Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said.Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Drive home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.
The official cause of death will by determined by the Los Angeles county coroner's office, but police said they saw no sign of foul play.
Vickers had lived in the 1920s-era stone and wood home for decades, and it served as the background for some of her famous modeling pictures. But over time it had become dilapidated, exposed in some places to the elements.
Susan Savage, an actress, went to check on Vickers after noticing old letters and cobwebs in her elderly neighbor's mailbox.
"The letters seemed untouched and were starting to yellow," Savage said. "I just had a bad feeling."
After pushing open a barricaded front gate and scaling a hillside, Savage peered through a broken window with another piece of glass taped over the hole. She decided to enter the house after seeing a shock of blond hair, which turned out to be a wig. The inside of the home was in disrepair and it was hard to move through the rooms because boxes containing what appeared to be clothes, junk mail and letters formed barriers, Savage said. Eventually, she made her way upstairs and found a room with a small space heater still on.
She was looking at a cordless phone that appeared to have been knocked off its cradle when she first saw the body on the floor, she said. Savage had known Vickers but the remains were unrecognizable, she said.
She remembered her neighbor as an elegant women in a broad straw hat, dressed in white, with flowing blond hair and "a warm smile."
"She kept to herself, had friends and seemed like a very independent spirit," Savage said. "To the end she still got cards and letter from all over the world requesting photos and still wanting to be her friend."
Savage said the neighbors felt terrible.
"We've all been crying about this," she said. "Nobody should be left alone like that."
Mummified body of former Playboy playmate Yvette Vickers found - (Los Angeles)
Los Angeles Times ^ | May 2, 2011 | Andrew Blankstein
Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2011 1:20:15 AM by Beaten Valve
Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said.
Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Street home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.
The official cause of death will by determined by the Los Angeles county coroner's office, but police said they saw no sign of foul play.
Vickers had lived in the 1920s-era stone and wood home for decades, and it served as the background for some of her famous modeling pictures. But over time it had become dilapidated, exposed in some places to the elements.
Susan Savage, an actress, went to check on Vickers after noticing old letters and cobwebs in her elderly neighbor's mailbox.
"The letters seemed untouched and were starting to yellow," Savage said. "I just had a bad feeling."
She was looking at a cordless phone that appeared to have been knocked off its cradle when she first saw the body on the floor, she said. Savage had known Vickers but the remains were unrecognizable, she said.
She remembered her neighbor as an elegant women in a broad straw hat, dressed in white, with flowing blond hair and "a warm smile."
"She kept to herself, had friends and seemed like a very independent spirit," Savage said. "To the end she still got cards and letter from all over the world requesting photos and still wanting to be her friend."
Savage said the neighbors felt terrible.
"We've all been crying about this," she said. "Nobody should be left alone like that."
Yvette Vickers, former actress and Playboy playmate, dies at 82
LOS ANGELES — Yvette Vickers, an actress best known as the femme fatale in two late 1950s cult horror films, "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches," was found dead Wednesday at her Los Angeles home. She was 82.
The body's mummified state suggests that she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.
Residents on the street in Los Angeles' Benedict Canyon neighborhood said they had not seen Vickers since last summer, said actress Susan Savage, a neighbor who discovered the body.
The body's mummified state suggests that she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.
Residents on the street in Los Angeles' Benedict Canyon neighborhood said they had not seen Vickers since last summer, said actress Susan Savage, a neighbor who discovered the body.
An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death, but police say foul play is not suspected.
When Savage noticed that Vickers' mailbox was filled with old letters, she pushed open a barricaded gate to reach the house and found the body in a room with a space heater still on.
"She kept to herself, had friends and seemed like a very independent spirit," Savage said. "To the end, she still got cards and letters from all over the world requesting photos."
The "bright, intelligent" Vickers had become "paranoid" in recent years and thought she was being stalked, said Boyd Magers, editor and publisher of Western Clippings, a Western-film publication. He often accompanied her to film festivals.
A voluptuous blonde, Vickers was a Playboy playmate of the month in 1959 and "proved to have the perfect look for 1950s drive-in films, along with episodic television," film historian Alan K. Rode told the Los Angeles Times in an email.
