Celeste Yarnall & Nazim

CY: Yes, I had a very strong mother. My mother told me everyday of my life, “You’re beautiful, you’re smart and you can be anything you want to be. Don’t settle for less.” I was one of those kids that got picked on in school. I was the pretty girl who was dressed too nice. The principal asked my mother if she could dress me down so I’d get along better, but she made everything I wore and she told him, “I will not dress my daughter down for you or anyone else.”

AM: Once again you are untouchable.

CY: I was lonely. I had no brothers or sisters. I lived on a block that was all little boys who would try to beat me up.

AM: How old were you when the shift from being beat up to being lusted for happened?

CY: Age fourteen...wearing a pair of white tennis shorts, walking to the store with a little midriff tied top and my hair in a ponytail, walking to the store and a man in a convertible craned his neck around to look at me so hard that he ran straight into a telephone pole and smashed the entire front end of his car. I just clippity clopped by him with my nose in the air! (laughter) That’s power! The power of tan legs. I always kept my face out of the sun. I can still see the engine smoking and the water spurting out of it.

AM: That’s the meaning of the word “Bombshell.”

NA: This flows into her discovery on the studio lot. She got this recognition based on the power of beauty. It’s often like a thunderbolt.

CY: It certainly wasn’t all easy for me. I always loved birds and butterflies. I trained the neighborhood bluejays to come and eat out of my hands. As I said, I had no friends so I had imaginary animal friends.

AM: That is so unlikely!

CY: I just had an affinity for them. I raised parakeets as a little girl. My dad would pick up bees and talk to them. The neighbor was a staff photographer for the paper. He kept seeing me with these birds and he said I’m going to take your picture for the paper and show it to somebody. So he snapped a few shots and low and behold it got published.

AM: This was all meant to be! What happened next?

CY: A lady who was the head of Max Factor Publicity saw my face and said they had to do some test shots where they made me look 35 years old. I had Lucille Ball’s make-up man Hal King. I got the lips and everything! I remember going to see some of the top agents. I had really pretty hands so they told me I would only be a hand model.

AM: Why just a hand model!?!

CY: I was told my face was too square, my nose was too long and my lips were too small. I just remembered my mother saying, “You’re beautiful and you can be whatever you want to be.” After I won the Miss Rheingold contest those same people were on their knees to sign me.

AM: That must have felt good!

CY: Before all this I did get an agent to send me on commercial auditions where I’d have to take four busses just to get to an audition. One time I knew I wouldn’t make it in my high heels unless I took a short cut through the studio so I flirted with the guard and he let me sneak in. Well I walked right by Rick Nelson, who was filming “The Ozzie and Harriet Show” and he was outside throwing the football with his best friend. Well, all hell broke loose with cat calls and everything just stopped. They were all staring at me and whistling. All the noise caused Ozzie Nelson to come out of his bungalow and he told me to come over. He then told me, “Little lady, anyone who can stop traffic on this lot belongs on our show. You have a role!” I told him that I didn’t have a SAG card. He said, “We’ll get you your SAG card. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

AM: What did you do?

CY: I filled out some paperwork and they sent it to SAG and I went on my way to the commercial audition where I got the part. This is how I started my career. I did lots of the TV shows back then in black & white. If you’d blink you’d miss me.

AM: Of course you have the ‘Star Trek’ episode. Actors who were on ‘Star Trek’ are the luckiest actors in the world!

CY: The luckiest in the world!!! It’s just amazing.

AM: It gives you a following forever. You have two films I find interesting. One is a film you made in Spain called ‘Eve.’ It was a fan of this movie in Spain that wrote me about having you on the blog. I wanted you on the blog anyway but when he wrote I knew it was the right time.

NA: Your blog is so exciting because it features such an eclectic mix of people.

AM: Thanks Nazim, that’s the way I always wanted it to be. I have to ask you about Elvis, Celeste. We are all still interested in anything Elvis!

CY: The wonderful part about me being in “Live a Little, Love a Little” was the original title was supposed to be “Kiss Those Firm But Pliant Lips” which is exactly what I did on screen so the world knows about that!

AM: Did you like Elvis as a person?

