Al Lewis

Al Lewis lied about his early years. He lied a lot. He gave his age as about thirteen years older than he actually was for a while, probably because he was about nine months younger than his TV daughter, Yvonne DeCarlo. He claimed to have attended college without having graduated from high school, which he probably didn’t, and he claimed to have a PhD in child psychology from Columbia, which the school has no record of. Wikipedia says his claim of an early radio career lines up with the 1910 birthdate, but I don’t know if there’s any outside evidence of the early radio career.

Census records clearly suggest he was born in 1923 in New York City—either Manhattan or Brooklyn—not 1910 in Wolcott, with the name Abraham Meister. He told the Social Security Administration that the 1923 birthdate was correct, but delightfully, Wikipedia lists him as applying for his Social Security number “between 1936 and 1950.” He said his mother was a garment worker whose family managed to get enough money to send from the Poland/Russia border region where they lived to the US, whereupon she worked to bring her family over. She also appears to have been a good union woman.

In 1949, at the age of either 39 or 26, he started acting at the suggestion of a friend. He did burlesque and vaudeville, in the final days of vaudeville. His first movie was the Italian horror movie I Vampiri, and he was in Pretty Boy Floyd and The World of Henry Orient. However, even in the first few years of his career on screen, he was in television. The Phil Silvers Show and The United States Steel Hour. Decoy and CBS Television Workshop. Both comedy and drama, though minor roles.

In 1961, at the age of either 51 or 38, he was cast with Fred Gwynne on Car 54, Where Are You? He did 54 out of sixty episodes of the show. Then in 1964, at the age of either 54 or 41, he was cast as Sam Dracula on The Munsters. Everyone remembers him as Grandpa Munster. I remember him as Grandpa Munster. When describing him to people to explain who I’m writing about, I called him Grandpa Munster. But the character is Lily’s father, a vampire, and is canonically Sam Dracula. He played the role for three years officially and for 42 unofficially.

To the point that, when he ran for Green Party candidate for governor of New York in 1998, at the age of either 88 or 75, he petitioned to have his name on the ballot as Grandpa Al Lewis. It was rejected, on the grounds of New York is precise about these things and even Bill Clinton had been on the ballot as William Jefferson Clinton. But I was astounded to discover that about him at all, and not just because I assumed he had died some time in the ‘80s. But he took the lessons of his mother to heart and was an advocate for things like the environment and free speech until the day he died. And almost certainly a good union man.