The low-budget "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" (1958) gave Vickers her first leading film role. She plays the town floozy who has an affair with a married man. But neither lover survives to the end credits, thanks to the fury of a scorned wife who turns into a 50-foot-tall hellion after a close encounter with an alien.
It is "one of the best bad movies ever made," the Times said in 1993, a "Grade-A turkey" with cheesy special effects and inept direction.
Vickers followed it with "Attack of the Giant Leeches" (1959), in which she portrayed a promiscuous wife who is done in by the creatures of the film's title.
"She was perfect for the part. She was so beautiful, and she was a lovely person," said Jan Shepard, who appeared in the film and often saw Vickers at film festivals.
While appearing on Broadway in "The Gang's All Here," Vickers saw "Giant Leeches" with her theater castmates, including Melvyn Douglas and E.G. Marshall, who thought "it was a lot of fun," Vickers said in the 2006 book "Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes."
"I did want to play other kinds of parts and to go on into bigger pictures," she said in the book, "but these things just eluded me."
She regularly acted on TV in Westerns and other fare but for a time was better known for her 15-year relationship with actor Jim Hutton and her affair with Cary Grant, according to her All Movie biography.
She was born Yvette Vedder on Aug. 26, 1928, in Kansas City, Mo., to jazz musicians Charles and Iola Vedder.
At the University of California-Los Angeles, Vickers discovered acting and left school to pursue it.
Her first film role was as a giggling girl in 1950's "Sunset Blvd."
In 1957, she appeared in the James Cagney-directed "Short Cut to Hell" and turned toward B movies after it flopped.
"Her performances would have been fine in much, much bigger pictures," said Tom Weaver, a science-fiction film aficionado who became her friend. "She gave her all in rock-bottom B-movies."
Married and divorced at least twice, Vickers had no immediate survivors.
(Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.)
When Savage noticed that Vickers' mailbox was filled with old letters, she pushed open a barricaded gate to reach the house and found the body in a room with a space heater still on.
"She kept to herself, had friends and seemed like a very independent spirit," Savage said. "To the end, she still got cards and letters from all over the world requesting photos."
The "bright, intelligent" Vickers had become "paranoid" in recent years and thought she was being stalked, said Boyd Magers, editor and publisher of Western Clippings, a Western-film publication. He often accompanied her to film festivals.
A voluptuous blonde, Vickers was a Playboy playmate of the month in 1959 and "proved to have the perfect look for 1950s drive-in films, along with episodic television," film historian Alan K. Rode told the Los Angeles Times in an email.
The low-budget "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" (1958) gave Vickers her first leading film role. She plays the town floozy who has an affair with a married man. But neither lover survives to the end credits, thanks to the fury of a scorned wife who turns into a 50-foot-tall hellion after a close encounter with an alien.
It is "one of the best bad movies ever made," the Times said in 1993, a "Grade-A turkey" with cheesy special effects and inept direction.
Vickers followed it with "Attack of the Giant Leeches" (1959), in which she portrayed a promiscuous wife who is done in by the creatures of the film's title.
"She was perfect for the part. She was so beautiful, and she was a lovely person," said Jan Shepard, who appeared in the film and often saw Vickers at film festivals.
While appearing on Broadway in "The Gang's All Here," Vickers saw "Giant Leeches" with her theater castmates, including Melvyn Douglas and E.G. Marshall, who thought "it was a lot of fun," Vickers said in the 2006 book "Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes."
"I did want to play other kinds of parts and to go on into bigger pictures," she said in the book, "but these things just eluded me."
She regularly acted on TV in Westerns and other fare but for a time was better known for her 15-year relationship with actor Jim Hutton and her affair with Cary Grant, according to her All Movie biography.
She was born Yvette Vedder on Aug. 26, 1928, in Kansas City, Mo., to jazz musicians Charles and Iola Vedder.
At the University of California-Los Angeles, Vickers discovered acting and left school to pursue it.
Her first film role was as a giggling girl in 1950's "Sunset Blvd."
In 1957, she appeared in the James Cagney-directed "Short Cut to Hell" and turned toward B movies after it flopped.
