Current Events > I don't want to talk about old celebrities in case I jinx them, but

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm surprised that the original Gomez Addams, John Astin, is still alive. He's the last surviving member of the 1964 show's cast, including his on-screen children - I just looked the show up, and the original Wednesday Addams had a stroke and died this past February.

I loved the Addams Family when I was growing up. We had cable, so I'd get to see shows like the Addams Family and Whose Line is it Anyway. John Astin was in the prime of his life in the sixties, in his mid-thirties and the model of masculinity for the time. He's still working too, it seems like he mostly does voice roles nowadays.

Out of all the cast, I'm surprised that he's the last one left. Usually you see older guys dying first; men have shorter life expectancies than women. He really set the mold for Gomez Addams, and without the groundwork he laid for the character in the tv show, we wouldn't have gotten those great Raul Julia movies in the nineties.

I'm trepidacious to bring him up after what happened with Bob Barker, but this is just one of those curious things I wanted to talk about. Apparently he's also the adoptive father of Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings.

What a guy. I hope he's comfortable and healthy.

Edit: used the wrong name multiple times and somehow didn't catch it despite checking his Wikipedia page.

Jinx

You must know something I don't know as I have always known him as John Astin, not Tony. I loved that show as a kid. That and The Munsters. Both in the same time frame, both black and white and I thought both Carolyn Jones as Morticia and Yvonne De Carlo as Lily were beautiful.

I thought John Astin died shortly after making Teen Wolf Too.

>_>

Well it's a good thing Tony Astin is still alive. John Astin, however...

Is this a case of somebody vandalizing a Wikipedia page to say that someone is still alive when they aren't?

I was watching some Addams Family this week and looked up John Astin. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University as well and only recently retired from that position.

While I'm on the subject, Jackie Coogan - Uncle Fester on the Addams Family - is a really interesting person. He was one of the first child stars - if not the actual first child star - in Hollywood, and he got so thoroughly fucked over by his own mother that he took her to court and won.

Like he had a great dad who kept a close eye on the money and made sure nobody would touch it until Jackie's 21th birthday, but he died in a car crash when his son was 20 - Jackie was actually the sole survivor of the crash. In the span of five months, his mother and her new boyfriend spent every last cent - somewhere between four and five million dollars, which would have been close to $51 million in 2021's value. Five months, roughly five million dollars. It was all spent.

He's the reason that California enacted a Child Actor's Bill to make it harder for parents or guardians to access the money that their child was making. And it was only with his role as Uncle Fester that he regained some of the fame he initially had as a kid.

archizzy posted...

You must know something I don't know as I have always known him as John Astin, not Tony.

ngl, I fucked up the name and I didn't catch it until you brought it up. My bad, I'll edit the OP if I can.

FortuneCookie posted...

Is this a case of somebody vandalizing a Wikipedia page to say that someone is still alive when they aren't?

No, I fucked up the name. Apologies.

MrMallard posted...

While I'm on the subject, Jackie Coogan - Uncle Fester on the Addams Family - is a really interesting person. He was one of the first child stars - if not the actual first child star - in Hollywood, and he got so thoroughly fucked over by his own mother that he took her to court and won.

Like he had a great dad who kept a close eye on the money and made sure nobody would touch it until Jackie's 21th birthday, but he died in a car crash when his son was 20 - Jackie was actually the sole survivor of the crash. In the span of five months, his mother and her new boyfriend spent every last cent - somewhere between four and five million dollars, which would have been close to $51 million in 2021's value. Five months, roughly five million dollars. It was all spent.

He's the reason that California enacted a Child Actor's Bill to make it harder for parents or guardians to access the money that their child was making. And it was only with his role as Uncle Fester that he regained some of the fame he initially had as a kid.

Yeah, pretty sad stuff. She legitimately tried to argue that he looked like he was having fun and never spoke to her about money.

"Astin has been married three times. His second wife was actress Patty Duke, and Astin is the adoptive father of Duke's son, actor Sean Astin"

I don't know what to think about that. Wouldn't there be somewhat of a age gap. She was a teen in the 60's

vycebrand2 posted...

"Astin has been married three times. His second wife was actress Patty Duke, and Astin is the adoptive father of Duke's son, actor Sean Astin"

I don't know what to think about that. Wouldn't there be somewhat of a age gap. She was a teen in the 60's

They married in 72 when she was 26 years old. He was 42. Age gap yes, but nothing egregious here.

vycebrand2 posted...

"Astin has been married three times. His second wife was actress Patty Duke, and Astin is the adoptive father of Duke's son, actor Sean Astin"

I don't know what to think about that. Wouldn't there be somewhat of a age gap. She was a teen in the 60's

The woman who played Morticia Addams got married and had a child at age 15. Shit was just kinda like that back then.

Also post #13 makes a more pertinent point.

I was recently looking up all the voice actors from Batman TAS and was sad to see how so many of them are gone.

GeneralKenobi85 posted...

I was watching some Addams Family this week and looked up John Astin. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University as well and only recently retired from that position.

The craziest part is he didn't even start there until he was 71 years old and ended up doing that for 20 years until 2021. Retired from there at 91.

Good job editing the original post, TC. John was probably going to slip through the Grim Reaper's grasp for a while yet due to your misnaming, but now you've doomed him for a certainty. Murderer.

Also I watch a lot of these older shows from back in that era. A lot of old westerns and different shows from the 50's and 60's and right before we merged into the color tv era and you often will see something that I'm about to point out.

The woman who played Grandmama (Blossom Rock) was born in the 1800's. 1895 to be exact. Whenever you see an older person in these older shows like this its always cool to to see that. Cool to me anyway.

MrMallard posted...

The woman who played Morticia Addams got married and had a child at age 15. Shit was just kinda like that back then.

Also post #13 makes a more pertinent point.

She was a adult when they married but there was a 16 year difference. So in '72 he would be 42, Patty 26.

HudGard posted...

I was recently looking up all the voice actors from Batman TAS and was sad to see how so many of them are gone.

Kevin Conroy was a big one.

What gets me is that I only learned he was gay after he had died. Initially I ranted about all the nerdy YouTube videos gushing over his Batman voice but never bringing up his queerness, but apparently he only came out in a 2016 magazine interview. Most of the videos I was shit-talking were from before that happened.

I specifically remember after he died that someone posted an autobiographical comic he wrote, where his sexuality caused a lot of conflict in his family and his broader life. One of his supportive brothers had passed away at some point as well, and the 90's were the peak of the AIDS epidemic so dude probably saw some close people in his life pass away - and the way he tells the story, he was able to draw on his own dark past from anti-queer discrimination to poor family relations to voice Batman.

Looking at his Wikipedia page, it says that he was married at the time of his death. I'm glad he was able to find that. Another big celebrity death that gets me is Robert Reed, the guy who played Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch - he only came out publically days before his death. I think sometimes about whether he was able to find lasting happiness as a closeted queer man for his entire life y'know. We don't know because the man was so private. I hope he was, because the thought that he died of a long, debilitating illness, alone, after all the hardship he faced is kind of too much to bear. So I'm glad that in the case of Kevin Conroy, you can look at that and know that he was loved in his final moments.