Actor Frank Aletter, who co-starred in three one-season sitcoms during the 1960s, has died at the age of 83 according to The Los Angeles Times. Aletter was born on January 14th, 1926 and began his career on the stage before moving to the small screen. He starred in Bringing Up Buddy from 1960 to 1961, appeared alongside Cara Williams in The Cara Williams Show from 1964 to 1965 and was one of two astronauts thrown back to prehistoric times in It’s About Time from 1966 to 1967. All three sitcoms aired on CBS.
In It’s About Time Aletter played the captain of a space capsule that traveled “through the barrier of time” and landed in the distant past where dinosaurs and cavemen defied historical fact and lived side by side. Also starring in the sitcom were Jack Mullany, Joe E. Ross and Imogene Coca; Aletter was the last surviving member of the quartet. During the 1970s and 1980s Aletter appeared in dozens of television shows including Marcus Welby, M.D., M*A*S*H, All in the Family, The Fall Guy and Nancy.
Aletter was married to actress and former Miss America Lee Meriwether from 1958 to 1970. He is survived by his second wife and several children and grandchildren. Thanks to Zoneboy at the Sitcoms Online Message Boards for originally posting this.
Aletter also appeared also Dr. Irwin Hayden on the “Danger Island” segment of “The Banana Splits Adventure Hour” and played the angry father of Claude Tinker who blames Tom Jordache for his son’s skin burns in episode 1 of the miniseries “Rich Man, Poor Man”.