Yvette Vickers was one of those Hollywood figures who managed to become unforgettable even while starring in movies nobody thought would last more than a summer drive-in run. Blonde, blue-eyed, and dangerous in all the right ways, she carved herself a niche as a B-movie bombshell and pin-up model, best known for two gloriously absurd horror classics: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Attack of the Giant Leeches. Throw in a stint as a Playboy Playmate, a romance or two with Hollywood legends, and a tragically bizarre ending straight out of a film noir, and you’ve got the story of a woman who lived her life like a cult movie — messy and fascinating.
Early Life and Hollywood Start
Yvette Vickers was born Yvette Iola Vedder on August 26, 1928, in Kansas City, Missouri. Her parents were jazz musicians who toured the country, so she grew up surrounded by the rhythm of show business. Eventually, the family landed in California, where Yvette attended UCLA. She started in journalism, but fate has a wicked sense of humor — one acting class later, and she was hooked.
Her first big break was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950). She was just an extra at a New Year’s Eve party scene, but if you squint, there she is, looking glamorous. Ironically, that movie’s about a forgotten actress fading into reclusion… a little too much foreshadowing, in hindsight.
By the mid-1950s, Yvette was doing TV guest spots and commercials, even popping up as a Communist temptress on I Led Three Lives. Hollywood had already figured her out: if there was a part for a beautiful woman leading men to doom, Yvette had the look.
Finding Her Niche: Queen of the B-Movies
In 1957, Vickers appeared in Reform School Girl, playing the kind of role where she got to throw hair-pulling fights in the dorm and glare menacingly from under heavy eyeliner. The poster even featured her front and center — two women locked in a catfight, which was basically the studio’s entire marketing plan.
But it was in 1958 that she struck B-movie gold. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman gave her the part of Honey Parker, the town floozy having an affair with a rich husband. Poor Honey didn’t count on her lover’s wife turning into a giantess after a UFO encounter. In the film’s climax, the towering 50-foot Allison Hayes storms into town, scoops up Honey and her cheating man, and squashes their sordid little love nest flat. Campy, cheap, and laugh-out-loud ridiculous, the film became a cult favorite — and Yvette was cemented as the screen’s reigning bad girl.
Not content with just one “Attack of the ____” film, she followed up with Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). This time, she played Liz Walker, a sultry swamp-dwelling adulteress who sneaks off with her lover, only to be captured by mutant leeches the size of refrigerators. Vickers spends much of the film running around in low-cut blouses before being dragged to a damp cave and drained like a Capri Sun. Critics might have groaned, but audiences at drive-ins lapped it up.
Between the two films, Yvette became a cult scream queen. Stephen King himself later admitted that as a teen he dreamed of “girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash,” specifically citing Yvette in Attack of the Giant Leeches. That’s the kind of legacy money can’t buy.
Playboy and the Beatnik Centerfold
As if cult horror stardom wasn’t enough, Yvette turned up in Playboy in July 1959 as Playmate of the Month. Her pictorial had a “beatnik” vibe: lounging on a couch surrounded by jazz records, looking like the coolest girl at the coffeehouse. The photographer was Russ Meyer, who went on to direct busty cult classics like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! It was a match made in kitsch heaven.
The shoot was risky for the time — her bare backside almost caused Playboy’s lawyer to shut the whole thing down. Hugh Hefner overruled him with a shrug. The issue went out as planned, and suddenly Yvette was not just a horror queen but also a pin-up darling.
Her love life took a hit, though. Around the same time, she married businessman Leonard Burns. He apparently didn’t read Playboy, because when he found out his new wife was on full display for the world, he filed for divorce. “He was kinda square,” Yvette later said, with the breezy charm of someone who’s already moved on.
Near Misses with Hollywood Stardom
Yvette wanted more than B-movie infamy. She screen-tested for big films like Imitation of Life and was briefly cast in This Earth Is Mine with Rock Hudson, until Hudson himself vetoed her. Ouch. She also had a role in Paul Newman’s Hud(1963), but most of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
She worked steadily on TV shows like Bat Masterson and One Step Beyond and even hit Broadway in 1961 with The Gang’s All Here. But the Hollywood A-list never quite opened the door for her. Instead, she remained pigeonholed as the blonde bombshell in smaller projects. By the 1970s, film roles had dried up almost completely.
Reinvention: Real Estate, Jazz, and Punk
When acting no longer paid the bills, Yvette turned to real estate in Los Angeles. She also explored other artistic outlets. In the 1980s, she performed a one-woman stage show about Zelda Fitzgerald and recorded a jazz album dedicated to her musician parents.
Then, in one of the most delightfully bizarre career twists ever, she recorded a punk rock track in 1989 with a band called Nyck Varoom’s Tomb. The song? “Those Leeches Are Crawling All Over Me.” It was exactly what it sounds like — a tongue-in-cheek homage to her B-movie past. Imagine a 60-year-old scream queen belting out campy punk lyrics about swamp monsters. You can’t not love it.
Convention Darling and Cult Icon
Even though Hollywood forgot about her, fans didn’t. From the 1980s through the 2000s, Yvette became a fixture at horror conventions and film festivals. She signed autographs, posed for photos, and happily chatted about 50 Foot Womanand Giant Leeches. She even recorded a DVD commentary for Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, laughing at the special effects and sharing behind-the-scenes stories.
Fans adored her. At one convention, she even dragged serious Broadway co-stars like Melvyn Douglas to a screening of Attack of the Giant Leeches. They reportedly thought it was hilarious, which is exactly the point. Yvette didn’t take herself too seriously, and that made her beloved.
Love, Affairs, and Hollywood Gossip
Yvette’s romantic life was pure Hollywood. After her early marriages ended, she dated actor Jim Hutton for 15 years, had a rumored fling with Cary Grant, and was linked to tough-guy actor Lee Marvin, comedian Mort Sahl, and even billionaire recluse Howard Hughes. Not bad for a girl who spent most of her screen time running from oversized props in swamp water.
The Final Act
Sadly, Yvette’s story didn’t end like one of her movies, with a last-minute rescue. In her later years, she became reclusive, struggling with health problems and paranoia. She withdrew from friends, and neighbors rarely saw her.
In 2011, a neighbor entered her home after noticing her mail piling up. Inside, she discovered Yvette’s body, mummified from having lain undiscovered for close to a year. She had died of heart disease at 82. The news made headlines worldwide — a tragic, surreal end that echoed the forgotten starlet in Sunset Boulevard, the film where Yvette’s career had begun.
Legacy
Yvette Vickers never climbed to the top of that crooked Hollywood ladder. She didn’t get the marble floors, the big trailers, or the champagne in crystal glasses. No — she wound up somewhere stranger. She became a cult relic. Her face still flickers on busted televisions at 2 a.m., grainy VHS tapes still carry her hips and her smirk, and that Playboy spread — all jazz records and rebellion — is stuck in 1959 like a lipstick print on the rim of an empty glass.
She was trashy, sure. Campy. But she knew it. She leaned into the joke, laughed at herself while the audience hooted, and somehow came out with dignity. That’s why people still drag her memory out of the grave. Some remember her as Honey Parker, squashed flat under a fifty-foot wife’s fury. Others see her as Liz Walker, dragged into the muck by rubber swamp monsters. And for the rest, she’s forever the blonde in the beatnik corner of Playboy, staring back like she knew the whole damn system was a scam.
Yvette never became a star. She became something better: somebody no one would forget.
