Aside from acting, what did Al Lewis ("Grandpa Munster") do as a hobby and passion?

Al Lewis's great passion beyond acting was scouting young basketball prospects.

Al Lewis (born Abraham Meister; April 30, 1923 – February 3, 2006) was an American actor best known for his role as Count Dracula lookalike Grandpa on the television series "The Munsters" from 1964 to 1966 and its film versions.

He became a vaudeville and circus performer, but his career did not take off until television did the same.

Mr. Lewis, as Officer Leo Schnauzer, played opposite Mr. Gwynne's Officer Francis Muldoon in "Car 54, Where Are You?" -- a comedy about a Bronx police precinct that was broadcast from 1961-63.

A former ballplayer at Thomas Jefferson High School in the Bronx, he achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats like Jerry Tarkanian and Red Auerbach.

Al Lewis in an interview, said, "My mother, God rest her soul, she never goes to a basketball game in her whole life, so I take her to a high school game, she sees this big black kid, and all she can say is 'Give him the ball! Give him the ball!' You know who that kid was?" Pause. "That was Wilt Chamberlain!" Lewis cackles.

Mr. Lewis never took a dime for his "bird dogging", as he called it. "I flush out the kids," he said. That involved a nonstop schedule of beating the bushes all over the country - at his own expense.

Mr. Lewis passed away at the age of 82 in Roosevelt Island, New York.