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

Lewis was born Alexander Meister in upstate New York, and 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 PhD 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, then as the vampire Grandpa Munster in The Munsters, from 1964 to 1966 reports Theage

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

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, who was at his bedside when he died, three sons and four grandchildren reports BBC