Al (Meister) Lewis

GEDCOM Note

Died in bed on Roosevelt Island, New York.

Lewis was born Alexander Meister in upstate Wolcott 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 did the same.

'Munsters' icon Lewis dead

BY DON SINGLETON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Actor-comedian Al Lewis, who played Grandpa on the famed 1960s sitcom "The Munsters," died Friday night, friends said yesterday.

Lewis was widely reported to have been born in 1910, but his son Ted said yesterday that his father was born in 1923 and was 82. With an unforgettable face and an ever-present cigar, in his later years "Grandpa Al" became a popular New York restaurant owner who was active in politics and even ran for governor.

Lewis was born Albert Meister in upstate New York and was raised in Brooklyn. He worked as a salesman, waiter, poolroom owner, store detective, circus clown and vaudeville performer, and along the way he earned a Ph.D. in child psychology from Columbia University.

Then television made him famous, first in the role of Officer Leo Schnauser on the police sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?" - which ran from 1961 to 1963 - and then as the vampire Grandpa Munster on "The Munsters" from 1964 to 1966.

"The Munsters" especially has enjoyed an extended life in reruns worldwide.

"You have no idea of the love I get from total strangers because of 'The Munsters,' " Lewis once told the Daily News.

Later, he ran a brokerage firm in Los Angeles for a time and made cameo appearances in a number of Hollywood films, including "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and "Married to the Mob."

Moving back to New York in the '90s, Lewis opened Grandpa's restaurant in Greenwich Village and got into politics. In 1998, he ran for governor and got 50,000 votes as the Green Party candidate.

"Some people thought his antics were over the top, such as when he remarked at a Capitol press conference that the way to get rid of PCBs in the Hudson was to get a big spoon and feed it to the CEOs of GE," recalled Mark Dulea, the party's campaign manager at the time. "He told me later, 'You have to act a little crazy to get the media to write about you. But the real people, the people on the streets, they understand what you are saying when they hear the joke.' "

Lewis was hospitalized in 2003 for an angioplasty but complications led to an emergency bypass and the amputation of his right leg below the knee and all the toes of his left foot. He was in a coma for a month but recovered.

Survivors include his wife, Karen Ingenthron-Lewis; three sons, and four grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were pending.