"Her performances would have been fine in much, much bigger pictures," said Tom Weaver, a science-fiction film aficionado who became her friend. "She gave her all in rock-bottom B-movies."
Married and divorced at least twice, Vickers had no immediate survivors.
(Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.)
Mummified body of former Playboy playmate Yvette Vickers found - (Los Angeles)
Los Angeles Times ^ | May 2, 2011 | Andrew Blankstein
Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2011 1:20:15 AM by Beaten Valve
Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said.
Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Street home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.
The official cause of death will by determined by the Los Angeles county coroner's office, but police said they saw no sign of foul play.
Vickers had lived in the 1920s-era stone and wood home for decades, and it served as the background for some of her famous modeling pictures. But over time it had become dilapidated, exposed in some places to the elements.
Susan Savage, an actress, went to check on Vickers after noticing old letters and cobwebs in her elderly neighbor's mailbox.
"The letters seemed untouched and were starting to yellow," Savage said. "I just had a bad feeling."
In younger days. Yvette Vickers dies at 82; former actress and Playboy playmate
Vickers' body was found by a neighbor in a mummified state that suggests she may have been dead for close to a year, police say. She appeared in 1950s B-movies such as 'Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.'
Yvette Vickers, an actress best known as the femme fatale in two late 1950s cult horror films, "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches," was found dead Wednesday at her Benedict Canyon home. She was 82.
The body's mummified state suggests that she could have been dead for close to a year, police said.
Residents on the street said they had not seen Vickers since last summer, said actress Susan Savage, a neighbor who discovered the body.
An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death, but police say foul play is not suspected.
When Savage noticed that Vickers' mailbox was filled with old letters, she pushed open a barricaded gate to reach the house and found the body in a room with a space heater still on.
"She kept to herself, had friends and seemed like a very independent spirit," Savage said. "To the end, she still got cards and letters from all over the world requesting photos."
The "bright, intelligent" Vickers had become "paranoid" in recent years and thought she was being stalked, said Boyd Magers, editor and publisher of Western Clippings, a western-film publication. He often accompanied her to film festivals.
A voluptuous blond, Vickers was a Playboy playmate of the month in 1959 and "proved to have the perfect look for 1950s drive-in films, along with episodic television," film historian Alan K. Rode told The Times in an email.
The low-budget "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" (1958) gave Vickers her first leading film role. She plays the town floozy who has an affair with a married man. But neither lover survives to the end credits, thanks to the fury of a scorned wife who turns into a 50-foot-tall hellion after a close encounter with an alien.
It is "one of the best bad movies ever made," The Times said in 1993, a "Grade-A turkey" with cheesy special effects and inept direction.
Vickers followed it with "Attack of the Giant Leeches" (1959), in which she portrayed a promiscuous wife who is done in by the creatures of the film's title.
"She was perfect for the part. She was so beautiful, and she was a lovely person," said Jan Shepard, who appeared in the film and often saw Vickers at film festivals.
While appearing on Broadway in "The Gang's All Here," Vickers saw "Giant Leeches" with her theater castmates, including Melvyn Douglas and E.G. Marshall, who thought "it was a lot of fun," Vickers said in the 2006 book "Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes."
"I did want to play other kinds of parts and to go on into bigger pictures," she said in the book, "but these things just eluded me."
She regularly acted on TV in westerns and other fare but for a time was better known for her 15-year relationship with actor Jim Hutton and her affair with Cary Grant, according to her All Movie biography.
She was born Yvette Vedder on Aug. 26, 1928, in Kansas City, Mo., to jazz musicians Charles and Iola Vedder.
At UCLA, Vickers discovered acting and left school to pursue it.
Her first film role was as a giggling girl in 1950's "Sunset Boulevard."
In 1957, she appeared in the James Cagney-directed "Short Cut to Hell" and turned toward B movies after it flopped.
"Her performances would have been fine in much, much bigger pictures," said Tom Weaver, a science-fiction film aficionado who became her friend. "She gave her all in rock-bottom B-movies."
Married and divorced at least twice, Vickers had no immediate survivors.
Mandy
