{"id":1096,"date":"2012-01-26T16:55:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T22:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1096"},"modified":"2012-01-26T16:55:41","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T22:55:41","slug":"mummified-b-movie-actress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1096","title":{"rendered":"Mummified B Movie Actress"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the February 2012 issue of Los Angeles magazine writer Steve Mikulan reports on the unusual life and death of Yvette Vickers, the B-grade screen star whose mummified corpse was discovered in her Benedict Canyon home last year. <\/p>\n

Here he talks with executive editor Matthew Segal about the actress’ career, the fame that eluded her, and the psychological demons that plagued her final years:<\/p>\n

As you point out in the story, the death of Yvette Vickers generated headlines around the world. They weren\u2019t so much about the personage of Yvette Vickers as they were about the concept\u2014a long-ago B-actress and Playboy Bunny who was found mummified in her home. Did your own view of Vickers change much from the time at which you set out to report the story and the point when you finished typing the last word?
\nYes, but it wasn’t exactly out of Laura, where the investigator falls in love with a mysterious woman’s portrait. What continually struck me was how ordinary this actress’s descent was\u2014she was a recluse who was swallowed up by her own home.<\/p>\n

What struck you most about her appearances onscreen?
\nShe definitely had a Baby Doll sultriness that captured the imagination of pubescent boys\u2014if not men\u2014of the 1950s and early ’60s. I have never forgotten Liz Walker, swamp tramp, whom she played in Attack of the Giant Leeches, even though I only saw the film once, nearly 50 years ago. She had a way of swaying that suggested the delights of adulthood.<\/p>\n

You say she had a different kind of beauty\u2014less come hither and more come-and-get-it. It\u2019s a good observation. What was different about her?
\nI think that because she appeared in over-heated science fiction fables, she felt her sexuality had to be amped up in order to compete with the grotesque narratives. The result is the projection of a carnality far more obvious\u2014and playful\u2014than the times were accustomed to.<\/p>\n

Her friends described her as being paranoid toward the end of her days. It\u2019s impossible to know for sure what was going on with her, but did you get a sense from them what they thought was going on with Yvette Vickers?
\nThe theories I’ve heard basically boil her troubles down to mental disease marked by paranoia acerbated by extreme drinking. It seemed as though she somewhat lived in the past\u2014a condition that the autograph and fan circuit would only reinforce.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t much of a drinker early on was she?
\nBy all accounts she wasn’t. Then again, the men she was later romantically link to\u2014Ralph Meeker, Jim Hutton\u2014were notorious drinkers and this may have affected her relationship to alcohol.<\/p>\n

A few sources you spoke with talked about how Vickers spent a lot of time dwelling on her past relationships with men. Did you walk away with any sense of whether Vickers was a free spirit or someone simply unable to hold a relationship together?
\nAt first she was a woman who completely balanced her obsession with a career with a fairly wild party life. I think over time, though, she got caught up in relationships she couldn’t control. Each one took her down a peg more than the previous one. <\/p>\n

Listening to people of her generation talk, you really get a vivid sense of how much LA has changed. And how much it has remained the same. What\u2019s something that has stuck with you from one of the interviews?
\nHow much some things actually do remain the same in this town. Her neighborhood\u2014leafy, well-off, coveted\u2014is the kind of place young actors coming to L.A. dream about moving to. Yet it’s also a place of death and violence. Besides Vickers’s own sad death, there was a rape committed across the street, involving a firearm about 18 years ago. And before that, of course, the Sharon Tate murders occurred not too far away on Cielo Drive. Then, there’s Vickers’s rise and fall\u2014a career trajectory that’s almost as predictable as a solar arc. <\/p>\n

Vickers wound up making a career of signing autographs at fan conventions. How much could someone of her stature\u2014or lack thereof\u2014bring in?
\nFor someone of her middling stature, she could probably count on $25 a pop for a signed 8-by-10. Apparently, though, this was enough to sustain her at some level of comfort.<\/p>\n

In telling the story of Yvette Vickers, which really begins in the 1950s, you wound up delving into a fair amount of Hollywood history. Are you a film buff?
\nI am and one of her early films, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, was one of the first science fiction movies I saw on TV. It was a kind of primal moment, introducing me to films that had unhappy endings — and which everyone is “bad” in some way.<\/p>\n

To read “Left Behind,” pick up a copy of Los Angeles magazine on newsstands or subscribe NOW.