Lorees Yerby

Lorees Yerby (January 9, 1930 - 1996) was an American playwright and filmmaker. She originally worked as a collaborator with her second husband, television producer Mike Dutton, and they ran Coffee House Positano from 1957 until 1963. She wrote several plays and was a 1976 Guggenheim Fellow, and she co-wrote, co-directed, and (alongside her third husband Bertrand Castelli) co-produced a feature film, Richard (1972).

Yerby was born on January 9, 1930, in San Francisco,^[1] daughter of Loretta Murphy and Rees Owen Yerby.^[2] During her youth, she worked several jobs as radio station traffic manager, San Francisco Examiner copy girl, and United Nations page.^[2] She dropped out of University of California, Berkeley after staying for one semester.^[2] Her first husband was David Walker until they divorced.^[3]

Arriving in New York City, Yerby worked at CBS' New York office as a receptionist, as well as a model.^[4] In 1954, she married Mike Dutton, whom she met during her Bohemian trip to the Italian town of Positano; she had been a contestant for Your Big Moment, a television show Dutton was producing.^[4] The duo subsequently worked on two television pilots, while she competed on The Kathy Godfrey Show, a game show her husband also produced.^[4] She and Dutton ran Coffee House Positano, a coffee house in Malibu, from 1957 until its dissolution in 1963.^[5] She also appeared in You Bet Your Life but lost after failing to say the secret word.^[6]

After divorcing Dutton following their coffee house's closure, Yerby married French stage producer Bertrand Castelli.^[6] Her one-act plays Save Me A Place at Forest Lawn and The Last Minstrel were performed at the Pocket Theatre in New York City in 1963,^[7] and Dramatists Play Service published the former in 1964.^[1] Another play she wrote, Golden Bull of Boredom, aired on CBC Television in 1965.^[8]

Yerby co-wrote, co-directed, and (alongside her husband) co-produced Richard, a 1972 comedy film satirizing then-president Richard Nixon.^[9] The film was a box-office failure and the couple were financially devastated by the loss,^[10] eventually divorcing.^[11] In 1976,^[12] she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship^[1] for a play trilogy titled Our Fathers;^[10] while writing for all three parts was completed,^[13] the play itself never reached production stage.^[10]

Yerby had two sons with her second husband, Michael and Winston.^[14]

Yerby died in 1996 in Ocean Park, a neighborhood in Santa Monica, where she had lived during the last part of her life.^[5]

• Ruby, Jay (2014). Coffee House Positano: A Bohemian Oasis in Malibu, 1957–1962.