Canadian born Yvonne De Carlo, one of the loveliest and most versatile actresses to come out of the old Hollywood studio system has died of natural causes. She was 84.

Long before De Carlo became a household name portraying Lily Munster, wife of the Frankenstein-esque Herman Munster, she was a fixture in Hollywood and one of those actresses who could always be counted on to bring a superb performance to any role assigned to her, be it a large or small part.

De Carlo got her start playing mostly in B-movie Westerns, and standard desert and jungle flicks. Her shapely figure, olive complexion and sultry voice lent itself well to those kinds of roles.

In 1956 her big film role in “The Ten Commandments” playing Sephora, the wife of Moses (Charlton Heston) set her career on a firm footing that would last her entire life.

By the time she landed the role of Lily Munster, De Carlo had already been acting for nearly 25 years with 72 screen perfmornaces to her credit. Despite that long and illustrious career she will forever be remembered for the role of Lily, which she only played for 2 years. Lily, vampire-like in her flowing dark gowns, was the Grand Dame of the pseudo-scary household and was a rock for her gentle but often bumbling husband, Herman, played by the towering Fred Gwynne.

The sitcom also garnered two films. “Munster Go Home” in 1966 and “The Munster’s Revenge” in 1981.

At the series’ end, De Carlo commented: “It meant security. It gave me a new, young audience I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It made me `hot’ again, which I wasn’t for a while.”

After the demise of the Munster gig De Carlo’s career never slowed down and she gained fame on the stage in 1971’s landmark performance in the Stephen Sondheim Tony Award winning Broadway musical “Follies.” She never wanted for work on the stage after that.

Her filmography reads like the history of Hollywood and her leading men made her the envy of every young woman throughout the world.