Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Munsters: Cast Photo

The Munsters aired from September 1964 until September 1966 on CBS.

In September 1964 an odd thing happened on network television. Well 2 things: Both The Munsters and The Addams Family premiered during the same week on CBS and ABC respectively. Both were fantasy sitcoms about macabre, ghoulish families living in the midst of middle class suburbia. Both ran for only 2 seasons, would be compared to each other and would continue to thrive in syndication and future reincarnations. But in reality , no two series could be less alike. Maliciously clever, The Addams Family had an appeal to adult audiences and was rooted in subtle, subversive humor that was ahead of its time. Their was nothing subtile about The Munsters. The show appealed primarily to children and like Gilligan's Island and Mister Ed, it was critically reviled because of its sweet , goofy humor.

The Munsters was a half-hour sitcom about a motley family of misfits. The Munsters lived at At 1313 Mockingbird Lane in Mockingbird Heights in a musty , cobweb-covered, gothic mansion. The residents considered themselves just a normal, everyday American family, but to neighbors - and viewers alike - they were just a little bit unusual.

Herman ( Fred Gwynne), the man of the house, was seven feet tall and had a striking resemblance to the Frankenstein Monster but he behaved like an innocent child, trusting everyone and was incapable of harming others. His beautiful wife, Lily( Yvonne DeCarlo), looked very much like a female Vampire; Eddie( Butch Patrick), their son, looked like he was in the midst of changing from a boy to a werewolf or vice versa, take your pick; Lily's father Grandpa ( Al Lewis), could have passed for an aging 350 year old Count Dracula. They all had their ideosyncracies. Grandpa was not above changing into a bat when the situation warranted it, not only did this family look like monsters , they were monsters -albeit friendly, unassuming ones.

They were concerned about their niece, Marilyn ( Beverly Owen and later Pat Priest), who looked somewhat strange to them but, to an outsider, was the only "normal-looking" one of the group. The effect that their appearances had on the rest of the world was always predictable, often hilarious and occasionally poignant. Herman, appropriately worked at the Gateman, Goodbury & Graves funeral home and was always on the lookout for a better job.

The Munster's family pets included Spot, the family's' pet dinosaur,who lived under the staircase and was always on hand to add some fun to the household (Fred Gwynn provided the voice of Spot's roar);, Igor the bat; Kitty Kat, a feline who roared like a lion; Elmer, Eddie's snake; and an unnamed Raven in a clock which popped out every hour to shriek " Never More."

Among the many guest stars who appeared were Harvey Korman, Don Rickles, John Carradine, Dom Deluise, Bonnie Franklin, Louis Nye, Leo Durocher, and Paul Lynde ( in 3 stints as Dr. Dudley). Prior to the cancelation of the series, a color feature film called " Munster Go Home" was released in 1966 starring the tv cast although Debbie Watson played the part of Marilyn.

Joe Connelly and Bob Rosher who had worked on Leave It To Beaver created the series. Three members of the original cast Gwynn, DeCarlo and Lewis were reunited for " The Munster's Revenge" an NBC made for tv movie broadcast on February 27, 1981. K.C. Martel played Eddie and Jo McDonnell played Marilyn.

In 1988 A New version of the series aired in first run syndication . It was called " Munster's Today" and it ran for 3 seasons. It had a whole new cast. Yet another tv movie " Here Come The Munsters" turned up on Halloween Night 1995 on FOX ( again with a new cast). In one restaurant scene the original surviving Munsters-DeCarlo, Lewis, Butch Patrick and Pat Priest ( Fred Gwynn died in 1993) had amusing cameos. In 1996 FOX came out with another Munster movie " The Munsters Scary Little Christmas" which had an entirely different cast from the previous movie.

Fred Gwynne's Obituary

Posted: Tue., Jul. 6, 1993

Actor Fred Gwynne, 66, dies
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Actor Fred Gwynne, perhaps best known for his role as the lovable ghoul Herman Munster in the 1960s TV series "The Munsters," died at his home in Taneytown, near Baltimore, on Friday at the age of 66.
Gwynne succumbed to pancreatic cancer, according to Roger Haber, his legal representative.

Besides "The Munsters," the 6-foot, 5-inch Gwynne appeared in another popular comedy TV series, "Car 54, Where Are You?," which ran from 1961 to 1963. In it he played a hapless New York City police officer, Francis Muldoon, who was constantly at the mercy of his over-eager and anxious partner Gunther Toody, portrayed by Joe E. Ross.

A year later Gwynne was enlisted to don platform shoes and plugs in his neck to portray a gentle Frankenstein-type monster opposite actress Yvonne DeCarlo as his wife, Lily Munster, and character actor Al Lewis. The happy couple and their kin lived at 1313 Mockingbird Lane and, like "The Addams Family," caused unintentional havoc.

In 1966, he starred in a feature film version of the series, "Munster, Go Home," and in 1981, appeared for the last time as Herman in "Munster's Revenge" on TV.

