Yvette Vickers: From Hollywood dreams to solitary demise
Yvette Vickers effortlessly entered influential circles, her natural beauty undeniable. Along with her striking looks, she was driven by ambition, harbouring the ultimate dream of Hollywood stardom. Despite a promising beginning, her journey concluded on a significantly somber note.
The American beauty was born on August 26, 1928, in Kansas City. Her parents named her Yvette Iola Vedder. They were itinerant musicians, and the little girl accompanied them on stage from her earliest years.
As she grew up, she studied journalism in California. But journalism wasn't her calling. She quickly realized that she felt very comfortable in front of the camera. She started to appear in commercials, and also played minor roles. She appeared, for example, in the movie "Sunset Boulevard" directed by Billy Wilder.
This was just the beginning of Yvette's acting career. True fame came with her leading role in the production "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman". "Times" magazine recognized it as "the best bad movie in history".
However, the actress's ambitions reached further. Even though she was a perfect fit for Hollywood, acting alongside Paul Newman or Gloria Swanson, she didn't receive very good offers. She became famous mainly for two films: the aforementioned "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches".
Vickers's beauty was mesmerizing. Hugh Hefner himself took an interest in her.
Yvette Vickers was not just an actress
Since Hollywood didn't want her, she decided to try her luck in another industry. She ended up on a spread of "Playboy," where she presented... her naked buttocks.
In 2011, in the pages of "People" magazine, Hugh Hefner recalled that session: - Our lawyer thought that photo would get us into trouble. He wanted to stop the press and change the model. I said: "Forget about it".
She suffered from a mental illness
The rest of her acting career did not yield any significant roles. She only played episodic characters. She last appeared on the big screen in 1991.
Over the years, Yvette developed vision problems. She also suffered from delusional disorder. This was not helped by the alcohol she drank in large quantities.
The last years of her life were spent almost without leaving her house – a small, wooden one, located in the hills around Los Angeles. Due to accompanying paranoia, she felt that she was constantly being persecuted.
"Vickers believed that many people were trying to kill her, and an agent was sabotaging her acting career" - her friends confessed to "People".
Death of Yvette Vickers
The actress's neighbor grew concerned in April 2011 when she hadn't seen Yvette for a long time. She went to her house and made a grisly discovery. The cottage looked like a ruin. Inside, she found rotting food and ivy winding around the walls and through numerous holes.
Upstairs in the bedroom, she found the partially mummified body of the actress. Next to it still stood a working fan and a portable heater. Vickers died in solitude. It was difficult to even determine when exactly it had happened. The coroner ruled out foul play. According to him, the cause of death was heart failure due to coronary disease.
"She lived life to the fullest. But it saddens me that she was so lonely, that for a year no one realized she was dead" — wrote Hugh Hefner. Unofficially, it is said that the "Playboy" boss paid for Yvette's funeral and cremation.
