FAREWELL AL LEWIS

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Al Lewis, aka Grandpa Munster, dies at 95

But Lewis' life off the small screen ranged far beyond his acting antics. A former ballplayer at Thomas Jefferson High School, he achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats like 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, signing autographs.

Just two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent 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 managed to collect more 52,000 votes.

Click here for the rest.

Missing from this article is the fact that Lewis was great friends with one of my great heroes, Paul Robeson, after whom Lewis' son Paul was named. (Full disclosure: I knew Paul briefly years ago, when he dated a friend of mine from college who he eventually married.) Also missing is the fact that Lewis shared Robeson's radical politics. Grandpa Munster was as far-left as they come, and used his fame to support progressive causes, making him, in my book, one of the great examples of a Real Artist. On a more personal note, I loved his work as an actor. Lewis was one of those old-school comedic actors coming out of Vaudeville, which produced some of America's all-time greatest entertainers--there are very few performers today who have the kind of chops these people had. Losing Lewis hits both the progressive community and the entertainment community hard.

Farewell Al Lewis.



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