RIP, Another Bad Week In Hollywood

[BeardedOne]

Iwao Takamoto (1925 - January 8, 2007) was a Japanese American animator, television producer, and film director. He was most famous as being a production designer for Hanna-Barbera Productions.


[edit] Biography
Takamoto's father emigrated from Hiroshima to the United States for his health. He returned to Japan only once, to marry his wife. Takamoto was born later in 1925 in Los Angeles, California. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Takamoto's family, like many Japanese-Americans, were sent to an internment camp. They spent the rest of World War II in the Manzanar internment camp. It was there that Takamoto received basic illustration training from a couple of friendly co-internees.

Takamoto first entered the cartoon world after the end of the war. He was hired as an assistant animator by Walt Disney Studios in 1947. Takamoto eventually became an assistant for the legendary Milt Kahl. He worked as an animator on such titles as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and Lady and the Tramp.

Takamoto left Disney in 1961 and joined Hanna-Barbera Productions shortly thereafter. He worked in several positions there, but is arguably best known as a character designer. He was responsible for the original character design of such characters as Scooby-Doo, The Jetsons' dog Astro, and Penelope Pitstop. He worked as a producer at Hanna-Barbera, supervising shows such as The Addams Family, Hong Kong Phooey, and Jabberjaw. He directed several feature length animated films, including Charlotte's Web (1973) and Jetsons: The Movie (1990).

Takamoto was Vice-President of Creative Design at Hanna-Barbera, and was responsible for overseeing H-B's many product related merchandising. In 2005 he received the Golden Award from the Animation Guild, to honor his more than 50 years of service in the animation field.

He died on January 8, 2007 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from a massive coronary.[1][2]

[BeardedOne]

Yvonne De Carlo (born Peggy Yvonne Middleton) (September 1, 1922 - January 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American film and television actress, best known for her role as "Lily Munster" on the 1964-1966 CBS television series The Munsters.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life
The daughter of an ambitious but unsuccessful aspiring actress of Italian descent, Peggy Yvonne Middleton was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was taken to Hollywood at the age of fifteen by her mother. She was "Miss Venice Beach" 1938. Unable to find work, they returned to Canada until 1940, when they once again traveled to Hollywood. De Carlo supported herself working in a chorus while trying to find film work. She made her first film appearance in 1941, but could only find bit parts for the next few years.

She was a Paramount starlet but the studio apparently signed her mainly for her slight resemblance to Dorothy Lamour as it was common then for studios to sign lookalikes in order to remind the stars in question that they easily could be replaced should their behavior become difficult or their box-office appeal begin to wane. When she moved to Universal studios, she was utilized as a B-movie version of Maria Montez, one of the studio's reigning divas.

Her professional name, Yvonne De Carlo, was a combination of her middle name (Yvonne) and her Italian mother's maiden surname (De Carlo).


[edit] Film career
Her break came in 1945 playing the title role in Salome, Where She Danced. Though not a critical success it was a box office favorite and De Carlo was hailed as an up and coming star. Of the role, she was less sure, saying of her entrance, "I came through these beaded curtains, wearing a Japanese kimono and a Japanese headpiece, and then performed a Siamese dance. Nobody seemed to know quite why."

In 1947 she played her first leading role in Slave Girl and then in 1949 had her biggest success. As the female lead opposite Burt Lancaster in Criss Cross, she played a femme fatale, and her career began to ascend. The 1957 film Band of Angels featured her opposite Clark Gable in an American Civil War story, along with Sidney Poitier and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

For the next several years, she was constantly working although many of the films failed to advance her career.

Cast in The Ten Commandments (1956) in a leading role (as Ṣippôrāh, Moses' wife), De Carlo was part of a major hit. The film was a huge success and De Carlo was among those to be praised for her restrained work.


[edit] The Munsters
However, her most famous role that led her to pop culture legacy is of Lily Munster in the cult television series The Munsters (1964-1966), which allowed De Carlo to demonstrate a comic flair that her films had failed to utilize.


[edit] Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Yvonne De Carlo was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6124 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 6715 Hollywood Blvd. for her contribution to television.


[edit] Other entertainment activities
DeCarlo performed on Broadway, notably in the role of Carlotta Campion, introducing the song "I'm Still Here" in the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies, of which show she was the last lead female performer to die (having been predeceased by Alexis Smith, Dorothy Collins, Fifi D'Orsay and Ethel Shutta).

