BENEDICT CANYON, CALIF.–Former B-movie siren Yvette Vickers was found dead last week at her home here. Her mummified body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said. Vickers was 82. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her home and the state of her remains indicates she may have died more than a year ago.
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.
An early Playboy playmate, she may be best remembered from her role in “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.” MSTies will remember as sexy Liz Walker in the movie in episode 406- ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES.
Thanks to our buddy Tom for the heads up.
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Yvette wasn’t the 50 Ft Woman, that was Allison (THE UNDEAD) Hayes.
RIP Ms Vickers. You deserved better.
Oh, gosh, that’s very sad…
That is so sad. RIP Ms. Vickers.
Thanks for the correction, Earl B. Rewritten.
Simply dreadful.
Hopefully, you’re out there somewhere giving somebody the sass, Ms Vickers.
Pretty woman, very sad way to go. RIP
She was plain hot in “Leeches”. That’s a sad way to go. R.I.P.
Jeez,she was that disconnected from society that she’s been dead a year without anyone noticing! This almost makes me want to go out and get a social life so I don’t end up an unburied mummified corpse.
And I have to wonder why her neighbors didn’t notice that she hadn’t been around for so long.
@Mark, I’ve heard from fans that met her that she was a distant person, and the report of her neighbor definitely confirms that. She also had several other residences, and it’s possibly her neighbors assumed she had been away all that time. Still, it’s an odd situation (and an incredibly unfortunate one). RIP.
Ironic that she would escape all them leeches, yet still become all sucked-up and dried-out in the end.
*yeep!* Too soon?
Very sad news. I saw Ms Vickers in 2008 at the Chiller Theatre Expo in NJ but, as is often the case at those events, I couldn’t think of anything to say. (“Um, you were really hot 50 years ago” didn’t seem appropriate.) And I’m not an autograph collector – especially not for $20 bucks a pop – so I just went with my “I know who you are but have nothing to say” smile. (It’s sort of like the baby-just-farted smile, but not as cute, and hopefully less smelly. I hope.)
So sad to hear this.Loved her in Giant Leeches,50 Foot Woman and the brief scene in Sunset Boulevard..
That’s really creepy- being dead for over a year and nobody knowing 03o
Very sad indeed…rest in peace Liz baby.
I dont wish that kind of ending on anyone, my heart goes out to her and her family.
i heard about this happening to a guy in england years ago. hey sharktopus you should have asked how was it like to work with paul new man. she was in the movie hud with him.
So sad to hear this.
She did not deserve this. No one does.
Attack of the Giant Leeches is next on my play list.
So long, Liz…
A very sad way to go. Hopefully she is partying in heaven with Alison Hayes, Bruno VeSota, et. al. RIP, Ms. Vickers…
(I believe Ms. Vickers was Ms. Hayes’ body double in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. That’s what I’ve heard, anyhow, though I can’t imagine why Alison Hayes would need a body double… ) ;-)
Horrible. I hope she didn’t suffer or anything. Very pretty lady who used what she had to gain some success. RIP
The circumstances of her death are unfortunate, very unfortunate. I really enjoyed her performances in both “Giant Leeches” and “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”. If I recall correctly she did a DVD commentary track on “Attack…”. It was very interesting.
She was Jim Huttons(father of Timothy) wife/girlfriend until his death,and was highly thought of as a Broadway actress by Edward G Robinson when he saw her in Damn Yankess,which she was doing when Attack of the 50 foot woman came out.
She always stood out in anything she was in,and in her death shes accomplished the same feat.
I will always love her.Goodbye Yvette.
How sad of final act. At least she will be remembered fondly here for many years to come. I’ll alway think of her slinking across the silver screen in attack of the giant leeches. Perhap docurum will allow her less than happy ending to just the basic facts without the sad details.
That’s so very sad.
MPSh @#19: Hmmmm…that’s wild. I had never heard of her being Allison Hayes’ body double in “50 Foot Woman”. It’s been a while since I saw the flick, but I remember her vividly as the “other woman” who Allison’s husband was fooling around with. If she did perform double duty on the picture, I do hope that she got double pay for it, at least!
What an incredibly sad way to die. RIP, Yvette.
