Gilding the 'Lily'

"The Munsters will live forever," a TV critic predicted of the '60s sitcom in the early '80s. And who doubted it... after all, they were vampires. Alas, it was "only make believe," as luscious Lily Munster-- embodied by an actress once dubbed, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," Yvonne De Carlo-- has passed away at age 84 {or so the press would have us believe, (photo)}. Well, at least Herman works in a funeral home...

The family "lived" at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in Mockingbird Heights-- and it took a lot to kill this Mockingbird: Lily would have been 199 this September {the show debuted on CBS in 9/64 just 6 days after ABC unveiled The Addams Family}. "It gave me a new, young audience," the former '40s starlet said of The Munsters {(photo), the name derived from "Fun-Monsters"}. "It made me hot again." Indeed, she'd scorched nightclubs in 1941 with an even scarier "partner" than Fred Gwynne's Herman: dancing with "the Gorilla of My Dreams" in Hollywood's Florentine Gardens nightclub act entitled "Beauty & the Beast" (photo).

Earlier she'd doffed her duds to audition for "Follies" girlie mogul Earl Carroll: "I undid my blouse," Yvonne recalled, "took off my bra-- took a deep breath, and gave him a quickie look" (photo). And she soon learned the secret of posing nude while seated when a cameraman moved the lighting "just one R.C.H. to the left." Asked the aspiring actress: "Exactly what do those letters stand for?" "Well," explained the gaffer, "it's a term we use for a fine hairsbreadth measurement. You see, Yvonne, there are 3 such measurements: Y.C.H., B.C.H., and R.C.H. The first letter stands for the color of hair: Yellow, Black and Red. The finest {pubic} hair of all is Red. That's why we ask for an R.C.H.-- a Red Cunt Hair. Get it?" "I got it," Yvonne laughed-- and showed it by not showing it in this subtly shaded pose sans panties (photo).

Her first "big part"-- well, other than being "self-conscious about my 'upper assets' since I was 13, when I'd started wearing C-cups"-- came in 1945's Salome, Where She Danced (photo) after she dropped her birth name of Margaret Yvonne Middleton in favor of her mother's maiden moniker, De Carlo. Her career lasted well into her 70s-- netting the former Miss Venice Beach not one, but two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for each "Lily hilly"). Receiving the second (photo), the ageless Bride of Frankenstein looked as lovely as when she supposedly stripped in leaner times (photo) before landing the Munsters role! "I never realized undies were so, ah, inhibiting," Yvonne once quipped... but her epitaph should be another of her quotes that will never die: "Sex has been good to me," De Carlo declared, "and I try to be good at it."