Yvonne DeCarlo Passes Away
Yvonne DeCarlo, known to almost everyone born after 1970 as Lili Munster from the show The Munsters, has passed away of natural causes at the age of 84.
I was never a big fan of The Munsters. I was always an Addam’s Family girl, but for some reason (I am suspected cheaper prices for stations to buy the syndication rights) The Munsters were always on in the summertime when I was a kid in the 80’s. While I was not a fan, I did like Yvonne as Lili, she played it like a 50’s tv mom but with a funny, quirky twist that never really was over the top (and really would have been expected since they were, you know, monsters).
Yvonne grew up in Canada with her mom, took all sorts of lessons and danced her way to LA where she had contract as a bit player at the major studios. She married a stunt man, Bob Morgan (a big name in the stunt industry at the time), and had two sons. When her husband was shooting “How The West Was Won”, Bob had an accident involving the train and he lost a leg. Yvonne stopped working and took care of him. They later divorced.
While some actors hit a wall in, say, television, and just stop working, Yvonne would just switch gears. She sung opera, did theatre and movies as well. She is very well known as Moses’ wife in The Ten Commandments! A lot of actors would be mad that they are pigeonholed as one particular character. Not DeCarlo. She was thrilled that it breathed new life into her career and millions of kids knew who she was and loved her for it. Not bad for a show that only ran for 2 seasons. Thats a lesson many actors today should take note of.
So, god speed Lili Munster!
I hope you and Herman and Grandpa are having a good time brewing up something special somewhere with cool cobwebs and a dragon under the steps!
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