epic film The Ten Commandments – though she’s best known for her role on the tv series The Munsters.
No one could have played Lily Munster better than De Carlo – she really nailed the role of a vampire in the monster sitcom. To this day, many of us can still remember the famous line when Lily, the matriarch of the monster family, says, “I’ve never heard of anything so outrageous in all my LIVES!”
The show propelled Yvonne De Carlo towards TV stardom – the role defined her career, and she gained a whole new generation of fans. It could even be said that The Munsters actually renewed De Carlos’s career. She had a good run in Tinseltown even before the show – she was often called the most beautiful girl in the world, and the audience loved her.
But the truth is that De Carlo’s star quality had begun to fade around the time she was cast in the monster sitcom. The Canadian-American actress had turned 42 when she was offered the role of Lily. And no one could have guessed that The Munsters would be hailed as one of the best television series of all time.
“It meant security,” De Carlo later said. “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.”
“But I never estimated it would become this cult thing. It took two hours of makeup to make me seem like that. It ran for two huge seasons, then CBS quarreled with the creators about reruns as we got canceled. A movie in color in 1966 [‘Munster, Go Home!’] showed off everything in reds and greens on my face. Boy, was I ugly.”
After The Munsters, De Carlo continued to appear both in TV series and on stage. As one of the most respected actresses in the business, she had fans in every generation and no problem finding new and exciting projects.
Unfortunately, De Carlo had a pretty tough time of things during the last years of her life. It all goes back to when the actress met stuntman Robert ”Bob” Morgan on set in 1955.
The couple obviously had some chemistry, but Morgan was married at the time and Yvonne didn’t want to take things further. According to herself, she had ”no intention of causing that marriage to break up.”
Her husband lost his leg
When Morgan’s wife died, he and De Carlo met again on the set of The Ten Commandments in Egypt. They fell in love, got married, and had two sons together, Bruce Ross and Michael.
But living with a stuntman and daredevil came with a price. Morgan and De Carlo struggled to make their marriage work, but everything changed when the former was hit by a moving log train while shooting the 1962 movie How the West Was Won.
The accident cost Morgan his leg. He almost died performing the stunt, and the traumatic experience would affect the whole family. After the incident, medical bills piled up and De Carlo worked extremely hard to support her family. Yvonne, who had basically retired from acting by that point, had to go back to work to pay the bills.
“Before the accident, we were on the verge of breaking up, but when they took me to the hospital I just choked up and only one thought filled my mind: I don’t want my husband to die,” she said.
The Hollywood couple stayed together until 1973.
Losing her son
Sadly, De Carlo would once again have to face unimaginable tragedy. In 1997, her son Michael died at age 39. According to his brother, Michael died of brain damage from a stroke.
Her son’s death was a heavy blow for De Carlo. She made her last film in 1995, and after her son’s death never returned to the entertainment industry. She herself suffered a minor stroke in 1998.
According to her other son, Bob Ross, the stroke resulted from the stress and grief De Carlo felt over Michael’s passing.
“It just preyed on her mind to the point that she had a stroke the following year,” James Bawden, a former TV columnist for the Toronto Star, said.
“All she would talk about was her son.”
Yvonne De Carlo cause of death
Yvonne De Carlo passed away in January 2007 at age 84. During the last years of her life, she lived in a semi-retirement home near Solvang, north of Santa Barbara.
Her cause of death was heart failure.
“I think she will best remembered as the definitive Lily Munster. She was the vampire mom to millions of baby boomers. In that sense, she’s iconic,” her longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said at the time.
“But it would be a shame if that’s the only way she is remembered. She was also one of the biggest beauty queens of the ’40s and ’50s, one of the most beautiful women in the world. This was one of the great glamour queens of Hollywood, one of the last ones.”
Yvonne De Carlo is just pure legendary! She is what acting is all about and managed to reinvent herself all the time.
No matter her role, she was always on top of her game and portrayed her character in the most elegant and believable fashion. Rest in Peace!
Older Mom Who Became Homeless Due to 3 Sons Cries When Lawyer Says She Gets $1M Mansion — Story of the Day
Rose, who once lived a life of joy and luxury in her family mansion, was now living on the street, thanks to the greed of her three sons. But soon, she would get a phone call that would end her misery…
To everyone who passed by the Roy Mansion, the exquisite six-bedroom house was nothing short of a dream.
On the outside, people posed in front of its majestic weathered gates and took pictures to share on social media. But on the inside was a heartbreaking story of love, loss, and greed.
Love, because it was the mansion that a rich young man had built for the love of his life almost four decades ago and raised a family of three boys and a girl with her…
Loss, because it was within those walls that the fairytale love story came to an abrupt end when the man succumbed to an illness, breathing his last in the arms of the woman he loved…
And greed, because the three sons that were once the center of their parents’ universe had manipulated and kicked their old widowed mother out because she refused to sell the house.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Getty Images
Rose was that 63-year-old widow who had lost everything – the only man she ever loved, the only home she ever knew, and the love of her three stubborn sons, Don, David, and Daniel.
While the three young men patted their own backs for finally selling that old relic of a house and buying three spectacular modern houses for themselves with their share of the money, they had conveniently cut out their elderly mother from the picture.
Their sister Debbie got a share, too. But she was away in some disease-ridden corner of the earth, trying to come up with a cure for some new illness nobody had heard of.
“Who cares? Debbie could donate her share to some worthless charity for all I care!” Don said on a conference call with his brothers.
