It’s Carolyn Jones’ Birthday! 6 Things You Never Knew About the Woman Behind Morticia Addams
Carolyn Jones, who was born on April 28, 1930, was most famous for her role as Morticia, the dead-sexy matriarch of that creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, altogether ooky Addams Family from 1964 to 1966. But while that show’s 64 episodes made Jones a pop culture legend, there was a lot more to the actress, who tragically passed away in 1983, at age 53, from aggressive colon cancer.
On what would have been her 95th birthday, let’s learn a little bit about the real woman behind the gothic TV icon.
Everett Collection
1She almost had Donna Reed’s Oscar-winning role
First film performance in The Turning Point (1952) Everett Collection
Many years before she became the face of Morticia Addams, Carolyn Jones, like others in the 1950s, got her start in TV and on stage. As a young child, born in Amarillo, Texas, she had a great imagination and loved movies, but suffered from severe asthma. Often stuck indoors, she could only follow her entertainment passion by listening to Danny Kaye and Spike Jones, and reading as many fan magazines as she could.
Eventually she attended her dream school, Pasadena Playhouse, at age 17. After graduating in 1950, she was scouted by Paramount, and made her debut in 1952’s The Turning Point. Her breakthrough movie was the Vincent Price classic House of Wax (1953) and she also had a bit role in sci-fi classic War of the Worlds that same year.
Another 1953 role seemed like it would rocket her to the top: she was originally cast as Lorene in From Here to Eternity. But Jones’ childhood lung troubles re-emerged; she had to quit the role after catching pneumonia. Donna Reed stepped in to replace her, and went on to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the part.
2But she had her own Oscar nominations, too
Everett Collection
Jones continued on, however, and found success in the popular sci-fi classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); she was also cast in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). And then, she had another crack at Oscar glory: in 1957, she co-starred in the film The Bachelor Party, adapted from critically acclaimed play by Network writer Paddy Chayefsky. Jones played a party girl with hidden depths, whose real name is never revealed.
Jones was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Miyoshi Umeki in Sayonara.
3She co-starred with Elvis
Everett Collection
The following year, Jones had a stellar performance in the Elvis movie King Creole (1958). She starred as Ronnie, the doomed moll of local gangster Maxie (Walter Matthau), who attracts attention from Elvis’s Danny Fisher.
Billboard praised her performance, noting that “Carolyn Jones is a knockout as a fallen thrush who would like to love him; their aborted romance gives the pic its finest scenes.” Unsurprisingly, however, Elvis’s performance overshadowed hers when it came to press and audiences.
The same year, she finally did land an award — a Best New Star of the Year-Actress Golden Globe, which she received for her supporting role in Marjorie Morningstar.
4She was married to … Aaron Spelling???
With husband Aaron Spelling in 1957. Everett Collection
Jones married four times throughout her life. Her first brief marriage was to fellow Pasadena Playhouse student Don Donaldson. But in the early ’50s, she met a then-struggling Aaron Spelling, who was then seeking work as an actor. The pair married in 1953, with Jones converting to Judaism for the union. They were together in 1956 when Spelling made his big switch over to screenwriting, with the sale of his first script to The Jane Wyman Show.
Though the two divorced in 1964, they were said to have remained friends after parting ways — years after their divorce and the end of the The Addams Family, she made guest appearances on his shows The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.
5She related to Morticia
Though Jones’ early career had often involved playing troubled young women, she related to the role of Morticia, a happy homemaker in a very unusual family. James Pylant, author of the Jones biography Morticia’s Shadow, told First for Women in 2024 that “[Morticia] was something she really could relate to. Morticia had a sense of humor and there were things woven into the character and the dialogue because of her input.”
6She made a comeback that wasn’t tragically wasn’t destined to last
In the soap opera Capital with Constance Towers. Everett Collection
After the end of The Addams Family, Jones remarried, and spent some time where she was less focused on her career, only appearing in the occasional TV guest spot. But by the late ’70s, she began turning up on the small screen more and more frequently, and eventually landed another lead role: Myrna Clegg, one of the devious matriarchs on the Washington D.C.-set political soap Capital, in 1982.
The show ran for five seasons and over 1200 episodes; however, Jones was only present in a few. In 1981, she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. After a period of remission, it returned with a vengeance in 1982; Jones sometimes performed from her wheelchair when shooting the show. The cancer was very aggressive and terminal, and she succumbed to the disease on Aug, 3 1983.
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