Who is Charles Addams

Born in Westfield, NJ, Charles gave few clues as a child as to his dark sense of humor and things to come. There were hints that his sense of humor was certainly "different" then every one elses'. His nickname was "Chill" and a chalk drawing of a skeleton in a garage behind one of the homes his family once lived in was said to be drawn by him. Artistically inclined, he grew many cartoons for the student newspaper before his graduation from Westfield High School in 1929.

Addams went on to study at Colgate University, the Grand Central School of Art in New York City, as well as the University of Pennsylvania (where a fine-arts building was named for him.)

February 6th, 1932, Addams' first cartoon was published in The New Yorker. From that point on, his cartoons were regularly published in the magazine until his death. During World War II, he served at the Signal Corps Photographic Center in New York making animated training films for the Army.

Marrying Barbara Jean Day in 1942, the couple divorced eight years later as Addams refused to adopt a child. Day was said to look like Morticia Addams. His second wife, Barbara Barb was a practicing lawyer. The couple was only married from 1954-1956, and Barb ended up controlling The Addams Family television series, movie franchises, and other legal rights Addams had been persuaded to give away.

In 1964 David Levy approached Addams with an offer to create a television series based on The Addams Family. All Charles had to do was name his characters and give them more characteristics for the actors to use in portrayals. Thus the television series was born, running on ABC for two seasons from 1964-1966.

When marrying his third wife Marilyn "Tee" Matthews Miller, the couple held the ceremony in a pet cemetery. The groom wore sunglasses. In 1985 the couple moved to New York to an estate they named "The Swamp".

Charles Addams died September 29, 1988. He had driven to visit a friend in Manhattan, where he suffered a fatal heart attack just after he parked his car in front of the apartment building. His wife Tee went on to compile The World of Charles Addams in 1991, said to be one of the most definite collections of Addams' work. She also donated many pieces of his work to the New York Public Library, where they are on a permanent rotating exhibition.

Tee died in 2002. Their estate, "The Swamp", is now home to the Tee and Charles Addams foundation.

Charles Addams' body of work spans nearly 60 years and is estimated to contain several thousand drawings. Over 15 anthologies of his works have been published. The Addams Family has moved from television to the silver screen. The works of Charles Addams will continue to live on in pop culture.

Anthologies
Drawn and Quartered (1942; re-released 1962)
Addams and Evil (1947)
Monster Rally (1950)
Homebodies (1954)
Nightcrawlers (1957)
Dear Dead Days (1959)
Black Maria (1960)
The Groaning Board (1964)
The Chas Addams Mother Goose (1967)
My Crowd (1970)
Favorite Haunts (1976)
Creature Comforts (1981)
The World of Charles Addams (1991; released posthumously)

Illustrated
Afternoon in the Attic (1950), John Kobler's anthology of short stories

Biography
Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life (2006)