NEW YORK – Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of “The Munsters” whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died after years of failing health. He was 82.
Lewis, with his wife at his bedside, passed away Friday night, said Bernard White, program director at WBAI-FM, where the actor hosted a weekly radio program. White made the announcement on the air during the Saturday slot where Lewis usually appeared.
“To say that we will miss his generous, cantankerous, engaging spirit is a profound understatement,” White said.
Lewis, sporting a cheesy Dracula outfit, became a pop culture icon by playing the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne’s bumbling Herman Munster on the 1964-66 television show. He was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing officer Leo Schnauzer on “Car 54, Where Are You?”
But Lewis’ life ranged far beyond his screen antics. He achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats Jerry Tarkanian and Red Auerbach. He operated a successful Greenwich Village restaurant, Grandpa’s, where he was a regular presence, chatting with customers, posing for pictures and signing autographs.
Two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent New York Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as “Grandpa Al Lewis.”
He didn’t defeat Pataki, but he managed to garner more than 52,000 votes.
Lewis was born Albert Meister in upstate New York before his family moved to Brooklyn, where the 6-foot-1 teen began a lifelong love affair with basketball. He later became a vaudeville and circus performer, but his career didn’t take off until television came into its own.
Lewis, as Schnauzer, played opposite Gwynne’s officer Francis Muldoon in “Car 54, Where Are You?” – a comedy about a Bronx police precinct that aired from 1961-63. One year later, the two appeared together in “The Munsters,” taking up residence at the fictional 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
The series, about a family of clueless creatures plunked down in middle America, was a success and ran through 1966. It forever locked Lewis in as the memorably twisted character; decades later, strangers would greet him on the street with shouts of “Grandpa!”
Unlike some television stars, Lewis never complained about being typecast and made appearances in character for decades.
“Why would I mind?” he asked in a 1997 interview. “It pays my mortgage.”
Lewis rarely slowed down, opening his restaurant and hosting his radio program. At one point during the ’90s, he was a frequent guest on the Howard Stern radio show, once sending the shock jock diving for the delay button by leading an undeniably obscene chant against the Federal Communications Commission.
He also popped up in a number of movies, including the acclaimed “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” and “Married to the Mob.” Lewis reprised his role of Schnauzer in the movie remake of “Car 54,” and appeared as a guest star on the TV shows “Taxi,” “Green Acres” and “Lost in Space.”
In 2003, Lewis was hospitalized for an angioplasty. Complications during surgery led to an emergency bypass and the amputation of his right leg below the knee and all the toes on his left foot. Lewis spent the next month in a coma.
A year later, he was back offering his recollections of a seminal punk band on the DVD “Ramones Raw.”
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