John Allen Astin (born March 30, 1930) is an American actor who has appeared in numerous films and television shows, and is best known for the role of Gomez Addams on The Addams Family, and other similarly eccentric comedic characters.
Early years
Astin was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Margaret Linnie (née Mackenzie) and Dr. Allen Varley Astin, who was the director of the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology).[1] He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1952, after transferring from Washington and Jefferson College. He initially studied mathematics at Washington & Jefferson then became a drama major at Johns Hopkins; he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at Johns Hopkins.
Career
Astin started in theater, doing voice-over work for commercials. His first big break came with a small part in West Side Story in 1961. At this time, he also guest starred on the ABC sitcom, Harrigan and Son, starring Pat O'Brien. In 1962–1963, he starred with Marty Ingels in the sitcom I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, which aired thirty-one episodes in a single season. From 1964–1966, he starred in The Addams Family as Gomez Addams, the head of the macabre family. He appeared in the TV show The New Addams Family as Grandpapa Addams in 1998, with the role of Gomez Addams played by Glenn Taranto.
Astin also played the Riddler on ABC's Batman during Frank Gorshin's second season departure. (Gorshin came back for the third and final season.) He played submarine commander Matthew Sherman in the 1970s TV series Operation Petticoat. He also made a notable appearance in popular mystery show Murder, She Wrote, as the villainous Sheriff Harry Pierce. He had a recurring role on the sitcom Night Court as Buddy, eccentric former mental patient and the stepfather of lead character Harry Stone. He also played the regular role of Ed LaSalle in the short-lived Mary Tyler Moore sitcom Mary during the 1985–86 television season. He guest starred on numerous television series too, including a Gunsmoke appearance in 1967 as Festus's cousin Henry, Jack Palance's ABC circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth and Duckman.
Astin received an Academy Award nomination for Prelude, a short film that he wrote, produced, and directed. He was nominated for an Ace Award for his work on Tales from the Crypt, and received an Emmy nomination for the cartoon voice of Gomez on ABC-TV's The Addams Family. He also voiced the character Bull Gator on the animated series Taz-Mania. Astin served for four years on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, and has been active in community affairs in Los Angeles and Santa Monica.
He has continued to work in acting, appearing in a string of Killer Tomatoes films as Professor Gangreen and as Professor Wickwire in The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
He also has toured the one-man play Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight, written by Paul Day Clemens and Ron Magid. In a December 2007, Baltimore Examiner interview, Astin said of his acting experience:
“We all struggle, and I had plenty of that, but I've had a great time. I've done hundreds of TV shows and 30 to 40 movies, and I love acting. I'm very happy having done the Poe. That's been really terrific.[2] ”
Teaching
Astin currently teaches method acting and directing in the Writing Seminars Department at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater. Commenting on his dual career, he said in 2007, "I don't know one major university that has a known actor teaching every day."[2] He hopes to re-establish a drama major at the university, noting that he is one of only a handful to earn a drama degree from Hopkins. Astin can be seen singing and playing cowbell in a music video from JHU released in December 2009.
Personal life
He has five sons, three (David, Allen, and Tom) by his first wife, Suzanne Hahn, and another (Mackenzie Astin) by his second wife, actress Patty Duke. John also legally adopted Sean Astin, Duke's son from a previous marriage. John Astin is currently married to Valerie Ann Sandobal and lives in Baltimore. He is a practicing Buddhist.[2]
His younger brother, Alexander Astin, is a professor emeritus at UCLA. He has five granddaughters: Alexandra, Elizabeth, Isabella, Sedona and Jaya.
Filmography
The Twilight Zone: "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" (1961)
West Side Story (1961) – Glad Hand, Social Worker Leading Dance
That Touch of Mink (1962) - Mr. Everett Beasley
Move Over Darling (1963) - Clyde Prokey
The Addams Family (1964–66) (television) – Gomez Addams
Batman: "Batman's Anniversary/A Riddling Controversy" (1967) (television) – The Riddler (#2)
The Wild Wild West: "The Night of the Tartar" (1967) (television) – Count Nikolai Sazanov
The Flying Nun: "Flight of the Dodo Bird" (1967) (television) – Father Lundigan
Candy: (1968) – Mister Christian
Viva Max! (1969) – Sergeant Valdez
Bunny O'Hare (1971) – Ad
Night Gallery: "Pamela's Voice" (1971) (television)
Night Gallery: "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" (October 1, 1972) (television) - Mr. Munch
Evil Roy Slade (1972) – Evil Roy Slade
The Partridge Family (1973) (television) - Sydney Rose in The Mad Millionaire
Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972)
Freaky Friday (1976) – Bill Andrews
Operation Petticoat (1977) - Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Sherman
National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) - Kent Winkdale (host of "Pig in a Poke")
Mr. Boogedy (1986) – Neil Witherspoon
Teen Wolf Too (1987) – Dean Dunn
Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988) – Professor Gangreen
Killer Tomatoes Strike Back (1990) – Professor Gangreen
Killer Tomatoes Eat France (1991) – Professor Gangreen
Eerie Indiana (1991) (television) – Radford
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993) (television) – Professor Albert Wickwire
Night Court (1986) – Former Mental Patient Buddy Ryan (revealed later in the series to be Judge Harry Stone's father)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) – Janitor
Taz-Mania (1991) (television) – Bull Gator (voice)
The Addams Family, animated series (1992) – Gomez Addams (voice)
The Silence of the Hams (1993) – The Ranger
Duckman (1994) – Terry Duke Tetzloff (voice)
Mad About You: "Up All Night" (1994) (television) – himself
Super Password – Himself
The Frighteners (1996) – The Judge
The Nanny (1996) - The Plastic Surgeon (episode - Tattoo)
School of Life (2005) – Stormin' Norman Warner
References
1.^ "John Astin Biography". filmreference. 2008. http://www.filmreference.com/film/93/John-Astin.html. Retrieved 2009-01-17.