“Yeah! And Mom will be all right, too. It’s not like she’s going to beg on the streets. The woman is smarter than that!” David chuckled.
“It had to be done, brothers! Mom was going to make us wait for an eternity to get our share…” Daniel, the eldest, had the last word.
Meanwhile, Rose was now in a sketchy part of the city, just another sad, desperate face in the line of homeless people outside an infamous park.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Getty Images
She had left her home with almost nothing, except for Raymond’s oldest car. She often slept in the backseat, squeezing her tall frame to fit in the narrow space.
“Oh, Raymond!” Rose sighed, looking up through the car window to the heavens. “This is what it all has come to! I’m glad you’re not here to see this; it would break your sweet heart. Wait for me, Ray. I’ll be joining you soon, wherever you are, honey…until then, I’ll rest…”
Amidst all the unbearable grief and pain, there was a small part of her that felt relief in giving up.
After all, Rose had never really had a moment of respite ever since Raymond had died, leaving her to fend for four children, all under the age of ten.
It had been a long, arduous journey bringing up the kids. But it had also been a fulfilling one. After Raymond’s death, Rose worked two jobs for several years, saving every penny she could for their education and future.
And it paid off as all four of them turned out to be successful in their own fields.
“They scammed you, and now they’ll know what that feels like!” Debbie said and brought out a small gift case for her mother.
But their professional accomplishments no longer impressed Rose because she had now seen the harsh truth: her sons had failed at being good human beings.
They had betrayed the woman who single-handedly raised them and left her with a laughable amount of change, not enough to even buy an old trailer.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Getty Images
Days turned into weeks until it had almost been a month into Rose’s life on the street. She didn’t complain once – because even on the street, her kindness and sense of humor had managed to make her some incredible friends.
Still, there were only two people she kept thinking of: her husband Raymond and her daughter Debbie.
Debbie had left home at the tender age of 18, hoping to earn money for the family. Life surrounded her with helpful people who noticed her potential, and several years later, she became a highly respected medical researcher.
“I’m so proud of our girl, Raymond! I worry for her. Watch over her for me, will you? Find a way to tell her I’m all right, and I love her,” Rose spoke to her husband in her heart, before bursting into tears.
Little did the elderly woman know that just one week later, she would be standing face to face with her daughter, hugging her like they had never parted.
At first, she didn’t recognize the elegant woman in the classy suit getting out of the chic black car that had pulled up in the abandoned parking lot.
But when the woman’s eyes landed on Rose, the childlike joy on that beautiful young face was unmistakable.
“Debbie! Darling! Am I dreaming?” Rose was dizzy with emotion as her daughter hugged her tight.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Getty Images
“Mom, I’m here now. It’s all going to be okay,” Debbie sobbed for her mother, who was a frail shadow of what she used to be.
It turned out that a kind old neighbor had recently called Debbie in the middle of the night and told her about what her brothers had done to their mom.
“He also said he had seen you eating leftovers in the backseat of dad’s old red car.”
“My heart sank, and I jumped onto the next plane to find you and meet you,” Debbie cried, holding her mother.
That afternoon, Debbie and Rose sat in a hotel room and spoke for hours. After reminiscing about the good old days, Debbie cleared her throat. It was time to reveal the big news to mother.
“Mom, what Don, David, and Daniel have done to you is unforgivable. And as their eldest sister, I decided to put them in their place!” Debbie sounded determined and confident.
Debbie insisted on taking Rose to “a special place.” An hour-long drive later, mother and daughter were standing in front of the old mansion, admiring its beauty.
“Too bad it’s sold, sweetheart,” Rose said, wiping her tears.
“I know. Because I bought it!” Debbie said calmly.
Rose couldn’t believe her ears.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Getty Images
She listened as her kind daughter explained how she spent all her savings on buying back the house without revealing to her brothers who she was.
“They scammed you, and now they’ll know what that feels like!” Debbie said and brought out a small gift case for her mother.
When Rose opened the box, she didn’t expect to see the keys to the old house. “It even has the same old keychain on it, look!”
A week of paperwork later, Rose finally got a call from her daughter’s lawyer. “You are now the sole owner of this mansion, and nobody can force you out of it anymore. This beautiful $1 million mansion is forever yours, Ms. Rose.”
Rose stood still, holding the phone to her ear long after the call was over. She felt a sense of overwhelm and relief and finally burst into tears.
As for Debbie, there was one last thing she wanted to do.
She spoke to her lawyer and came up with an elaborate scheme that conned all three brothers into selling their new houses, leaving them in a financial lurch and giving them a taste of their own medicine.
Meanwhile, Debbie and her mother were out enjoying little pleasures of life like drifting dandelions and bubblegum ice cream.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Getty Images
Rose had taught Debbie to be a kind human being, and now, it was her turn to teach her mother to live for herself.
The doting daughter arranged lunch dates, spa days, and birthday photoshoots for her beautiful mother; right until the day she peacefully died in her arms.
What can we learn from this story?
- Greed makes us blind to the blessings in our life. Don, David, and Daniel were only focused on getting their share of the family estate. In the process, they lost the loving presence of their mother, the woman who had toiled hard to raise them.
- The joy that comes at the cost of our parents’ well-being is meaningless. The sons tried to cut Rose out of their lives of luxury but ended up unhappy. On the other hand, Debbie found great happiness in living with her elderly mother for the rest of her years.
Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.
If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about another older woman who makes a wish to see the son she had abandoned years ago and finds a charming young man smiling knowingly at her.
This piece is inspired by stories from the everyday lives of our readers and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life.
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