Yvette Vickers

About Yvette Vickers

Yvette Vickers, an actress who achieved only modest fame in the realm of B-movies, unexpectedly found herself the subject of international attention years after her passing. In 2010, approximately eight months after her death, her mummified remains were discovered within her Benedict Canyon home by a neighbor, Susan Savage. Savage, despite a past disagreement with Vickers over their dogs, had noticed Vickers’s mailbox overflowing with uncollected mail and felt compelled to check on the elderly actress.

The secluded Westwanda Drive neighborhood, a winding road nestled amongst lush, ivy-covered hillsides, was home to a mix of artists and academics. Savage, who had purchased her home from a film producer, had become something of an informal community leader. She was aware of Vickers’s colorful reputation, marked by tales of late-night strolls in a nightgown with a martini, romantic entanglements, and a particularly popular Halloween haunt. Vickers had once confided in Savage about having “sugar daddies in the desert.”

As Vickers aged and her eccentricities grew, she began expressing to neighbors and friends that she felt she was being stalked, a claim that met with skepticism given her relative obscurity. Undeterred, Savage, after failing to recruit another neighbor to accompany her, ascended the steps to Vickers’s cottage. Past a neglected mailbox and a barricaded front door, the scene inside was disquieting. Molded fan mail lay scattered, and a loose window, secured with duct tape, offered a glimpse of the interior. Upon entering, Savage discovered what she initially mistook for a wig, only to realize later it was part of Vickers’s tragically decomposed body.

The dwelling itself was in a state of extreme disarray, resembling a hoarder’s den. Walls were stained, and debris blocked access to the upper floor. After crawling through a gap in the drywall, Savage entered the upper living space, where a whirring heater emanated a blast of hot air. She found a makeshift kitchen area and, near a daybed, a grim discovery: a pile of clothing from which emerged what appeared to be hair, revealing the horrifying truth of her neighbor’s fate. Savage fled the house in distress, alerting the authorities.

The ensuing investigation revealed Vickers’s body to be severely decomposed and mummified. The medical examiner initially struggled to determine even her sex, noting the absence of organs and the presence of calcified tissue suggesting cardiovascular disease as a possible cause of death. Her remains, weighing 56 pounds, were taken to the county morgue, awaiting identification by next of kin, none of whom had contacted authorities.

Vickers’s story, a slow descent into isolation and eventual tragic discovery, stood in contrast to the rapid rise and fall often associated with Hollywood careers. Her early life was shaped by her parents, Chuck and Iola Maria Vedder, itinerant jazz musicians. Yvette sang with them in clubs from a young