RIP Lillian Munster
Jan. 11th, 2007 07:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
• Actress Yvonne De Carlo, played Lily Munster, dead
• De Carlo also noted for "Ten Commandments"
• Actress often appeared in "sex-and-sand" B-movies, Westerns
• De Carlo had major role in Sondheim's "Follies"
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments" but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters," has died. She was 84.
De Carlo died of natural causes Monday at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said Wednesday.
De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and Westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s. Later, she had a key role in a landmark Broadway musical, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies."
But for TV viewers, she will always be known as Lily Munster in the 1964-1966 slapstick horror-movie spoof "The Munsters." The series (the name allegedly derived from "fun-monsters") offered a gallery of Universal Pictures grotesques, including Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, in a cobwebbed gothic setting.
Lily presided over the faux scary household and was a rock for her gentle but often bumbling husband, Herman, played by 6-foot-5-inch character actor Fred Gwynne (decked out as the Frankenstein monster).
While it lasted only two years, the series had a long life in syndication and resulted in two feature movies, "Munster Go Home!" (1966) and "The Munsters' Revenge" (1981, for TV).
At the series' end, De Carlo commented: "It meant security. It gave me a new, young audience I wouldn't have had otherwise. It made me 'hot' again, which I wasn't for a while."
I never had a crush on Lillian Munster, like I did Morticia Adams:
"Last night you were, unhinged. You were like some desperate, howling demon. You frightened me.... Do it again!" Morticia Adams, from the 1960s show, The Addams Family.
Carolyn Jones, the actress who played Morticia on the TV show, died from cancer in 1983. She was married to Aaron Spelling for 13 years, til 1964.!!!!!
• De Carlo also noted for "Ten Commandments"
• Actress often appeared in "sex-and-sand" B-movies, Westerns
• De Carlo had major role in Sondheim's "Follies"
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments" but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters," has died. She was 84.
De Carlo died of natural causes Monday at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said Wednesday.
De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and Westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s. Later, she had a key role in a landmark Broadway musical, Stephen Sondheim's "Follies."
But for TV viewers, she will always be known as Lily Munster in the 1964-1966 slapstick horror-movie spoof "The Munsters." The series (the name allegedly derived from "fun-monsters") offered a gallery of Universal Pictures grotesques, including Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, in a cobwebbed gothic setting.
Lily presided over the faux scary household and was a rock for her gentle but often bumbling husband, Herman, played by 6-foot-5-inch character actor Fred Gwynne (decked out as the Frankenstein monster).
While it lasted only two years, the series had a long life in syndication and resulted in two feature movies, "Munster Go Home!" (1966) and "The Munsters' Revenge" (1981, for TV).
At the series' end, De Carlo commented: "It meant security. It gave me a new, young audience I wouldn't have had otherwise. It made me 'hot' again, which I wasn't for a while."
I never had a crush on Lillian Munster, like I did Morticia Adams:
"Last night you were, unhinged. You were like some desperate, howling demon. You frightened me.... Do it again!" Morticia Adams, from the 1960s show, The Addams Family.
Carolyn Jones, the actress who played Morticia on the TV show, died from cancer in 1983. She was married to Aaron Spelling for 13 years, til 1964.!!!!!