Munsters Star Yvonne De Carlo Dies

By Stephen M. Silverman

Originally posted Wednesday January 10, 2007 04:15 PM EST

Yvonne De Carlo (left) with the cast of The Munsters. Photo by: Everett

Yvonne De Carlo, the 1950s screen beauty who became a household name in the '60s as Lily Munster on the CBS sitcom The Munsters, died of natural causes Monday at the Motion Picture & Television facility in Woodland Hills, Calif., the Associated Press reports. She was 84.

Though she first got into pictures in B-movies and westerns for Universal Studios, the British Columbia-born De Carlo played the wife of Moses (Charlton Heston) in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 Biblical blockbuster, The Ten Commandments, which was the No. 1 box-office hit of the 1950s.

But when she donned her costume to play the wife of Herman Munster on the 1964-66 show, De Carlo's place in the TV hall of fame was assured.

In 1998, Entertainment Weekly named The Munsters one of the 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, singling out De Carlo as being a loving mom and for spouting such gems to her son (child actor Butch Patrick, now 53) as, "Now, Eddie, go on up to bed. And don't forget to close the lid."

In 1971, De Carlo (real name: Peggy Yvonne Middleton) appeared in Stephen Sondheim's landmark Broadway musical Follies, in which she introduced the now-classic song about a former stage queen's sometimes rueful past, "I'm Still Here."

From 1955 to 1968 she was married to Hollywood stuntman Bob Morgan, who was severely injured during the making of 1962's How The West Was Won, losing a leg and the sight in one eye. De Carlo accepted the role of Lily to pay for his medical bills.

De Carlo and Morgan had two sons, Michael and Bruce Morgan, before the couple divorced. Michael died in 1997, age 40, while Bruce survives De Carlo, as does a stepdaughter, Bari Morgan.