Some edited excerpts about the history of The Addams Family:
Charles “Chas” Addams began drawing in kindergarten and suffered from claustrophobia, but used to frequent cemeteries to imagine what the buried bodies looked like. He would trespass on the property of a nearby Victorian House that would be eventually used as the Addams Family mansion.
He drew cartoons for his Westfield HS student magazine, attended art focused classes at Colgate Univ., Univ. of PA and NY Grand Central School of Art. His original jobs in 1933 was to retouch photos in True Detective Magazine by removing blood.
He started to contribute one panel cartoons to the New Yorker in 1932 and by 1938 he drew his first of a series of macabre caricatures that became the Addams Family. This concept was what eventually got picked up by David Levy for the 1960s Addams Family television show.
The Addams Family television show aired from 1964 to 1966 for a total of 64 episodes about a morbid family scaring their neighbors with characters like Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Grandmama, Pugsley and Wednesday. It did have a brief 1 season of an animated series in 1973 by Hanna Barbera.
Whenever interviewers would come to his home, he made sure they would see his embalming table, headsman’s axe or skulls as his bread and butter did depend on his fans thinking he was insane.
Most of the cast got back together for the 1977 reunion movie.
Both 1991 and 1993 saw a revival of the characters in 2 Academy Award nominated films, The Addams Family and Addams Family Values.
They were so successful that they also made it possible for two seasons of a 1992 animated Addams Family series.
Unfortunately, Raul Julia died of complications related to his stomach cancer in 1994 so there was not a third film in the movie series. The return of the Addams Family went straight to TV film in 1998.
The New Addams Family was on TV in 1998 for a total of 65 episodes.
The Addams Family was revived again as a musical in 2010 with Nathan Lane portraying Gomez.
The 2019 Addams Family film fared well at the box office because they were actually based on an original single panel comic or cartoon.
His first wife, Barbara Jean Day was said to resemble Morticia Addams and their marriage ended after 8 years since he did not want children.
He then married attorney Estelle Barb in 1954 who persuaded him to give her control of his TV and Film rights, after which they divorced.
He often told people he chose his dog because it hates children and married his third wife, Tee in a pet cemetery. They would stay married through to his death.
Source: https://comicbookhistorians.com/the-addams-family-was-a-single-panel-comic-first-by-alex-grand/
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