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| Yvette Vickers in a Playboy layout by Russ Meyer, 1959 |
May 2 was one weird, wild, wonderful and ultimately woeful whiplash of a day. Not only was the world still abuzz about
the death of Osama bin Laden the previous night, but I was at
Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge in Alameda filming the live action segment of a tiki-noir-grindhouse style "book trailer" for The
Thrillville Pulp Fiction Collection, now being edited by filmmaker
Christopher Sorrenti. The vignette we shot will be incorporated into images of book covers mixed with recordings of me reading juicy bits from each book. When I got home, I was hit with the news that the
Sahara in Vegas, one of the last of the original Sin City resorts, once home base of
Louis Prima and
Keely Smith,
is closing down, probably to make way for another family friend monstrosity, meaning I have pretty much no reason to ever visit Disneyland in the Desert again (Viva
Palm Springs!). From the Rat Pack to the Mickey Mouse Club: the degeneration is now compete. And, much, much worse: I learned of
the tragic demise of legendary "scream queen"
Yvette Vickers, best known as the "bad girl" in
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) and
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), whom I met once years ago at a celebrity convention. She was a very warm, wonderful woman in my brief experience with her, autographing several photos and the independently produced CD she recorded in honor or her jazz musician parents. I will always cherish our conversation, honored to have had the opportunity to meet and converse with someone I've always admired, but I will be forever saddened by her incredibly lonesome, lurid death scene,
described in this tribute column I wrote for Examiner.com. Cheers to Yvette, forever enshrined as a drive-in diva, but also greatly loved by all of her fans, even if she died alone.