Like "Car 54,""The Munsters" was only on the air for two seasons. But thanks to constant reruns, both shows have been on the air almost constantly for the past 30 years.

Gwynne is also recognized for his basso profundo voice, which lent authority to countless commercials and voiceovers in documentaries.

Though he is best known for comedy, Gwynne distinguished himself as a serious stage and screen actor and was also a writer and illustrator of children's books , the last of which, "Easy to See Why," will be published later this year.

In 1979 he won an Obie award for his performance in the off-Broadway production "Grand Magic." His last film role was as a non-nonsense Southern judge in last year's comedy hit "My Cousin Vinny."

Frederick Hubbard Gwynne was born in New York on July 10, 1926, the son of a stockbroker. After serving in the Navy in World War II, he graduated from Harvard University in 1951 and a year later made his acting debut in a featured role in "Mrs. McThing," starring Helen Hayes.

He subsequently appeared in such plays as "Irma la Douce,""Twelfth Night, ""Our Town" and "A Texas Trilogy." He played Big Daddy in the 1974 revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," a stage role he listed as his favorite. His last Broadway appearance was in the 1983 production "Whodunnit."

Throughout the 1950s, Gwynne was featured regularly on television in dramatic productions on such anthology programs as "Kraft Theater,""Studio One,""Du Pont Show of the Month,""Play of the Week" and "U.S. Steel Hour."

His film debut came in a minor role in Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront." He also had supporting roles in such films as "The Cotton Club,""Ironweed, ""FatalAttraction,""Pet Sematary" and "The Secret of My Success."

As an author and illustrator, he published his first book in 1958, entitled "Best in Show." His books over the years include "The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice: An Homeric Fable,""God's First World,""The Story of Ick,""Ick's ABC, ""A Chocolate Moose for Dinner" and "A Little Pigeon Toad."

Gwynne is survived by his wife, Deborah, and four children. Funeral services will be private.

AL Lewis Obituary From ABC News

Television's Grandpa Munster dies

February 5, 2006

Grandpa Munster became a popular icon of 1960s television
Actor Al Lewis, best known for his role as Grandpa in 1960s TV comedy The Munsters, has died.
His death was announced by the New York radio station, WBAI-FM, where the actor hosted a weekly series.

"To say that we will miss his generous, cantankerous, engaging spirit is a profound understatement," said programme director Bernard White.

The actor was widely reported to have been born in 1910, but his son Ted said his father was born in 1923. Lewis, who died on Friday, was born in Brooklyn and was raised by his mother, an immigrant sweatshop worker in the Brownsville district of that borough.

"Brownsville was the largest Jewish ghetto in America," he once said.

"We all were very poor, but we stood together when people were evicted. When the marshals and sheriffs would leave, we'd break the lock and move the furniture back inside. Back then, we didn't let people live in the street."

Lewis worked as salesman and waiter and once owned a successful restaurant in Greenwich Village.

He also was a poolroom owner, store detective and political candidate.

He worked as a circus clown and performed stunts on the trapeze bar, taught school, wrote two children's books and by the time he was 31, received a doctorate in child psychology from Columbia University.

An avid college basketball fan, he also scouted for several basketball teams.

Acting

It was not until 1949 that he turned to acting and joined the Paul Mann Actor's Workshop where his classmates were Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow.

It was at the workshop that Lewis developed his comedic style.

His first big role was as Officer Leo Schnauser on the Car 54, Where Are You? series that ran from 1961 to 1963.

Dracula Costume

In 1964, Lewis began playing Grandpa Munster, part of a wacky, endearing family of monsters whose fictional address was 1313 Mockingbird Lane in Mockingbird Heights.

The Munsters ran for two years on CBS, then continued on in syndication.

He went on to star in a number of films, including They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and Married to the Mob.

Political career

In 1988, he accepted the Green Party nomination for governor of New York saying, "we don't inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our kids".

Although he lost to incumbent Republican Governor George Pataki, he still managed to collect more than 52,000 votes with his name on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis."

Lewis' first political work was for the Sacco and Vanzetti defence committee. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists, were executed in Massachusetts in 1927 for a double murder and robbery amid doubts about their guilt.

Lewis worked in the 1930s to free the Scottsboro Boys - nine black teenagers accused of raping two white women in another highly publicised case.

All but one were sentenced to death, but eventually they were cleared.

"If anything I consider myself an anarchist," he once said on his weekly radio show on WBAI in New York City.

Lewis continued to work throughout the 1990s and was a frequent guest on the Howard Stern radio show, where he memorably led an obscene chant against the Federal Communications Commission.

Ill health forced him to slow down in 2003, when complications during surgery led to an emergency bypass and the amputation of his right leg below the knee.

He is survived by his wife, Karen, three sons and four grandchildren.

Yvonne DeCarlo's Obituary From The New York Times.

