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]
1 2 Thomas, Kevin (October 20, 1972). "'Richard' Spoofs Career of Nixon". The Los Angeles Times. p.IV-17. Archived from the original on July 8, 2025. Retrieved August 15, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
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