Jackie Kennedy and Greta Garbo Are Part of ‘the Addams Family’ Creator’s Dating History
Charles Addams is best known as the creator of the Addams Family. Not many know the cartoonist was married three times. Similarly, not many are aware of the famous women he rubbed elbows with when he wasn’t a married man. Learn more about the celebrity women Addams dated, including details about his relationship with Jackie Kennedy.
Charles Addams was married three times and never wanted children
Addams married his first wife, Barbara Jean Day, in 1942. They were divorced in 1950 because of Addams’ lack of desire to have children. “I am my own child,” he once said, according to Linda H. Davis’ book Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life. Allegedly Addams agreed to adopt a child. However, when the time came to make it official, he backed out last minute. This is what caused her to divorce him.
Four years later, Addams married Estelle Barbara Barb, but the two were divorced by 1956. His third and final marriage was to Marilyn Matthews Miller, who he married in 1981. Their wedding occurred in a pet cemetery, where they exchanged vows holding the remains of dogs and a turtle (via MeTV.com). They were together until Addams died in 1988.
‘The Addams Family’ creator dated celebrities like Greta Garbo and Jackie Kennedy
Presumably between his second and third marriages, Addams spent a lot of time with famous women. The lover of all things macabre was a desirable escort to Jacqueline Kennedy, Greta Garbo and Joan Fontaine.
“He wasn’t filthy rich, but he had an apartment overlooking the MOMA sculpture garden, drove a Bugatti and a Bentley, dated Jackie [Kennedy] not long after the assassination, and was always at the top of everyone’s dinner party list,” Davis told The Smithsonian Magazine. She elaborated on Addams’ relationship with Kennedy in an interview with Den of Geek.
“Well, he had a little romance with her, and I write about it in the chapter called ‘The Addams Family,'” she said. “Part of what I think is kind of funny is that he was seeing Jackie, when The Addams Family came on TV. He was also seeing a number of other women, and she was seeing other men. But this was just a few months after the assassination.”
Ironically, the women Addams hung around as a bachelor did not mimic Morticia Addams like the women he chose to marry. While many presume his first wife was the inspiration for the Addams Family matriarch, the cartoonist first drew Morticia almost 10 years before he met her.
What really inspired ‘The Addams Family’
Growing up, Addams was fascinated by his Westfield, New Jersey hometown. That locale, along with the Victorian homes and graveyards, are what inspired his Addams Family cartoons.
The kooky, spooky family was first published in The New Yorker and later inspired the 1964 Addams Family television cartoon. In the years since Addams came up with the fictional family, they have been the source material for several movies and television shows, including Netflix’s latest adaptation, Wednesday. The series follows a teenage Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) and explores her years at Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts.
