Former Playboy Playmate and B-movie star Yvette Vickers was found in a "mummified state" inside her Benedict Canyon, California home by a neighbor last week. Authorities tell the Los Angeles Times that she could have been dead for up to a year. Susan Savage found Vickers' body after noticing yellowed mail and cobwebs: "I just had a bad feeling," she told the paper.

The inside of the home was in disrepair and it was hard to move through the rooms because boxes containing what appeared to be clothes, junk mail and letters formed barriers, Savage said. Eventually, she made her way upstairs and found a room with a small space heater still on.

She was looking at a cordless phone that appeared to have been knocked off its cradle when she first saw the body on the floor, she said. Savage had known Vickers but the remains were unrecognizable, she said.

Aside from being Playboy Playmate of the Month in July, 1959, Vickers appeared in Attack of the Giant Leeches and Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. She also appeared on many television shows for several decades. She was 82.

[LAT; image via]