Lisa Rowling, who was the macabre yet cherubic portrayal of Wednesday Addams in the 1960s TV series The Addams Family, has spawned revived roles in movies and more recently in the hit Netflix series, but she’s been working in Barr, California. Died Saturday in Bank. 64.
Her death at the hospital was confirmed by her daughter, Vanessa Callies Dominguez. She said Rowling was taken off the ventilator after a stroke.
Rowling auditioned for the role of Wednesday when she was five years old. Dominguez said her grandmother owned a Mexican restaurant on Los Angeles’ Sherman Ventura Boulevard in her Oaks neighborhood and was popular with people in the film industry. Before Ms. Rowling was offered a role in “The Addams Family” in 1964, she had a child modeling job.
In a 1980 interview with the soap opera magazine Daytimers, Ms. Rowling said, “I got it because I pouted.”
In one episode of the fan-favorite The Addams Family, she told Lurch, the family butler, how to dance.
“Take it easy,” Wednesday says, all his legs slipping and his knees wobbly as he encourages his zombie-like sidekick. “Let yourself go.”
Lisa Ann DeSynthes was born on February 16, 1958 in Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, the only child of James P. DeSynthes and Judith Ann (Currys) DeSynthes, who were stationed in the U.S. Navy. Her parents divorced shortly after her family moved to Los Angeles when she was a toddler.
The Addams Family, which premiered on ABC in 1964, was based on the creepy yet harmless characters created by Charles Addams for a series of cartoons that appeared in The New Yorker beginning in 1938. The television series primarily involves Wednesday’s parents, Gomez (John Astin) and Morticia (Carolyn Jones), Uncle Fester, Grandma, Wednesday’s brother Pugsley, and an antics involving disembodied hands known as Thing that jumped out of a box. family head.
Mr. Adams did not name the character until it was developed for television in the mid-1960s. He said he named Wednesday after the line “Wednesday’s child is full of misery” from the nursery rhyme “Monday’s Child”.
Dressed in black and pigtails framing her pale face, Rowling played a girl obsessed with death on Wednesday and talked about cutting off doll heads and feeding her pet spider. Did.
Rowling returned to school after “The Addams Family” was canceled in 1966. She got married for the first time when she was 15, gave birth to her first child, and divorced a year later, her daughter said.
She reprized the role of Wednesday Addams in the 1977 reunion special “Halloween with the New Addams Family”. Her other television credits include ‘Uncle’s Daughter’, ‘Fantasy Island’ and ‘Barnaby Jones’. Her film credits include “Savage Harbor” (1987), “Way Down in Chinatown” (2014) and “Doctor Spine” (2015).
In 1980, she starred as Cricket Montgomery in the CBS soap opera As the World Turns.
Dominguez’s mother considered acting as a way to support the family as a single mother. “It was something that happened in her life.”
In addition to Dominguez, Rowling has another daughter, Marianne Stephenson Keller, and two grandchildren. Rowling’s first of her three marriages ended in divorce. Dominguez said her husband Graham Rich died last year.
Wednesday Adams’ role has been seen in television, film, stage, including Christina Ricci in two films. The latest work is the Netflix series “Wednesday” starring Jenna Ortega As a teenage version of the character who is sent to boarding school for outcasts, vampires, and werewolves. Rowling’s quote Of her inspiration for repeating Wednesday’s dance moves, A sensation on TikTok When at the dance club.
of interview At Silicon Valley Comic-Con 2018, Ms. Rowling said she was so young when she auditioned Wednesday that she hadn’t yet learned to read, much less dance.
“Who taught you to dance like that?” she said. “I can’t dance like that!”
