Yvonne De Carlo, an actress whose career ranged from starring as an exotic spy in the camp classic Salome Where She Danced (1945), to her humorous turn as the vampire matron of a ghoulish clan on television's The Munsters died on December 8 of natural causes in Woodland Hills, California. She was 84.

She was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She relocated to Hollywood in 1940 and worked as a dancer in nightclubs while struggling to find film work. She started out as a decorative extra in notable "A" pictures: This Gun for Hire, Road to Morocco (both 1942), So Proudly We Hail!, For Whom the Bell Tolls (both 1943), before she earned her first credited part as Princess Wah-Tah in The Deerslayer (also 1943).

Her breakthrough role came when she was cast as Anna Marie, the exotic spy in Salome Where She Danced (1945). After that she had an uneven film career, but the highlights are very much worth noting: she co-starred with Burt Lancaster in a pair of tough crime dramas (Brute Force (1947), Criss Cross (1949), played opposite Charleton Heston as Sephora in The Ten Commandments (1956), and was effective as the mulatto slave who falls for Clark Gable in Band of Angels (1957).

DeCarlo actually found some challenging work in television by the early '60s. She had a stint on Playhouse 90 and was featured in such hit programs as Bonanza and Burke's Law before she played Lily Munster in the beloved sitcom The Munsters (1964-66). For two seasons, DeCarlo displayed elegant comic timing as she went about her domestic ways caring for her husband (Fred Gwynne as Frankenstein), and father (Al Lewis as Dracula). The show was popular enough to secure a feature Munster Go Home! (1966), before DeCarlo returned to television in the '70s, where she appeared in the telefilm The Girl on the Late, Late Show with Gloria Grahame, and the acclaimed miniseries Roots (1977).

Somewhere after there, DeCarlo's career took a delightfully loopy turn as she appeared in several highly entertaining cult hits that are still popular with midnight movie fans everywhere: Satan's Cheerleaders (a riot as the High Priestess, 1977), the vampire flick Nocturna (1979), the florid slasher flick Silent Scream (1980), the odd camp horror of Vultures (1983), having a blast as Ma to Rod Steiger's Pa in the straight faced frightfest American Gothic (1988), making a notable non-horror movie role as Aunt Rosa in the Sylvester Stallone comedy Oscar (1991), and a final cameo appearance in Here Come the Munsters (1995). Were they award-winning films? Not exactly, but DeCarlo was always the old pro who kept you watching. She is survived by her two sons, Bob and Michael.

by Michael T. Toole