born Jan. 7, 1912, Westfield, N.J., U.S.
died Sept. 29, 1988, New York, N.Y.
U.S. cartoonist.
He worked briefly as a commercial artist before selling his first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1933. He became famous for darkly humorous cartoons depicting morbid behaviour by sinister-looking characters, especially a family of ghouls whose activities travestied those of a conventional family; in one popular image, they prepare to pour boiling oil on a group of Christmas carolers. These evolved into The Addams Family , a 1960s television series that generated two Hollywood films.