Mummified corpse of '50s B-movie starlet Yvette Vickers found in her L.A. home

by Steve Newton on May 3rd, 2011 at 6:43 PM

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In both 1958's Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and 1959's Attack of the Giant Leeches voluptuous starlet Yvette Vickers plays a kittenish town tramp who falls victim to the titular attacking entity in each flick. But now it appears that, in the end, the former Playboy playmate fell victim to no one caring if she was even alive anymore.

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times the 82-year-old's body was discovered in a mummified state in her Benedict Canyon home by a neighbour who noticed that her mailbox was full of cobwebs and old, yellowing letters. Police said that, considering the condition of the body, Vickers could have been dead for close to a year.

Born in Kansas City in 1928 to jazz-musician parents, Vickers got her first film role as a giggling girl in Billy Wilder's 1950 film-noir drama Sunset Boulevard before becoming a drive-in fave for her leading role in the low-budget sci-fi item Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, which the Times described as a "Grade-A turkey" but "one of the best bad movies ever made."

Although she didn't get to play the titular rampaging giant in that film—that glory falling to the statuesque Allison Hayes—Vickers almost stole the show with her role as a floozy having an affair with a married man and spouting immortal lines like: "Once she's in the booby hatch, throw the key away. That'll put you in the driver's seat. You'd make a wild driver, Harry...with 50 million bucks."

That was a lot of money back then.