Trained in opera and a former chorister when she was a child in Vancouver, De Carlo possessed a powerful contralto voice and released an LP of standards called Yvonne De Carlo Sings in 1957. She sang and played the harp on at least one episode of The Munsters.

She also received recognition for her work in various low-budget horror movies, such as The Power, The Seven Minutes, House of Shadows, Sorority House Murders, Cellar Dweller, Mirror, Mirror, Blazing Stewardesses, and American Gothic.

De Carlo worked in both film and television, playing her most recent role in the television production of The Barefoot Executive (1995).


[edit] Personal life
She was married to the stuntman Robert Morgan from 1955 to 1968, when they divorced; they had two sons, Bruce and Michael. Morgan had a daughter, Bari, from a previous marriage. De Carlo was a naturalized citizen of the United States. In her autobiography, published in 1987, she listed 22 lovers, including Aly Khan, Billy Wilder, Burt Lancaster, Howard Hughes, Robert Stack, and Robert Taylor.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Yvonne De Carlo was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6124 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 6715 Hollywood Blvd. for her contribution to television.


[edit] Last career appearance and later life
De Carlo's last big-screen appearance was as Aunt Rosa in the 1991 Sylvester Stallone comedy Oscar, directed by John Landis.

Her son Michael died in 1997. De Carlo had a stroke the following year. Former Munsters co-star Butch Patrick said on the September 25, 2006, edition of the Howard Stern Show that De Carlo was by then a resident of the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

De Carlo died of natural causes at the age of eighty-four at the Motion Picture and Television facility in suburban Los Angeles and is survived by two children, Bruce and Bari[1].

[Tranny 411]

now dats shit i didn know. dam i only knows trannys and der shit

[Realgirls4me]

Wow ... thanks for cheering us up.


:(

[DAZ]

Carlo Ponti has just died too.. :(

[Coroner]

Carlo Ponti has just died too.. :(

yeah, seen this on tv now :(

[AllanahStarrNYC]

A lot of people only remember Yvonne De Carlo from The Munsters, but she was quite a beauty in her day. And if you have ever seen An American Civil War Story, you know how beautiful she was.


I was always a fan. R.I.P.

[Solitary Brother]

A lot of people only remember Yvonne De Carlo from The Munsters, but she was quite a beauty in her day. And if you have ever seen An American Civil War Story, you know how beautiful she was.


I was always a fan. R.I.P.

She was in the Charlton Heston Iconic film moses.
ALL the women from that era were incredible.
Even a mediocre woman back then would be incredible by todays standards.
They all had that incredible eyebrow arch and had hat bags........just an incredible time for women and femininity in general.
Kim Novak is my all time favorite.........
All those women were incredible..........dont get me started on the 50's......I cant shut up!

[AllanahStarrNYC]

I think you are a little confused in regards to the film- there was no film "Moses'- Charlton Heston plays Moses in Cecil B. Demille's ' The 10 Commandments', in which Yvonne DeCarlo plays Sephora (Moses's wife)

Your assement of women and the 1950's is true. They dont make them like that anymore.

[hondarobot]

"Takamoto's father emigrated from Hiroshima to the United States for his health."

Heh. I realize this is in horribly bad taste, but I can't think of too many cities on earth that would have been more detrimental to ones health to remain living in.

But yes, it's sad, we lost a guy who worked on Scooby Doo and the Addams Family, and Morticia gave up the ghost to be with Gomez once again.

Someone better check on the people behind the Groovy Ghoulies, seems that a disturbing trend has started.

[hondarobot]

Whoops, it wasn't Morticia, it was the Munsters chick. Morticia apparently died a couple decades ago (thanx to IMDB.com). They were both pretty hot, actually.

It's amazing the power an early morning wank session can have to straighten out the mental faculties. Right after I finished the first thought I had was "Oh shit! It wasn't Morticia at all!"

:wink:

[demmie]

Shows like the Addams Family and Scooby-Doo don't come on like anymore...everything involves violence and hate it seems nowadays.

-John

[InHouston]

Yvonne De Carlo! :hitit

[a994]

Condolences, thoughts, and prayers go out for each of their loved ones and fans.