Grandpa Munster

Al Lewis, better known as Grandpa Munster from the 60’s TV hit died at 95 recently.  I ran across this website (Dope on a Slope) with some interesting information about him.

Grandpa, We Hardly Knew Ye.

Like many of you, I was saddened to hear of the passing of Al "Granpa Munster" Lewis last week at the ripe old age of 95. But my sadness was tempered with the knowledge that the former Brooklynite had led a varied and interesting life right up until the end. His obituary in the New York Times mentioned that in addition to being an actor, Mr. Lewis had also been a restauranteur in Greenwich Village, a talented basketball scout (at 6' 1" he played as a youth),  a radio host, and a Green Party candidate running against Pataki in 1998 when he was 90 years old. Most impressively, perhaps, was the fact that he had to be regularly censored by  Howard Stern on his frequent appearances on the shock jock's infamous radio program.

Apparently Al wasn't afraid to tell it like it is.

Of course, I didn't know the half of it. In the days following his death, more details about his life emerged. Al was both a polymath and a workhorse. During his long life he had:

• Defended  Sacco and Vanzetti
• Performed in the 1938 Broadway smash "Hellzapoppin"
• Championed the cause of the "Scottsboro Nine"
• Worked as circus clown, trapeze artist, and medicine show "professor"
• Faced "death at any moment" as an organizer for the National Maritime Union in the South
• Survived two torpedo attacks as a Merchant Marine in WWII
• Earned a Ph.D. in child psychology from Columbia University at the age of 31

Baron Munchhausen himself couldn't come up with such an unbelievable account, but Al Lewis lived it.

Or did he?

Today in the New York Times, Dan Barry reveals that Al had fudged his age by a factor of 13 years. No, he wasn't 108, he was only 82. Always a bit cantankerous, Al bucked the thespian tradition of lying to make oneself younger and fibbed in the opposite direction. Apparently he felt that the fact that he was younger than Yvonne DeCarlo, who was to play his daughter in "The Munsters," would spoil his chances at the job back in 1964. Once he had established the earlier birthdate, he made a game of filling in the details of what happened during those lost years.

Apparently Al wasn't afraid to tell it like it isn't.

Somehow, that makes me admire him even more.