2.^ Jessica Novak (28December 2007). "Johns Hopkins' leading man". The Baltimore Examiner.
The Addams Family is an American television series based on the characters in Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 installments on ABC from September 18, 1964 to April 8, 1966. It is often compared to its working-class rival, The Munsters, which ran for the same two seasons and achieved somewhat higher Nielsen ratings. The Addams Family ranked 23rd in its first season, with a 23.9 rating.[2] The show is the first adaptation of the characters to feature The Addams Family Theme.
It was originally produced by Filmways, Inc. at General Service Studios in Hollywood, California. Successor company MGM Television (via The Program Exchange for broadcast syndication, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for home video/DVD) owns the rights to the show. At one point, distribution rights were licensed to Worldvision Enterprises.
Premise
The Addamses are a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests. They are humans with supernatural abilities. No explanation for their powers is explicitly given in the series.
The very wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams is madly in love with his refined wife Morticia. Along with their two children, Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester and Grandmama, they reside in an ornate, gloomy, Second Empire style mansion, attended by their servants, Lurch, the towering butler, and Thing, a hand that usually appears out of a small wooden box. Occasionally, episodes would feature relatives or other members of their weird subculture, such as Cousin Itt or Morticia's older sister, Ophelia.
Much of the humor derives from their culture clash with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, even though their guests often have evil intentions. They are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their (to them) good natured and normal behavior since they are under the impression that their tastes are shared by most of society. Accordingly they view "conventional" tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. For example, Fester once cites a neighboring family's meticulously maintained petunia patches as evidence that they are "nothing but riff-raff." Ironically, many of the things that the Addams family was in favor of that seemed laughable in the mid-1960s have become mainsteam. Homeschooling, protection of swamps (now Federally protected as wetlands), banning of toy guns, and banning of classic fairy tales in schools were all plotlines in the show that were comic fodder at the time. A recurring theme in the epilogue of many episodes was the Addamses getting an update on the most recent visitor to their home, either via something in the newspaper or a phone call. Invariably, as a result of their visit to the Addamses, the visitor would be institutionalized, change professions, move out of the country, or have some other negative life-changing event. The Addamses would always misinterpret the update and see it as good news for that most recent visitor.
The tone was set by series producer Nat Perrin, close friend of Groucho Marx and writer of several Marx Brothers films. Perrin created story ideas, directed one episode, and rewrote every script. Much of the dialog is his (albeit uncredited). As a result, Gomez, with his sardonic remarks, backwards logic, and ever-present cigar (pulled from his breast pocket already lit), has been frequently compared to Groucho Marx. In addition, the series often employed the same type of zany satire and screwball humor seen in the Marx Brothers films. It lampooned politics ("Gomez, The Politician" and "Gomez, The People's Choice"), the legal system ("The Addams Family in Court"), Beatlemania ("Lurch, The Teenage Idol"), and Hollywood ("My Fair Cousin Itt").
Characters
Main characters
Gomez Addams (John Astin) - Gomez is passionately in love with his wife, often referring to her as "Cara Mia." His ardor is greatly intensified when she speaks French (a quirk that first appears in the eleventh episode, "The Addams Family Meet the V.I.P.s"). Before that his ardor was aroused when she called him "Bubele" a German-Bavarian, and Yiddish [3][4] word meaning "darling" or "sweetie." Gomez is very wealthy, due to owning numerous companies and stocks. He doesn't seem to regard money itself as a priority and squanders money cavalierly while remaining wealthy. Gomez spends a great deal of time with his family and does not go out to work. He refers to Spain as his "ancestral home" with his family background referenced as "Castilian," and he occasionally uses Spanish words and phrases. He can perform rapid and complicated calculations in his head. He is remarkably acrobatic and can easily dismount from a hanging position upon a chandelier.
Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight is a one man play starring John Astin as Edgar Allan Poe. Astin said, of why he wanted to do a play on Poe, "I feel that Poe, through his own tortured existence, gained deep insight into the nature of the universe, along with an intense love and appreciation for life itself. Through this play I want to share that impression with others."
The Play
The story is told through Poe's eyes, as he narrates his own life to the audience. He tells of his childhood, his time in the military and the troubles he caused while at West Point, his marriage and his struggles to make his mark as a poet, publisher and writer. It is peppered with numerous quotes from many of Poe's works, and also includes a complete recitation of Poe's poem "The Raven." John Astin, as Poe, is the only character on stage throughout the play.
Credits
Written by Paul Day Clemens and Ron Magid
Directed by Alan Bergmann
Scenery, props and projections by John Boesche
Lighting by Jason R. Beghtol
Sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen
Original Music by Ian Freebairn-Smith
Production stage manager - Brian J. L'Ecuyer
Booking by Windwood Theatricals
