On this day, 28 April, back in 1930, the actor Carolyn Jones was born. She will always be remembered as Morticia in the television series The Addams Family.
When I was a kid, I much preferred The Munsters. But as I got older, I turned away from it and toward The Addams Family. The comedy is much more arch.
What seems weird now is that I remember these shows being huge. But they both ended after two seasons. Even in their first seasons, they both were roughly the twentieth most popular shows — good but not astounding. And in their second seasons, The Munsters was destroyed by Batman and The Addams Family by Hogan’s Heroes.
Still, the shows are great. I watched the entire first season a couple of months ago and it holds up really well.
Carolyn Jones had a good career outside The Addams Family. She had notable parts in classics like William Castle’s The Saracen Blade, Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive.
Sadly, Jones developed colon cancer and died at the age of 53.
Also Today
A few notable films were released on this date. The Horror Show came out in 1989. The documentary Crumb came out in 1995, the experimental Timecode in 2000, and the surprisingly good comedy The TV Set in 2006.
Carolyn Jones and John Astin by ABC Television via Wikipedia. It is in the Public Domain.