This sweet, wholesome, porcelain-skinned beauty was your typical bouffant blonde of the early-to-mid 60s. She was picture perfect, whether romping along the coast of Malibu Beach in a bikini or peering over a white picket fence as the girl-next-door. Pat Priest was born in 1936 in Utah. Her mother, Ivy Baker Priest (1905-1975), was a renown government official and served as United States Treasurer under the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration from 1953-1961. She also was California's Treasurer while Ronald Reagan was Governor from 1966-1974. Living a glamorous débutante's life in Washington D.C. during her mother's 1950s term, she won attention as a beauty contest winner in the area. Stagestruck, she moved to Los Angeles and pursued commercials, modeling and community theater work. She happened to be in the San Francisco Bay area, in 1964, when she got the call from Hollywood as a possible replacement for lookalike actress Beverley Owen , the "original" Marilyn Munster, who was suddenly leaving "The Munsters" (1964) series for marriage. Most viewers never caught on that there was a cast change. The decorative sitcom role did wonders for Pat as the prettiest resident of 1313 Mockingbird Lane, making her a minor household name. On the down side, she was given very little to do but to serve as a pretty and innocent foil for the weird and funny characters around her. Her one-joke premise revolved around her feeling "abnormal" amid her ghoulish relatives. The show ran another two seasons with Pat, then she went on to what would become a less-than-enviable post-Munsters career. Other than a few guest parts in such shows as "Bewitched" (1964), "Perry Mason" (1957), "The Virginian" (1962) and "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970), the pickings grew scarce. Deemed too old to play "Marilyn" after the series was canceled (she was 30), she was replaced by red-headed Debbie Watson (TV's "Tammy") for the feature film, Munster, Go Home! (1966), which included the rest of her TV cast. She did dally around with Elvis Presley in Easy Come, Easy Go (1967), one of his lesser vehicles, and also appeared in the sub-par cult horror flick, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971), which co-starred Bruce Dern and Casey Kasem , but film roles were almost non-existent after that. Pat finally retired from acting in the 80s but still attends many of the nostalgic conventions and "Munster" revivals around the country. At last report, she was restoring and selling homes in the Idaho area. Married twice, she has two sons.

Bought a 1967 Cadillac El Dorado convertible, with a black leather interior, from Elvis Presley for $3,000. She traded it in a couple of years later for a new Pontiac, rather than keeping Elvis' convertible as a collector's item. She didn't tell the dealer it had been owned by Elvis.Best known for playing Marilyn Munster on the TV series "The Munsters" (1964); however, she took over the role after Beverley Owen left the series to get married. Priest stayed with the series until its cancellation in 1966.Has two sons from her first marriage: Pierce and Lance. Both were in commercials when young.Selected as one of the Capitol's "Ten Most Beautiful Women" while living in Washington D.C. with her mother, U.S. Treasurer Ivy Baker Priest , whose signature appeared on U.S. currency from 1953 to 1961.When she was a young girl, her family moved from Salt Lake City to Bountiful, Utah. Although Bountiful is a small town, she was exposed to entertainment work through her mother, Ivy Baker Priest , who often wrote, directed and produced road shows for the Mormon church.Queen of the Norfolk (Virginia) Azalea Pageant in 1954.Member of Delta Zeta sorority, Alpha Chi chapter.She auditioned for the role of Mary Ann in "Gilligan's Island" (1964).In November 2000, she was a guest at the Asheville Film Festival (now called the Western North Carolina Film Festival) at Asheville, North Carolina.