How Money Put Honey in Monster Family
by Frank Judge, The Houston Chronicle TV Magazine 1/10/65

MONEY NEVER hurt anybody. Especially Pat Priest.
     Not that Pat has any great amount of money. Nobody bountifully blessed with money would consent to live with a family of monsters.
     But that's what Pat does for a living now, having replaced Beverly Owen [sic] as the "normal" girl on CBS' "The Munsters" each Thursday evening.
     Pat got the role of Marilyn Munster, the niece of Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne) on the basis of her guest appearances in other series.
     Pat's association with money comes from the fact that she is is the daughter of Ivy Baker Priest. As treasurer of the United States in the Eisenhower administration, Mrs. Priest's autograph appeared on all the money manufactured during those years.
     It wasn't Momma's money to keep, of course. But money has a way of attracting attention, and some of that attention rubbed off on Pat, a beautiful blue-eyed, aristocratic-looking blond.
     "When we were living in Washington, it's true that people made a fuss over me and my sister Nancy because of mother's position," Pat concedes. "Such attention helped me to land my own television show in Washington."
     It also let Pat pick up more crowns than are in the Tower of London.
     "I was queen of the First International Azalea Festival, the President's Cup Regatta, the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival, among other titles," Pat reports.
     Her mother was directly involved in starting Pat in show business.
     "Mother was directing drama for a church group back home in Bountiful," Pat says with the presumption that you've heard of Bountiful. It happens to be a Utah town of 5,000 persons.
     "We lived there before moving to Washington," Pat recalls. "I was just 16 when I acted for mother's group."
     Pat was heartsick about leaving Bountiful.
     "I was madly in love with one of the boys there, as only a kid can be," she says.
     Pat discovered Washington can match Bountiful in the romance department any day. A young naval officer, Pierce Jensen, escorted her when she was queen of the President's Cup Regatta. He's been Pat's beau ever since.
     Mrs. Priest may have some second thoughts about having started her daughter in a career as an actress now that Pat is running around with a bunch of monsters.
     Green ones, too. Green, as in money.