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I'm still in total shock over this heartbreaking news. Yvette and I had been friends since the Cult Movies convention in 2000. We usually talked on the phone two or three times a year, and we always sent her a Christmas card. At first she would send cards and notes when I'd send her letters and packages, but over time she began just calling to tell me she'd received them. We'd laugh and talk and have a grand old time. Each year she'd respond to our Christmas card with a long, lively, laugh-filled phone call sometime after New Year's. This year we heard nothing, but I didn't think too much about it. The last time I spoke with her, she had told me she was busy working on a new album and cabaret show and was in the process of selling one of her houses. When she had both houses, sometimes I'd call and leave a voicemail and not hear back from her until two or three months later. I still have a wonderful message from her saved on my voicemail that I certainly intend to archive.

I visited the house where Yvette died two different times and once had dinner there with Curtis Harrington and Forry Ackerman. It was "old Hollywood" and not exactly in immaculate shape (few of those older houses are), but at that point it was nothing like what was described in the L.A. Times. One year I served as her assistant/companion/money-taker at the Hollywood Collectors Show (the gorgeous poster George Chastain posted above was created for that appearance), and our table was right across from Gene Barry, who was making his autograph-show debut. I had already spoken with him, but Yvette was extremely reluctant to walk over and see him. She said, "I look so much older and have gotten so puffy that I don't want him to see me like this." (Apparently he had had his eye on her years earlier when they did a BAT MASTERSON together, and his wife had intervened and refused to him near her.) Finally I took her hand, walked her over and said, "Gene, here's someone who'd like to say hi to you." He looked up and smiled and said, with smooth and soothing charm, "Oh, my God -- Yvetter Vickers! Where have you been all my life?" I'll never forget the look of joy and relief on her face. I have a great photo of the two of them that I'll try to post tomorrow, and you can see in their eyes that there were lingering sparks.

Yvette was tremendously devoted to Forry and totally enthralled by Ray Bradbury. We often met her for dinner (sometimes with Curtis, who directed her in What's the Matter With Helen? and The Dead Don't Die) at the Dresden or Musso & Frank's, where she reveled in playing up her flamboyant Hollywood "bad girl" persona in those classic-Hollywood settings. She really knew how to hold court and charm the "old boys" around her. I never really saw her being what I'd really call "paranoid," but I do remember her being very careful and suspicious around certain people and making remarks like, "I've been in this town a long time, and I can see right through him." 

Also, in spite of the inevitable Sunset Boulevard comparisons being made over this tragic story (she was even in that film, briefly but memorably), I never really thought of her as a recluse. Still, she did stay fairly insulated (I thought happily so) and well out of the Hollywood loop. I had tried to call her right after Curtis died, and I never heard back from her. About three months later she and I had lunch with Kenny Miller while I was out in L.A., and she apologized for not returning my call. That's when she told me she was working on a new album and show and in the process of selling one house and consolidating everything into the other. I said, "Oh, that's no problem at all. I was just calling to tell you how sorry I was about Curtis." A look of complete and sudden shock fell over her face. "Oh, no," she said. "Please don't tell me ..." She had no idea Curtis had passed away, and he was one of the few people out there that I ever heard her call a close friend. She was devastated by the news, and I found it inconceivable that she hadn't heard.

Rest in peace, Honey. You were loved and cherished -- and you deserved so much better.  

Terry Pace
pillaroffire@bellsouth.net

"They're going to have to think up a lot of new adjectives when I come back!" -- Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) in King Kong (1933)