John Astin

John Astin
File:Gomez.jpg The Addams Family
Born	John Allen Astin
Years active	1961-1996

John Allen Astin (born March 30, 1930) is an American actor who has appeared in numerous films and television shows, but is best known for the role of Gomez Addams on The Addams Family television series and similarly eccentric comedic characters.

Personal life

Astin was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Margaret Linnie Mackenzie and Allen Varley Astin. He attended Johns Hopkins University (Class of 1952) after transferring from Washington & Jefferson College. He studied mathematics at both institutions and was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at Johns Hopkins.

He has three sons—David, Allen, and Tom—with his first wife, Suzanne Hahn, and two sons—Sean and Mackenzie, both successful actors—with his second wife, fellow actor Patty Duke. Sean is not his biological son, but John legally adopted him when he married Patty. John Astin is currently married to Valerie Ann Sandobal.

His younger brother, Alexander Astin, is a professor emeritus at UCLA. His father was the former director of the National Bureau of Standards. He has five granddaughters — Alexandra, Elizabeth, Isabella, Sedona and Jaya. He currently teaches theater at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins.

Career

Astin started in theatre, doing voice-over work for commercials. His first big break came in a small but memorable part in the Oscar-winning West Side Story in 1961. In 1962-63, he starred in the sitcom "I'm Dickens - He's Fenster" with Marty Ingels. From 1964-66, he starred in The Addams Family as Gomez Addams, the macabre head of the family.

Return to the Addams familly

File:GomezGlenn.jpg

Original Gomez (Astin-left) and Modern Gomez (Taranto-right)

He returned on the TV show The New Addams Family as Grandpapa Addams, alongside his successor in the role of Gomez, Glenn Taranto .

Other roles

Astin also played the Riddler on Batman during Frank Gorshin's second season departure (Gorshin came back for the 3rd). Furthermore, he 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 father of lead character Harry Stone.

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 is active in community affairs in Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

He has continued to work, appearing in a string of Killer Tomatoes films as Professor Gangreen. He also tours the one-man play Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight, written by Paul Day Clemens and Ron Magid. Astin teaches method acting and directing in the Writing Seminars Department at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater.

Selected filmography

• The Twilight Zone: "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" (1961)
• West Side Story (1961) - Glad Hand, Social Worker Leading Dance
• The Addams Family (1964) (television) - Gomez Addams
• 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
• Evil Roy Slade (1972) - Evil Roy Slade
• Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972)
• Freaky Friday (1976) - Bill Andrews
• Teen Wolf Too (1987) - Dean Dunn
• Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988) - Professor Gangreen
• The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993) (television) - Professor Albert Wickwire
• Mr. Boogedy (1986)
• National Lampoon's European Vacation- Kent Winkdale (host of "Pig in a Poke")
• Night Court (1986) - Former Mental Patient Buddy (revealed later in the series to be Judge Harry Stone's father)
• Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) - Janitor
• The Silence Of The Hams (Il Silenzio dei Prosciutti) (1993) - The Ranger
• Super Password - Himself
• The Frighteners (1996) - The Judge

External links

• John Astin at IMDb
• MSNBC Profile
• John Astin in Once Upon a Midnight
• article about John Astin's teaching work from the Johns Hopkins Gazette, "Course Catalog: Contemporary Theatre and Film: An Insider's View"; April 24, 2006 (Vol. 35 No. 31) [Includes contemporary picture of Astin]
• Hosted by John Astin, see what it took to broadcast a live television program in the 1950s