Lily Munster

Infobox character
colour = #00CC00
colour text = white
name = Lily Munster
series = "The Munsters"


caption = Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster.
first = "Munster Masquerade"
last = "A Visit from the Teacher"
creator =
portrayer = Yvonne De Carlo
Cynthia Adler (1973)
Lee Meriwether (1988)
Veronica Hamel (1995)
Ann Magnuson (1996)
episode = 70
nickname =
alias =
species = human (vampire)
gender = female
age = 137fn|a
born = 1827
death = (unknown)
occupation = housewife
spouse = Herman Munster (1865 – present)
children = Eddie Munster
relatives = Sam Dracula (father)
Marilyn Munster (niece)
Lester Dracula (brother)
residence = 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Mockingbird Heights
nationality = American (formerly Romanian)
imdb_id = 0028730

Lily Munster, Countess of Shroudshire (née Dracula), is a fictional character in the CBS sitcom "The Munsters", played by Yvonne De Carlo. The matriarch of the Munster household, Lily is an undead vampire. Her character was loosely based upon Vampira, [http://www.tvland.com/shows/munsters/ — accessed March 1, 2008.] who was coincidentally based upon Charles Addams's Morticia Addams. The role was later played by Lee Meriwether in The Munsters Today.

Origins

Lily was born in 1827 to Sam Dracula (Grandpa) and his 166th wife (referred to only as "Grandma"). She lived with Grandpa for some time in Transylvania before meeting Herman Munster and marrying him in 1865. She, Grandpa, and Herman moved to America sometime before the mid-1940s and adopted her sister's child, Marilyn. In the mid-1950s she gave birth to Eddie, her and Herman's only child.

Description

Lily is the matriarch of the Munster family. She is very close with her niece, Marilyn. She has a werewolf for a brother, who appears in one episode, and a sister who is mentioned a few times who is Marilyn's mother. Lily is the voice of reason in the Munster household, often relied upon to set problems right, and typically mediates when Herman and Grandpa squabble.

Lily is mainly a housewife, and her duties include spreading garbage around the mansion and "dusting" with a vacuum cleaner operating in reverse so that it blows dirt about in the nine-room-and-a-dungeon house. During the course of the series, Lily works as a welder in a shipyard, a fashion model, and a palm reader in a tea room. In one episode she forces Herman to give her money so that she and Marilyn can open a beauty parlor, but this soon goes out of business, as Lily assumes her clientele wants to look more like herFact|date=August 2007. These part time jobs never seem to stick, and Lily would be back to being a homemaker by the next episode. Once, when she thinks Herman is going broke, she gets a job to help out, keeping this a secret, lest it wound Herman's pride. In some ways, Lily is a proto-feminist, striving against Herman's more traditional family values.

Lily is a beautiful and slender woman who appears to be in her middle-age years, although she is actually hundreds of years old. Her skin was green, which repelled some people. Later incarnations of the character, played by different actresses, would change her skin from green to pale white. A white streak in her hair recalls the monster's mate from "Bride of Frankenstein". Lily usually dresses in an ankle-length pale pink gown that appears faded and old, sometimes covering up with a scarf. Her necklace features a bat-shaped medallion. When away from the Munster house, she sometimes wears a long silver cape with a hood.

Development

Lily was not in the original pilot episode of "The Munsters". Instead, Herman is married to a much more Gothic-looking wife named Phoebe, played by Joan Marshall. The producers scrapped the Phoebe character after deciding she seemed almost an exact double of the Morticia Addams character on "The Addams Family". Lily appeared in the second pilot and all other episodes.

Yvonne De Carlo was cast for the role in March 1964. When first cast, Gwynne and Lewis went to the producers and complained because De Carlo was a movie star of long standing and they were worried that she would not fit in. However, after a few shows, they had to admit they had been wrong, and all got on well.Fact|date=June 2008

Notes

* Her age at the beginning of Season 1. This does not take into account the fact that she is undead, and thus has some unknown date of death.

References