John Allen Astin (born 30 March 1930, Baltimore) is an American character actor, best known as Gomez Addams on the 1964 sitcom The Addams Family. He reprised the role in the 1992 Addams Family cartoon series.
Biography[]
Dark-haired, usually-mustachioed actor with a cheeky grin who achieved pop culture status through his portrayal of the kooky patriarch "Gomez Addams" in the hit TV series The Addams Family (1964), John Astin attended Johns Hopkins University and studied mathematics. However he discovered a passion for the theater and began performing in minor plays and doing voice-over work for commercials.
He first got noticed in a small role in West Side Story (1961), then appeared in several other films before being cast as Gomez Addams. While The Addams Family was initially a huge hit, its popularity petered out after two years, and Astin moved on to other work, including the offbeat Bunny O'Hare (1971), playing a grizzled but not particularly bright gunfighter in the western spoof Evil Roy Slade (1972) (TV), an appearance in the Disney comedy Freaky Friday (1976) and dual roles in National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985).
Astin has since lent his comedic talents to numerous appearances as Dr. Gangreen in several corny Killer Tomato movies, and has contributed his voice to re-create Gomez Addams in the animated series The Addams Family (1992), and then played Grandpa Addams in the short-lived TV series The New Addams Family (1998). In addition, Astin has contributed voices to several other animated shows, and still regularly appears in films.
Before The Addams Family, Astin co-starred with Marty Ingels on I'm Dickens, He's Fenster.
External Links[]
- John Astin at the Internet Movie Database
- Official site for Astin's one-man show, Once upon a Midnight