CY: I really adored him. He was a phenomenally wonderful man. You know how some people try to be interesting instead of interested? Elvis never tried to be interesting. He was always interested in just plain folks. He was nice and sweet and kind and humble as anyone could be. He couldn’t understand why he had such great success. He would ask if anyone had any idea why it happened to him. I’d say, “Well Elvis, you have a three and a half octave range and one of the most beautiful voices of all time, sapphire blue eyes, you’re so exquisitely beautiful in person and you’re so nice, so talented and so charming. What do you mean!?!”

AM: Was Elvis a little insecure?

CY: He was preparing for his come-back special and he asked me if I thought anyone would even remember him. I said, “Are you kidding me!?!” I have lots of wonderful memories of spending time with Elvis. He was so humble.

AM: Did he have his big entourage with him?

CY: It was a little disconcerting with that many guys hanging around. Elvis had a very interesting quality, and I’m certain this is how women fall in love, women do not fall in love with the patriarchal man. Women fall in love with the boy their mother raised.

AM: Why is this?

CY: The boy the mother raised loves his mother and loves women. He treats his mom different than he does his dad. Every man has a different story about how they got along with their dad, but most boys really loved their mothers. They could be different with their mother and cuddle and cry with her. They could share with their mother their deepest secrets. They got that kind of nurturing and nourishment, usually from mom. Not everyone gets the ideal mother, but sometimes there is a grandma or an aunt, or someone who can fill that part. The point is if a man gets that kind of nurturing, he has two personalities. They have one with men and they have another personality with women. That has nothing to do with sexual preference, it’s just how we relate to each other.

AM: I think you are right.

CY: Elvis had this beautiful way with women. He would bare his soul. He would share and open up, but the minute the guys came back, out would come a different personality, even a different voice. Suddenly it was all about football! I saw that so clearly as the two faces of Elvis.

AM: You were privileged to know a more intimate side of Elvis.

CY: Most of all I saw a super-caring, super-generous, loving, sensitive person who had a lot of insecurities. He confessed to me that life had never been the same after his Mom died and that he carried the guilt of his twin brother who died so Elvis could be born. Elvis suffered from these things, but the minute he opened his mouth to sing, another person emerged. It wasn’t the person with the women or the men, another whole being emerged from the downbeat.

AM: Do you mean when he sang in concert?

CY: It would happen anytime anywhere. He chose me to come watch the funeral of Martin Luther King in his dressing room trailer. He was very upset at rumors that he was a bigoted person. He was vehement about this when he said, “I’m like a white black person. The black people that I grew up with are my friends. They always treated me like one of them. I was born just like one of them. I was born dirt poor and poverty makes us all equal. I have soul when I sing because I sing from my guts. I’m part of the black community.” He was very upset that he wasn’t at Dr. King’s funeral. He wanted to sing at it. I told him to sing right now so he stood up and sang ‘Amazing Grace’ a capella. I will never forget the power of that song.

AM: I have one more “actress” question. Can you tell me about this unique vampire film you made called ‘The Velvet Vampire’? It has become quite a cult favorite and considered to be an art movie now.

CY: It is an art film. It’s kind of cool.

AM: I’ve never seen anything like it before.

CY: (laughing) I got to see it a few years ago in an actual theater in Hollywood. It’s one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite films so he loaned the 35mm print to the film festival. I got to speak a little bit before.

AM: You are really quite beautiful in this film, ‘The Velvet Vampire’...and good in the part.

CY: I had just had my baby daughter and I was breast feeding her and I was going through a divorce. I was going through so much I said I would be the mother and the father. I told the universe I was going to raise a child as a solo act. I had turned down any nudity up to that point but now I had to raise a kid! (laughing)

AM: Did you get paid a good rate?

CY: It was fair and took care of the mortgage for a few months. I ate raw chicken liver in the film and it wasn’t bad. People always want to know what making the nude love scene was like. We had a closed set with the smallest crew possible.

AM: That must have made it easier.

CY: It wasn’t so hard. These people were my friends. Being a model I got used to changing clothes in a corridor. The only thing that was a little tough was I had just given birth seven months earlier and stopped nursing my daughter for this part. I was down on the floor doing sit-ups right after giving birth to her. I held my tummy in the whole time I was pregnant because I kept saying to myself, “Don’t let the baby use your stomach as a hammock. Hold her in place.”