page_title: Yvonne De Carlo
section_title: Universal-International (1945–1950)
hierarchical_section_title: Yvonne De Carlo / Stardom / Universal-International (1945–1950)
caption_attribution_description: English: Screenshot of Yvonne De Carlo from the trailer for the film Criss Cross (1949).
context_page_description: Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-American actress, dancer, and singer. A brunette with blue-grey eyes, she became an internationally famous Hollywood film star in the 1940s and 1950s, made several recordings, and later acted on television and stage.
  Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, De Carlo was raised in the home of her Presbyterian maternal grandparents. Her mother enrolled her in a local dance school when she was three. By the early 1940s, she and her mother had moved to Los Angeles, where De Carlo participated in beauty contests and worked as a dancer in nightclubs.
  She began working in motion pictures in 1941, in short subjects. She sang "The Lamp of Memory" in a three-minute Soundies musical, and worked briefly at Columbia Pictures. In 1942, she signed a three-year contract with Paramount Pictures, where she was given uncredited bit parts in important films and was intended to replace Dorothy Lamour. Her first lead was for independent producer E.B. Derr in the James Fenimore Cooper adventure Deerslayer.
context_section_description: Salome, Where She Danced was released by Universal who signed de Carlo to a long-term contract. She was used by the studio as a backup star to Maria Montez, and her second movie for the studio saw her step into a role rejected by Montez: the Western Frontier Gal (1946) alongside Rod Cameron. In 1946, exhibitors voted De Carlo the ninth-most promising "star of tomorrow." Like Salome, it was shot in Technicolor.
  De Carlo followed Frontier Gal with a top-billed role in Walter Reisch's Technicolor musical Song of Scheherazade (1947), co-starring Brian Donlevy and Jean-Pierre Aumont. Tilly Losch, an Austrian dancer and friend of Reisch, coached De Carlo in her three dancing solos. The film was a hit, making over $2 million.
  De Carlo wanted to act in different types of movies. She applied to play the part of a waitress in A Double Life (1947) but lost out to Shelley Winters. Instead, Universal put her back in Technicolor for Slave Girl (1947), made with the producers of Frontier Gal. It was another solid commercial success. De Carlo was given a small role in Brute Force (1947), a prison movie starring Burt Lancaster and produced by Mark Hellinger. It was her first movie in black and white since becoming a star and her first to get good reviews.
  She played Lola Montez in Black Bart (1948), a Technicolor Western with Dan Duryea for director George Sherman. Duryea and Sherman worked with her again on River Lady (1948). De Carlo called these films "physically taxing but not creatively inspiring." The New York Times later summarised them as "a series of routine costume adventures as a tough but good-natured minx from across the tracks who wades into society and inevitably backtracks with a bloke of her own caliber."
  She romanced Tony Martin in Casbah (1948), a musical remake of Algiers (1938) made for Martin's own production company but released through Universal. De Carlo was reluctant to be in it because, though she would receive top billing over Martin, she did not get the female lead. That part went to Swedish newcomer Märta Torén. However, studio head William Goetz insisted that De Carlo play Inez, the role Sigrid Gurie acted in the 1938 version. She also sang the film's song For Every Man There's a Woman, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The film flopped at the box office, de Carlo's first flop since becoming a star.
  De Carlo then received an offer from Mark Hellinger to make another film with Burt Lancaster: the film noir Criss Cross (1949). This time De Carlo had a larger role, as a femme fatale, Anna. Bosley Crowther noted that De Carlo was "trying something different as Anna. The change is welcome, even though Miss de Carlo's performance is uneven. In that respect, she is right in step with most everything else about Criss Cross." The film has become regarded as a classic and De Carlo considered the role the highlight of her career to date. Tony Curtis made his debut in the movie, in a scene dancing with De Carlo.
  De Carlo was keen to make more movies along this line but Universal put her back in Technicolor Westerns with Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949), playing Calamity Jane, directed by Sherman, alongside Howard Duff.
  She played a role intended for Deanna Durbin in The Gal Who Took the West (1950), for director Fred de Cordova. The movie gave her a chance to show off her singing voice. Trained in opera and a former child chorister at St Paul's Anglican Church, Vancouver, De Carlo possessed a large vocal range. She was meant to be in Bagdad (1949) but suffered a miscarriage and was ill, so the studio cast Maureen O'Hara.
  De Cordova directed de Carlo in Buccaneer's Girl (1950), a pirate movie set in 1810s New Orleans opposite Philip Friend. The director later called De Carlo "a doll ... underrated as an actress. She was most professional, worked hard, was very good at her craft, possibly was not a first class star but came in on schedule. She knew her lines, she danced and sang rather well, and she wanted very much to be a bigger star than she ever became."
  She toured US army bases singi
caption: De Carlo in the trailer for Criss Cross (1949)
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