Butch Patrick

He spent only two years as a star of the CBS sitcom "The Munsters" (1964-1966) but Butch Patrick remained 50 years later identified almost exclusively with the role of pointy-eared "were-boy" Eddie Munster. The oldest child of a family broken by divorce, Patrick discovered in show business a structure denied him as a boy growing up in a single parent household. Spotted by a talent agent when he was only seven, Patrick was slotted into a lucrative run of TV commercials and guest spots on popular weekly series. He made his film debut in 1961 and racked up a handful of film appearances opposite such marquee headliners as Judy Garland, Burt Lancaster and Sidney Poitier, but became an instant celebrity after joining the cast of "The Munsters." After a short-lived turn as a teen idol in the mid-Seventies, Patrick vanished from the limelight, his career derailed by age and a descent into drug use. A decade later, Butch Patrick emerged as a bona fide pop culture icon, a staple of the nostalgia convention circuit, and one of the last surviving links to the Golden Age of Television.