@1, 19 – Yvette wasn’t the 50 Ft Woman, that was Allison (THE UNDEAD) Hayes.
She, in fact, played Honey, the badgirl that oilcan Harry tries to run off with, and Vickers’ DVD commentary was pretty interesting. (Even if Warner had hired a collector-obsessed commentary host who got a little too chummy with all his classic B-actresses.)
I am sorry to hear this. Did she have any family?
When they say she may have died more than a year ago, do they mean dead for more than 12 months, or died before 2011? Either way is unfortunate. Did she have much family? I’d wonder why they didn’t notice her absence?
She was terrific in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. I’ll never forget her in it.
A sad story, indeed……..however, for anyone who may have missed it, there is a detailed note posted in the ‘reader comments’ section at the bottom of the L.A. Times story (see Sampo’s link above) from the neighbor, Susan Savage, who actually discovered the body (‘Page 3’ of the comments, posted on May 03, 2011 at 12:01 AM).
It answers a number of questions that people have had as to how the corpse of a deceased person could go undetected for so long a period of time in the middle of a (relatively) busy neighborhood. :shock:
R.I.P. Sweet Liz. And yes, I think the police should investigate the possibility of a Giant Leech attack.
I believe Yvette is not dead. I believe she lead the SEAL team that got bin Laden. As a clever ruse, she quietly moved out of her city a year ago to begin training. Now, with her mission completed, she will stay silently vigil protecting this land and the people she loved. That’s how I want to think of her going into history. Good-bye, pretty lady.
It’s a shame she was so utterly disconnected that way. In a WORTHWHILE, FUNCTIONAL neighborhood you look after old folks like her. Was she in a substandard neighborhood? Or did she take pains to keep neighbors away? Maybe we’re making assumptions and she was perfectly happy to live and die alone.
BTW do a Google Image search for her and you’ll be rewarded with some of the most amazing pics I’ve ever seen.
CNN says she was last seen alive at least 4 months ago, so the originally reported “year-old mummified remains” is a bit exaggerated. In fact, the remains have yet to be properly identified, although why would someone else be dead in her bedroom?
Once again… i am totally impressed with the level of class people on this site are. We love these movies. We poke fun of these movies. But we love these actors who gave us such great times.
And in a story like this, the tragic nature of it, not one person said anything inappropriate.
This is a truly unique site.
Rest easy, Liz.
Nicely sis Yipe.
Nicely “said” Yipe. Geesh, fingers not working today …
So damn sad. What a lovely woman.
Oops. Wanted to mention this…from reading some all too brief bios it appears she was a figure in the beatnik scene. Anyone know more about that?
I saw the story yesterday, and I recalled seeing it in the credits for one or another of the MST3K films, so I googled it…I wasn’t surprised to see Yvette had been in Playboy back in the fifties (and I was able to find on line one of the photos from that issue…she really was a very attractive young lady) and was active well into her old age. I don’t know if I’d call this ‘very sad’, it sounds like it was sudden, and she was able to stay in her own home until the end. Not a lot of people get to do that. In her memory, I’m putting “Attack of the Giant Leeches” in the DVD player right now.
(Cal is a jerk.)
#39–she has a very brief scene in Beach Party (1963). I think that is the scene in question. It is more or less a cameo, as she is not credited.
RIP, Miss Vickers. You made “Giant Leeches” more fun.
What a sad way to go. Let this be a cautionary tale to all of us — let’s live our lives so that we won’t die alone and unmissed. I’m not being sarcastic; I’ve seen it before and it’s so tragic.
Some more information from an AP article by Greg Risling:
==========================================
He notes that neighbors recalled she loved to travel to Las Vegas but then mail began to pile up with cobwebs around them. Then a neighbor forced her way in to find a badly decomposing body and a space heater set on “on”
” ‘I just screamed,’ (Susan) Savage recalled Tuesday. ‘I got out of there right away.’ ”
“Her first film role was as a giggling girl in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in 1950. In 1957 she appeared in the James Cagney-directed ‘Short Cut to Hell,’ but it flopped and she turned to B-movies.”
Hmm. next time Sunset Boulevard is on TCM I’ll have to watch to try and find her. I assume it’s a quick walk-on role.
