Secrets You Didn’t Know About Fred Gwynne: Inside ‘The Munsters’ Actor’s Fascinating Life

The Truth About His Height

The Munster family patriarch looked incredibly tall in costume while starring in the sitcom as Frankenstein’s monster from 1964 to 1966. So how tall was he when the boots came off?

“Everyone looked up to Herman Munster — he was 7 feet tall!” Butch Patrick, who played son Eddie on The Munsters, revealed. Fred was 6’5″ without his Frankenstein boots.

Fred Gwynne Was a Man of Many Talents

“When he wasn’t on camera, he was playing a guitar or telling jokes. He was a multitalented guy,” Butch said. He was even able to put his guitar skills to use during episodes of the show!

His Sense of Humor Translated Off Screen Too

“Fred was very educated and had a great sense of humor, but he was a very serious man and a great artist and musician,” Butch revealed.

He Had a Great Bond With Butch Patrick

A father of five who died at 66 in 1993, Fred was also generous with his time. “He took me to my first hockey game,” Butch shared. “We went into the locker room after, and it was amazing to see the players up close — none of them had any teeth!”

Fred Gwynne Played Pranks on Set

Fred kept things fun and light-hearted on set by playing pranks on the cast.

“I remember doing an exterior shot in the Munster Koach,” Butch told Closer in August 2024. “We get in, Fred takes off, and instead of turning around, he continues out the front gate of Universal Studios and leaves the property, driving up to the Hollywood Bowl. The funniest thing about it was the people on the street watching us drive by in full makeup, freaking out!”

It Wasn’t Easy Being a Munster

It wasn’t always easy channeling the Munsters character, which required a dramatic makeup transformation.

“The Munsters was extraordinarily hard for Fred to do. He was already 6-foot-5-and-a-half inches and they put him in these buildup shoes in which he could hardly walk,” Geoffrey Mark, writer and codirector of the 2002 documentary Behind the Fame: The Munsters/Addams Family, once told Closer. “And, of course, makeup that took hours to put on every day. Al Lewis was 6-foot-2, and he’s staring up at Fred, because now he’s so much taller. On top of that, it’s not easy to do comedy without an audience. And then, anytime you play a character like Herman, there’s a boomerang effect. If the show goes well, you won’t be thought of as anything else.”

He Faced Personal Tragedy

Fred welcomed five children with wife Jean “Foxy” Reynard. Their son Dylan tragically drowned in a family pool in 1963 before his 1st birthday.

“It had such a devastating effect on him,” Geoffrey said, “but he kept that very much to himself. When he was acting, he acted, but offscreen he was a bereaved parent. Between all of that and how hard he was finding it to get work, he bought a farmhouse in Maryland and retreated into that very private life.”

Inside His Career After The Munsters

Following his success on The Munsters, Fred returned to Broadway for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

“It’s not that he didn’t work at all, it’s just that there wasn’t another high profile sitcom. What he became was a wonderful, well-paid character actor,” Geoffrey said. “He went back to Broadway and was a star there, because he could play all kinds of parts. He was Broadway-trained and could live quietly working onstage, and then slipping away back to the suburbs to get far away from all of it. That’s how he lived his life.”