The Vintage Queen of Halloween

The Vintage Queen of Halloween

I’d like to dedicate this day and post to the vintage queen of Halloween, Yvonne De Carlo. She had a long career in Hollywood, but it seems she may have been destined for the role that our generation most knows her for, Lily Munster.

Her son Bruce recalls that, years before her role on The Munsters, her rehearsal space in the basement at home had stacks of books about horror and gothic fantasy like novels about vampires.

• Yvonne De Carlo began
• Lily Munster
• The Cookbook I Wish Could Be
  • Exotic Chicken Ecstasy
  • Salome Salad

Yvonne De Carlo’s early Career

Born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Canada, De Carlo assumed her mother’s Sicilian maiden name when she started her showgirl career to create a more sophisticated image.

Her career started on the stage in the late 1930s. Her mother was a ballerina and raised her to be a dancer, but she was most interested in being a singer. She even released an album in the 1950s. It was called Yvonne De Carlo Sings and yes you can still find vinyl copies of it for sale on Ebay. You’re welcome.

She was a Paramount starlet early on, hired for her resemblance to Dorothy Lamour. Studios often hired look-alike actresses to keep their bigger stars in check by reminding them how replaceable they were. She also appeared as a B-movie version of Maria Montez for Universal.

She had an illustrious film and stage career that spanned 7 decades, which included both movie and television. She appeared in numerous western and adventure films, including The Ten Commandments.

The OG, original goth (Right up there with Vampira)

My first introduction to Yvonne De Carlo was the classic 1960s sitcom, The Munsters. Her character, Lily Munster, felt like the stereotypical 1950s housewife, only in Universal Monster alternate universe.

And this roll must have been a lot of fun for her to do, because her son Bruce wrote, that years before her role on The Munsters, he remembers her rehearsal space in the basement at home had stacks of books about horror and gothic fantasy like novels about vampires.

She appeared in and made cameos in many B-horror movies toward the end of her career, appearing in films into the 1990s. She had a small part in the 1990 horror movie Mirror, Mirror, which I both loved and was terrified by in my adolescent years.

The Cook Book that May Never Be

Update 2024:
When I originally wrote this post in 2011, Yvonne De Carlo’s son, Bruce Morgan, was running her official fan website (which appears to be gone now.) On the website in 2011, he was planning on putting together a book that would include her handwritten recipes for stews and cocktail appetizers.

It seems this may never be, but we do have a couple of her recipes that live on online.

Yvonne De Carlo’s Exotic Chicken Ecstasy

Makes 4 servings 

• 1 (2½ pound) chicken, cut into 10 pieces
• 5 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 stalk celery
• 1/4 cup Chinese cabbage, sliced
• 1 can chop suey vegetables, shredded
• 1/2 can pineapple tidbits (drained, juice reserved)
• 2 heaping teaspoons cornstarch
• 1½ cups water
• ¼ teaspoon ginger powder
• 2 tablespoons chutney powder
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• ½ teaspoon white pepper
• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce
• ¼ cup sherry

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a Dutch oven and sauté chicken until golden brown. Top the chicken with celery, cabbage, chop suey vegetables and drained pineapple. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Place cornstarch, ginger powder and chutney powder in a mixing bowl. Combine pineapple juice, water, soy sauce and sherry wine, and gradually add to dry ingredients in mixing bowl, stirring constantly until cornstarch is dissolved. Pour cornstarch mixture over chicken and vegetables in casserole. Stir, cover tightly and simmer for another ten minutes; serve at once over hot steamed rice.

Yvonne De Carlo’s Salome Salad

• 1 can tomato soup
• 1 cup salad oil
• ½ cup vinegar
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 or 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Beat ingredients well with an eggbeater. Pour and mix a desired amount into a salad bowl of chopped, fresh garden green onions, radishes, sections of tomatoes and shredded romaine and heart lettuce. The remaining dressing may be kept in the refrigerator for future use.

Bruce. I hope you are well and I hope that the recipe book reaches the light of day someday.