Munster-ous local cult characters

It goes without saying, cult icon Pat Priest secured certain fame—or perhaps infamy—with her role as pretty ingenue teen Marilyn Munster, niece to the creepily funny Herman and Lily.

But the Doris Day-esque Priest was no one-trick-pony on the ‘60s Hollywood scene, she explained from her Wood River Valley home last week.

"In those days, you did everything except porno," Priest said.

Over the years, she has cinched stints on ‘60s and ‘70s sitcoms, commercials, B-movie thrillers and—get this—a flick with Elvis Presley himself under her belt.

Think of the anti-gravity-coifed blondes in "Mission Impossible," "Dr. Kildare," "Perry Mason," "My Favorite Martian." Not infrequently, that TV starlette’s big blues with batting eyelashes belonged to Priest.

You probably missed her silver screen debut in "The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant" with costars Casey Kasem ("Weekly Top 40" music countdown) and Bruce Dern but might have caught "Easy Come, Easy Go," especially if you were a fan of the King’s.

"I was always playing the good girl because of my blonde hair. That’s how it was in Hollywood," Priest explained. "Except in the Elvis movie. Then I got to be the bad girl."

Priest’s earliest years were spent in Bountiful, Utah, (now a large Salt Lake City suburb). Her trip from a childhood cloaked in small-town obscurity in to celluloid fame didn’t happen overnight and was perhaps as much caused by her then-husband’s naval career as to her own talent and looks.

"A lot of it was luck," she said. "It was when luck and preparedness met opportunity."

At 14, Priest’s mother directed on-the-road variety shows for Mormon churches, and had her roped into a performing the opening act before the curtain rose.

"It was a comic record pantomime," Priest recalled. "I lip-synched the old Vaudvillian star Beatrice Kay’s ‘Hooray, Hooray I’m Going Away With the Man in the Little White Coat.’"

A feathery bird flopped on a spring from her hat and she rolled hysterically on the floor, mimicking lunacy, until the funny farm "interns" dragged her off stage.

Priest’s loony hack at theater was a raving, rollicking success.

The act grew in popularity and scope. She started doing pantomime routines on "second-rate Kathy Lee and Regis Shows," commercials and local theater on a surprisingly national scale.

She soon married, and kept acting wherever her husband’s work took them.

"I just kept going to auditions," Priest said. "If I worked great, if not, it was great, too, because I could stay home with my two sons."

When the couple transferred to Hollywood, Calif., Priest found herself a small-time agent, kept up with the commercials and local theater and started doing bit parts on sitcoms.

"The Munsters" was already on the air by then—it was the mid-60s—and Priest heard through her agent that the original Marilyn Munster, Beverly Owens, was fed up with Hollywood life and planned to move to New York where her fiancé lived.

Priest, then 33, caught the last day of the Marilyn auditions on a Wednesday, CBS studios called her Thursday, she signed a contract on Friday and started taping at the next Monday.

So it was off to 1313 Mockingbird Lane with Aunt Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo), Uncle Herman (Fred Gwynne), Grandpa Munster (Al Lewis) and Cousin Eddie (Butch Patrick) to play the 19-year-old Marilyn who was somehow acquired after the Munsters’ move from Transylvania to Mockingbird Heights.

How was Marilyn so Wonder Bread-normal but still related to the eerily bohemian Munsters? What horrid fate lurked in Marilyn’s past, leaving her motherless?

"They never told me," Priest said. "Where Marilyn’s character came from is one of the great mysteries of television."

For Priest, the role presented little challenge and days spent filming were light and easy.

"It wasn’t hard work, I didn’t have a lot of lines," Priest said. "Maybe only two episodes a year were about my character."

But, as many good things come to an end, the show taped its last episode in 1964 and today, Priest leads a life of relative anonymity.

Now, she goes by her married name, Hansing, and is never recognized by the public. What few residuals her contract with "The Munsters" brought ended only two years after the show’s last taping, Priest said.

But by no means has "Marilyn" faded away.

"It’s unbelievable, fans know every single thing I have done, worn or said on the show" she puzzled. "I can barely recall what I did last weekend!"

"The Munsters" has aired weekly almost without cessation somewhere in America since it was canceled.

Unbelievably, Priest’s fan mail still pours in.

"The Munsters" memorabilia biz is apparently thriving—a lunch box with thermos runs $300, a 59-cent jigsaw puzzle can go for $65—and Priest will often spend weekends signing Munsters objets at sitcom-themed conferences and horror festivals.

But, she said, it all has very little to do with the money, or any need of her own to hang on to fame gone-by.

When "The Munsters" aired, the newness of television had hardly worn off and prime time meant family time for many Americans.

Priest said many who remember Marilyn tell her of their own memories born around the TV set.

"‘The Munsters’ brings back the past for people," said a misty Priest. "It wasn’t what we were doing in the show, but what was happening in their living room that makes them nostalgic."