Lorene Yarnell

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Lorene Yarnell (born March 21, 1944 in Inglewood , California - † July 29, 2010 in Sandefjord , Norway ) was an American actress , tap dancer and mime artist .

Life

Yarnell began dancing as a child and was a top tap dancer by the age of 15. She appeared as a dancer in television shows and met during the filming of the television production Fol-de-Rol to Robert Shields , one of Marcel Marceau trained mimes. Yarnell followed Shields to San Francisco , where both married in 1972. While she was teaching him to dance, she learned the art of pantomime from him. After several years in San Francisco, the couple moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where they first became part of the ensemble of the Mac Davis Show and then the Sonny and Cher Show . From CBS in 1977 they received their own joint entertainment show , Shields and Yarnell . The half-hour mix of pantomime, dance and sketches was discontinued in 1978 due to poor audience ratings; the show ran in direct competition with the hit sitcom Laverne & Shirley on ABC . Afterwards both appeared in addition to other television roles with their own shows in Las Vegas and Reno .

In 1981 they both received their own Broadway show , after poor reviews it was canceled after the first performance. The couple divorced in the mid-1980s. Yarnell made her last film appearance in 1987 as the robot Dot Matrix in Mel Brooks ' Spaceballs . She last ran a dance school in Sandefjord after she married a Norwegian and moved to his homeland with him. She died at the age of 66 from complications from a heart aneurysm .

Her brother Bruce Yarnell was also active in show business as an actor and opera singer .

Filmography (selection)

Movie

watch TV

  • 1969: What's It All About, World?
  • 1972: Fol-de-Rol
  • 1972: Love, American Style
  • 1976-1977: The Sonny and Cher Show
  • 1977-1978: Shields and Yarnell
  • 1978: Wonder Woman
  • 1979: Two Save the World (The Wild Wild West Revisited)

Broadway

  • 1981: Broadway Follies

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