Yvonne Thérèse Marie Camille Bedat de Monlaur was born in France, the daughter of a French poet and a Russian ballerina and pianist. She was trained for ballet as a youngster and worked as a model for Elle fashion magazine in her late teens. By the mid-1950s, she began appearing in French and Italian films.
Her good looks and positive reviews paved the way to bigger roles towards the end of the decade. She was featured on the cover of the weekly Milanese news publication Tempo in June 1959 and was hailed as the year's 'ost promising actress' by an Italian paper.
Yvonne's introduction to the horror genre came via Circus of Horrors (1960),made by Anglo-Amalgamated. She still had some difficulties with English but received benevolent mentoring from her co-star Anton Diffring.
Next came the role for which she is perhaps best remembered: that of French teacher Marianne Danielle, the heroine and potential 'tasty morsel' of The Brides of Dracula (1960). Filmed at Hammer's Bray Studio, director Terence Fisher did his best to provide suspense since the plot lacked any genuine semblance to originality.
The Terror of the Tongs (1961) provided the finale of Yvonne's brief sojourn in Britain. She was cast as a Eurasian girl and had invisible adhesive strips mounted either side of her face to give her eyes an Asian appearance.
At the end of 1961, Yvonne returned to the continent and went on to appear for the rest of the decade in an assortment of Italian and French films of varying merit. Her last outing was in a 1969 made-for-television homage to French music hall, doing a rendition of grand chanteuse Mistinguett's hit 'C'est vrais'.
The following year she retired from the screen 'for personal reasons' and lived most of her remaining life in Paris, occasionally attending film festivals and conventions.
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