The Only Main Actors Still Alive From The Munsters TV Series

Don't call them The Addams Family: "The Munsters" may be remembered as one of two darkly funny monster family sitcoms airing in the 1960s, but it's decidedly not the same as its comic strip-based contemporary. "The Munsters," for one thing, pulled its monsters straight from the Universal back catalog, featuring characters based directly on Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. The series starred Fred Gwynne and Yvonne de Carlo as married couple Herman and Lily Munster, whose household consisted of an endearing vampire grandpa (Al Lewis), wolf-boy son (Butch Patrick), human niece (Beverley Owen and Pat Priest), and a whole host of spooky-fun pets including a bat, a cat, a raven, and a dragon-like reptile named Spot.

Despite its enduring spot in the zeitgeist, "The Munsters" actually only ran for two seasons from 1964 to 1966. It was capped off with a movie, "Munsters, Go Home!" that saw the family take a trip to Europe, and several other TV movies and reboot attempts have been made since. While TV fans still mourn the Bryan Fuller-made non-starter "Mockingbird Lane" and Rob Zombie's attempt to revive the franchise sputtered out, "The Munsters" has yet to find its way to a modern megahit a la "Wednesday."

If it ever does, it's lucky to have two surviving cast members who still have a lot of love for the series, including one who's already pitching cameos: "Based on the success of Wednesday, if they can come up with a counterpart with Eddie in some similar situation, that's how the mentality of Hollywood works." star Butch Patrick told Bloody Disgusting last year. "And I could knock on the door and do a cameo!"

Butch Patrick, the boy behind werewolf kid Eddie Munster, was already a child actor by the time he appeared in the series, and his Hollywood hot streak continued after the show ended its short run. Patrick worked steadily throughout the '60s, appearing in shows like "Gunsmoke," "I Dream of Jeannie," and "The Wonderful World of Disney." He starred in the animated 1970 film "The Phantom Tollbooth" and led the cast of "Lidsville," a show by children's TV mainstays Sid and Marty Krofft ("H.R. Pufnstuf," "Land of the Lost").

In a 2023 Bloody Disgusting retrospective, Patrick says he largely retired from acting by age 21. He dealt with bullying and was kicked out of school three times as a teen, and began using drugs after a summer trip to Brazil at age 16, according to The Los Angeles Beat. "My sister says I left as Richie Cunningham and I came back three months later as John Lennon," he told the outlet. Patrick dealt with drug addiction for a full four decades before going to rehab in 2010, and told Bloody Disgusting he's still sober today. He was also diagnosed with prostate cancer that same year, but in 2017 he told Everything Zoomer he's got a clean bill of health.

Patrick may have technically retired, but he still appears on screen, often in cameos that make some reference to "The Munsters." He's popped up in "The Simpsons," "TV Therapy," and the former kid-actor-filled movie "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star," plus several low-budget horror flicks. He's also played a part in several Munsters properties since the original series, including "Munsters, Go Home!" "Here Come the Munsters," and Rob Zombie's recent remake. In 1983, he released the novelty song "What Ever Happened To Eddie?" under the band name Eddie & The Monsters, and his musical stylings appeared on at least two other tracks in the '70s. Recently, the former child star has been trying his hand at producing: he's credited as a producer on two 2023 films, "Old Man Jackson" and "River Beauty."

Pat Priest was the second Marilyn Munster to grace America's TV screen in the '60s, after Beverley Owen reportedly left the show to get married. In the topsy-turvy monster world of the show, Priest's beautiful blonde niece character was seen as the ugly duckling of the family, a joke that continued to play out even once Priest herself was replaced by another actress for the Munsters movie. "I was devastated not to be in the film," Priest told Senior Voice Alaska in 2020. A producer sent an aide to break the news to her while on set. As she puts it, "I was 29 and my contract was up for renewal, so I think they wanted a younger actress and didn't want to pay me more."

Priest wasn't through with "The Munsters" yet, though: she eventually cameoed in both the 1995 TV movie and the 2022 Rob Zombie reboot, and has appeared at conventions and fan events over the years. She also didn't fully leave the industry after "The Munsters": she appeared in shows like "Bewitched," "The Virginian," and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the '60s and '70s, with the latter as her last credited role aside from Munster-related cameos. She also co-starred alongside Elvis in the 1967 movie "Easy Come, Easy Go" — she once told the Mansfield News Journal she bought his 1965 Cadillac convertible off him for just $3000.

The former actress dealt with a non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosis in the early aughts, but went into remission in 2002, according to TV Guide. She is now fully retired, and happy with the path her life's taken. "I've done everything I wanted to do and gone everywhere I wanted to go," she told MNJ in 2019. "I'm 83 now and whatever happens in the future is all just pluses."