Butch Patrick, Eddie Munster Actor, In Rehab

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) The former child star who played boy werewolf Eddie Munster on TV has entered a drug and alcohol treatment facility.

Butch Patrick's agent said Thursday that the 57-year-old is in a private facility in New Jersey.

Agent Jodi Ritzen says Patrick is in rehab "to deal with a lifetime problem of substance abuse." Ritzen wouldn't disclose the name of the facility where he's being treated.

Patrick's beloved character drew many fans and, even later in a life, a love interest.

Patrick moved to the Philadelphia area earlier this year after being contacted by a West Chester woman who was a fan of "The Munsters" back in the 1960s. She announced last week that they had split.

"He has suffered with alcohol and drug addiction, according to his family,  probably since he was 17...and he had just broken up with the woman he moved here for," Ritzen adds.

The rep added the actor, who now lives in a Philadelphia-area suburb, didn't want to go the Dr. Drew route and appear on "Celebrity Rehab" for dependency issues that started when he began doing coke and psychedelics in his teens, but that he is taking this "very very seriously," E! Onlinereports.

"He's never been in rehab before so at 57 to make that decision was really hard but I'm extremely proud of him," Ritzen said.

Patrick's fiancée Donna McCall, is an ex-Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader. The two met after she struck up a correspondence with him when he was on the show but didn't reconnect until years later, via the Internet, E! Online reports.

The two announced back in July that they were going to wed, but McCall had a change of heart and, said  Ritzen, broke up with Patrick last week--right after Halloween.

For those of you who maybe too young -- and for those of you who need reminding, "The Munsters" is a 1960s  television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of monsters. It starred Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster.

The series was a satiric send-up of traditional monster movies and popular family entertainment of the era. While it ran concurrently with "The Addams Family," there was a class difference - believe it or not. The Addams family was upper class, while the Munsters were a  blue-collar family. Both families would be proud to know that monsters have made a comeback!