These comments by Don Prell, ex-husband, are interesting. (He) “married Vickers in the mid’1950s and lived in the house on Westwanda Drive. Prell said Vickers was an only child and was the daughter of a saxophonist who knew Charlie Parker.
Prell added that it was her desire to be an actress that helped lead to their divorce 2 1/2 years into the marriage. ‘I came back home off the road and she left a note or something saying she wanted to get out,’ he said. Prell found out later his ex-wife was the Playboy magazine playmate July 1959, when he saw her layout in the back room of the San Francisco Symphony where he performed.” (ZING!)
“On Tuesday, various news organizations camped outside the two-story, brown rustic home sitting on a steep hillside. Ivy and bougainvillea were draped on a front window. The grounds were overgrown.
Savage is unsure what is going to happen to her neighbor’s belongings and the house if there isn’t any family.”
Apparently her persona in Attack of the Giant Leeches borrowed somewhat from real life. Still, she apparently lived her own life not uncomfortably into her 80s. It would seem she did it her way.
“
Some more information from an AP article by Greg Risling:
==========================================
He notes that neighbors recalled she loved to travel to Las Vegas but then mail began to pile up with cobwebs around them. Then a neighbor forced her way in to find a badly decomposing body and a space heater set on “on”
” ‘I just screamed,’ (Susan) Savage recalled Tuesday. ‘I got out of there right away.’ ”
“Her first film role was as a giggling girl in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in 1950. In 1957 she appeared in the James Cagney-directed ‘Short Cut to Hell,’ but it flopped and she turned to B-movies.”
Hmm. next time Sunset Boulevard is on TCM I’ll have to watch to try and find her. I assume it’s a quick walk-on role.
These comments by Don Prell, ex-husband, are interesting. (He) “married Vickers in the mid’1950s and lived in the house on Westwanda Drive. Prell said Vickers was an only child and was the daughter of a saxophonist who knew Charlie Parker.
Prell added that it was her desire to be an actress that helped lead to their divorce 2 1/2 years into the marriage. ‘I came back home off the road and she left a note or something saying she wanted to get out,’ he said. Prell found out later his ex-wife was the Playboy magazine playmate July 1959, when he saw her layout in the back room of the San Francisco Symphony where he performed.” (ZING!)
“On Tuesday, various news organizations camped outside the two-story, brown rustic home sitting on a steep hillside. Ivy and bougainvillea were draped on a front window. The grounds were overgrown.
Savage is unsure what is going to happen to her neighbor’s belongings and the house if there isn’t any family.”
Apparently her persona in Attack of the Giant Leeches borrowed somewhat from real life. Still, she apparently lived her own life not uncomfortably into her 80s. It would seem she did it her way.
“Oops. Wanted to mention this…from reading some all too brief bios it appears she was a figure in the beatnik scene. Anyone know more about that?”
According to the July 1959 issue of Playboy magazine that she appeared in, (her feature is entitled, “Beat Playmate – Playboy’s Playmate of the Month” ), Ms. Vickers was ‘discovered’ in a coffee house as part of the research being done for a separate article in the magazine, “The Coffee Houses of America”. It goes on to say that she “inhabits the different beat coffee houses of Hollywood mainly to hobnob with friends and (acting) colleagues”.
The feature doesn’t give any indication that she was heavily into the beatnik ‘scene’ herself, only that she happened to frequent the coffee houses that catered to the beatnik ‘crowd’…….in other words, “guilt” by association. :idk:
One of the loveliest and most memorable actresses to appear in any MST3K movie in my opinion. Her turn in “Giant Leeches” might have been the sexiest in MST3K history & she was perhaps even sexier as the great Allison Hayes’ rival in “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.” At least she lived a full life, and she will be remembered.
I consider myself to be a very private person, but even I was shocked to read about the circumstances involving her death. What an awful way to leave this world, to not even have one spouse, sibling, or child to be there for her passing. I always thought of Ms. Vickers as being one of the most beautiful actresses to ever appear in an MST movie, and her sass and vibe as Liz Baby always helped make AotGL watchable for me. RIP Yvette
The coroner’s office here in Los Angeles determined that she did in fact die of natural causes (coronary disease), so foul play has been ruled out. Still a shame, though.