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!
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones: The Untold Story of Their Family and Kids
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have been through a lot together. They’ve lived in both the US and Bermuda with their children, Dylan Douglas and Carys Zeta-Douglas, and have experienced many changes along the way.
Now, Dylan is an adult. At 20 years old, he has chosen his own path in life. Being the son of a famous Hollywood star, and the grandson of the legendary Kirk Douglas, brings a lot of pressure.
However, his parents made sure he had the best childhood possible, even moving away from Bermuda to support him.
Michael Douglas was born on September 25, 1944, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to actor parents Diana and Kirk Douglas.
When Michael was six years old, his parents divorced, and he went to live with his mother. He only saw his father during holidays.
Growing up, Michael Douglas attended the Eaglebrook School in Massachusetts and later went to the elite Choate School.
Michael was introduced to the acting world at a young age. He spent summers with his father, Kirk, who was often shooting films. By his teenage years, Michael knew he wanted to be an actor and asked his father to help him find roles.
Kirk, however, didn’t think acting was right for his son because of the pressure and unpredictability of the industry. He didn’t want either of his sons in show business, but Michael couldn’t be stopped.
Michael Douglas decided to turn down studying at Yale University and instead moved to California.
“I grew up on the East Coast and was going to go to an Ivy League school, but at the last minute, I decided to be a hippie,” he explained. “There were protest movements about the war and peace movements at our university. It was a fantastic time.”
While studying at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he kept asking his father, Kirk, for help to get into the movie industry. In 1966, he landed his first role.
### Start of Acting Career
Michael Douglas made his debut in *Cast a Giant Shadow*, where his father also starred. He played an uncredited driver in the film.
“I was lucky to grow up watching how my father acted, along with stars like Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, and Frank Sinatra, who were often at our house,” Michael said on *The Talk*. “You see stars with their insecurities and how they behave, so I think that’s kept me grounded.”
Michael Douglas graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1968 and decided to move back to the East Coast. This time, he settled in New York City, where he continued to pursue his career in film.
Michael Douglas studied at the American Place Theatre and later at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He landed some leading roles and spent time performing in off-Broadway productions.
### Academy Award Winner
Before his first film role, Michael Douglas had a small part in the television show *The F.B.I.* The producer, Quinn Martin, was impressed with him, and Douglas then got a role in the new police series *The Streets of San Francisco*. The show premiered in 1972 and became Douglas’s big breakthrough.
*The Streets of San Francisco* became one of ABC’s highest-rated programs in the mid-1970s, airing during prime time. Michael Douglas received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations for his performance. He also directed two episodes of the series, gaining experience in directing, which he would use later.
In 1975, Michael produced the classic film *One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest*, which helped establish him as a top producer. The film won several Academy Awards, and Douglas himself won an Academy Award for Best Picture.
By this time, Douglas was a successful producer and director, and everyone wanted to work with him. He produced and starred in *The China Syndrome* (1979) alongside Jane Fonda. The movie received more Academy Award nominations and was named one of the best films of the year by the National Board of Review.
Michael Douglas went on to become a major Hollywood star with his performances as Gordon Gecko in *Wall Street* (1987), in *Falling Down* (1993), and *The Game* (1997).
### Michael Douglas – Catherine Zeta-Jones
During this time, he met his love, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Even before they met, he admired her talent.
“I was watching this movie and thought, ‘Wow, who is this girl? She’s incredible,’” Douglas remembered. He was watching a screening of her upcoming movie *The Mask of Zorro* at that moment.
The two stars met in 1996 at the Deauville Film Festival.
“I had been told Michael Douglas wanted to meet me,” Zeta-Jones said in a 2001 interview with Larry King. “I was a little nervous because I didn’t quite know what he wanted to meet me about.”
Michael Douglas knew right away that he had just met the love of his life.
However, Michael Douglas worried he had ruined any chance of a future with Catherine during their first meeting.
“I said to her after about half an hour, ‘You know, I’m going to be the father of your children,’” Douglas recalled on *The Jonathan Ross Show*, as quoted by E! News. “It sounded good, but she said, ‘You know, I’ve heard a lot about you and I’ve seen a lot about you, and I think it’s time I say goodnight.’”
### Married in 1999
Douglas and Zeta-Jones kept talking on the phone for about nine months and continued to enjoy dinners together. They eventually wondered why they weren’t officially together, so they decided to sit down and discuss it.
“He certainly didn’t want me as an ex-girlfriend on his list, and I certainly didn’t want ‘Michael Douglas’ as an ex-boyfriend on my list,” she said. “We looked at each other one day and said, ‘We’re having a lot of fun together.’”
Their romance blossomed. Despite the 25-year age difference, which attracted media attention, they didn’t care because their love was strong. On New Year’s Eve in 1999, Michael Douglas proposed to Catherine at his home in Aspen, Colorado.
“Both of us were sick as dogs because we had the flu,” Douglas recalled in 2016. Later that year, they got married.
“I don’t take any of this for granted,” Zeta-Jones told *People* during their wedding. “When I look at Michael, I run around like a little girl. I can’t believe I came into his life and he came into mine.”
### Dylan Douglas
Just months after their engagement, there were rumors that the couple was expecting a child. In August 2000, Dylan Douglas was born. He was Catherine Zeta-Jones’s first child and Michael Douglas’s second; his first son, Cameron, was born in 1978 to his former wife, Diandra Luker.
Catherine and Michael welcomed their second child, a daughter named Carys Zeta-Douglas, in 2003. Like any marriage, they faced ups and downs, but their love always prevailed.
Now, their children are all grown up, and Dylan Douglas has chosen a very different career from that of his parents. He seems to be quite the daredevil.
Dylan Douglas is now 20 years old and has already lived in several places.
### Dylan Douglas – Childhood
As a young child, Dylan and his family lived in Bermuda. Michael Douglas has strong ties to the islands because his mother is from there, and he spent many teenage summers there.
In 2001, when Dylan was just one year old, Michael and Catherine decided to move the family to Bermuda. Being two major celebrities, they believed it would be better for their children to grow up away from the spotlight, which can often be toxic.
Douglas and Zeta-Jones, who were living in New York City at the time, wanted their kids to have a safe and calm upbringing without the hassle of paparazzi.
In Bermuda, they felt people respected their privacy.
“Bermuda creates an environment for us away from the entertainment business and gives our kids independence and freedom where showbiz isn’t on everybody’s lips,” Douglas said, as quoted by the *Bermuda Sun*. “It’s a lovely, lovely place.”
However, the family only stayed on the island for eight years because Dylan was diagnosed with dyslexia.
### Dylan Douglas – Dyslexia
Dylan didn’t start reading until he was five years old. His parents, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, decided it was best for him to attend a special school in New York. So, the Douglas family left Bermuda, and Dylan finally got the chance to show everyone what a great kid he was. He enrolled at the Windward School, which specializes in helping children with dyslexia.
Those years were very challenging for the Douglas family. Not only was Dylan’s half-brother Cameron sentenced to five years in prison, but Michael Douglas also found out that he had stage 4 tongue cancer. He went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy while Dylan was adjusting to his new school.
In the end, Michael Douglas successfully overcame his cancer treatment, and Dylan went on to enjoy school. During an emotional speech at a Windward School fundraiser, Dylan honored the school that helped him overcome his dyslexia and also talked about how his father’s cancer had affected his life.
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