Marilyn: Pat Priest
Played first by Beverley Owen and then by Pat Priest, Marilyn lives with the Munsters throughout the series run. It is never made clear why Marilyn lives with the Munsters, rather than with her parents, who are said to still be in Transylvania. Although she is Lily’s niece, she is always referred to as “Marilyn Munster” (while the character was being developed, her name was Marilyn Mundane).
Marilyn is a fetching young woman and the only family member who is not ghoulish in appearance; by the Munsters’ aesthetic standards, she is distressingly unattractive. The family views Marilyn’s appearance as an affliction, but still treat her with kindness and love. Marilyn herself is all too aware of her “homeliness” and bemoans that she keeps scaring off potential boyfriends, having no clue that the young men are in fact frightened away by her monstrous family.
Despite being a “normal” beauty by society standards, the Munsters’ strange subculture of vampires, werewolves, zombies, sorcerers, mad scientists, et al., have made her a ghoul at-heart (she regularly assists Lily in cooking rodents, & festooning the house with cobwebs). Like the rest of her family, she believes that the Munster lifestyle is normal, and dissenters are out-of-step. In one episode, Herman was temporarily transformed into a normal, clean-cut man. The family, including Marilyn, was appalled and physically repelled by the tragic event. –Wikipedia
Patricia Ann Priest (born August 15, 1936) is an American actress known for portraying the second Marilyn Munster on the television show The Munsters (1964–1966) after the original actress, Beverley Owen, left after 13 episodes.
Priest replaced actress Beverley Owen on the television sitcom The Munsters; Owen departed the series after the first 13 episodes in order to get married. The running gag of Marilyn’s character was that this beautiful blonde woman was keenly aware she was the “ugly” or “plain” one in a family composed of a Frankenstein’s monster for an uncle, a vampire for an aunt, a vampire for a grandfather, a werewolf for a cousin, and other equally odd members. Another tongue-in-cheek gag was that the character’s name recalled sex symbol Marilyn Monroe.
In a move which angered many fans of the series, Universal Pictures decided to use starlet Debbie Watson (12 years Priest’s junior) in the role of Marilyn Munster in the 1966 feature Munster, Go Home! (1966) instead of Priest, as Watson was under contract to the studio which had plans to make her a film star.
After the series ended, Priest appeared on episodes of television programs such as Bewitched, Perry Mason, Death Valley Days, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show in which she played Sue Ann Nivens’ (Betty White) unappreciated younger sister.In 2001, Priest was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She finished maintenance treatments at St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute and is now in remission. –Wikipedia