Yvonne De Carlo, Who Played Lily on 'The Munsters,' Dies at 84

By WOLFGANG SAXON
Published: January 11, 2007

Yvonne De Carlo, a dark-haired Hollywood beauty who advanced from the chorus line to play Moses’ wife in a movie epic but who achieved her greatest popularity as Lily in the CBS television sitcom “The Munsters,” died on Monday in Los Angeles. She was 84.

The cause was heart failure, said Kevin Burns, a friend and television producer. She had been living at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital, he said.

Miss De Carlo had had a prolific film career in the 1940s and ’50s when she was cast as Lily Munster, the wife of Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne), a bumbling Frankenstein’s monster with a soft heart who led a Charles Addams-flavored household peopled by the likes of an aging Count Dracula, the cigar-chomping Grandpa (Al Lewis).

The sitcom went on the air in 1964 and lasted only two seasons, but achieved a kind of pop-culture immortality in decades of reruns and movie and television spinoffs.

In her cape and robes and with a streak of white in her black hair, Miss De Carlo’s Lily was a glamorous ghoul and a kind of Bride of Frankenstein as homemaker, “dusting” her gothic mansion at 1313 Mockingbird Lane with a vacuum cleaner set on reverse. The humor mostly derived from the family members’ oblivious belief that they were no different from their neighbors. It was Miss De Carlo, for example, who delivered one of the show’s signature lines: “Do you have a feeling we’re being stared at?”

She was born Peggy Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her father deserted the home, leaving her mother to make a living as a waitress. Ambition on both their parts led Peggy to study dance and dramatics and her mother to seek fame and fortune with her in California.

Peggy turned into Yvonne and took her mother’s maiden name, De Carlo, as her own. She started dancing in clubs at night and scouring the film studios for work by day. There were years of uncredited walk-ons and bit parts, like Bathing Beauty in “Harvard, Here I Come!” (1941) and Princess Wah-Tah in “The Deerslayer” (1943).

Her breakthrough came with a starring role in “Salome, Where She Danced” (1945), a Western with Rod Cameron and Walter Slezak, in which she played a European seductress. While the movie may have been forgettable, she became known as one of Hollywood’s most desirable young stars and advanced to pictures playing opposite some of the era’s most popular leading men.

Among them were Brian Donlevy and Jean Pierre Aumont in “Song of Scheherazade” (1947); Tony Martin in “Casbah” (1948); Burt Lancaster in “Criss Cross” (1949); Howard Duff in “Calamity Jane and Sam Bass” (1949) and “Flame of the Islands” (1956); Van Heflin in “Tomahawk” (1951); Joel McCrea in “The San Francisco Story” (1952); Ricardo Montalban in “Sombrero” (1953); and Rock Hudson in “Sea Devils” (1953).

One of her outstanding parts in those busy years came in the British comedy “The Captain’s Paradise” (1953). As Nita, the hotblooded other wife in Tangier, she taught a blithely bigamous English ferry captain (Alec Guinness) the flamenco, among other things.

After that, she made “Tonight’s the Night,” with David Niven and Barry Fitzgerald, and “Passion,” with Cornel Wilde, both in 1954. Three years later she starred with Clark Gable and Sidney Poitier in “Band of Angels,” after the novel by Robert Penn Warren. In 1956 it was “Raw Edge,” with Rory Calhoun, then, the same year, “Death of a Scoundrel,” with George Sanders playing the cad in question and Miss De Carlo doing, in the words of a reviewer for The New York Times, “a solid and professional job as the adoring petty thief who rises to eminence with him.”

One of her most prominent roles was as Sephora, wife to Charlton Heston’s Moses in the Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza “The Ten Commandments” (1956). “Yvonne De Carlo as the Midianite shepherdess to whom Moses is wed,” wrote Bosley Crowther in The Times, “is notably good in a severe role.”

She also appeared on Broadway in 1971 in “Follies,” the long-running musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman. She assumed the part of a fading movie star and took in audiences with her matter-of-fact presentation of Mr. Sondheim’s wistful “I’m Still Here.”

Altogether, Miss De Carlo appeared in nearly 100 films well into the 1990s, starting with uncredited roles and tapering into thrillers and sci-fi potboilers like “Silent Scream” (1980) and “American Gothic” (1988). There were also many cameo appearances, as in “Here Come the Munsters,” a 1995 television-movie reincarnation in which the Munsters invade America in search of Herman’s brother-in-law, Norman Hyde.

Miss De Carlo’s marriage to Robert Morgan, an actor and stuntman, ended in divorce. She is survived by their son Bruce Morgan and a stepdaughter, Bari Morgan. Another son, Michael, died earlier.

Many years ago Miss De Carlo’s name was linked in an off-screen romance with Howard Hughes, before he turned into a legendary recluse. Asked to reminisce about that chapter in her life by Ladies’ Home Journal in 1972, she said: “Howard taught me how to land a plane and how to take off. But he never taught me anything about flying in between. He thought that I had learned the difficult parts, and that was enough.”

For a review of the Munsters go to http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/munsters.htm