PHP special character question

Hi

I have a flash application that sends a string to a PHP file who sends it back via email.

Looks like this:

on(release){
my_lv = new LoadVars();
my_lv.LASTNAME = escape(LASTNAME);
my_lv.FIRSTNAME = escape(FIRSTNAME);
my_lv.EMAIL = escape(EMAIL);
my_lv.send(“http://carpell.com/MAILSENDER.php”, “POST”);
}

and in teh php file, i use the function urldecode() to decode the string, but when special characters are in the string, they become “phuked up”

like “é” becomes é and things like that…

ex : Jetté : jetté

plz help me !