Addams, Charles

Addams, Charles (Samuel)

(born Jan. 7, 1912, Westfield, N.J., U.S.—died Sept. 29, 1988, New York, N.Y.) U.S. cartoonist. He worked briefly as a commercial artist before selling his first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1933. He became famous for darkly humorous cartoons depicting morbid behaviour by sinister-looking characters, especially a family of ghouls whose activities travestied those of a conventional family; in one popular image, they prepare to pour boiling oil on a group of Christmas carolers. These evolved into The Addams Family, a 1960s television series that generated two Hollywood films.