No. I mean, they liked to play that up, because she had dark hair. She’s a prettier, softer version of Morticia, but I will say that all three of them did bear a resemblance to Morticia. And he liked to draw them as Morticia, particularly Tee. And I think I’ve got one of those drawings in the book. They were just playing that up, and she did grow her hair long to please him and play along with it and would dress in black for photographs.
What do you think the films get wrong?
I think what they get wrong is they’re not nearly as dark as the original cartoons. And one thing, they’ve never passed anybody who looks like, well, Gomez in particular is a really revolting-looking man. He was inspired by Thomas E. Dewey, though there was a little bit of Peter Lorre. Addams never said that, but I could see that. But crossed with a pig, a very unattractive man. And I think that Hollywood just can’t bring themselves to cast somebody who looks like that.
And Morticia, of course, has always been made prettier. Although he said, “She was just my idea of a pretty girl,” Morticia. He did like that type. And all three wives had dark hair and were that certain type, though he did date blondes and redheads too. But I think there are so few Addams Family cartoons that I wish that somebody would look at his other cartoons and add them to the script, because there are a lot of other dark cartoons that could work.
The cartoons are really more sinister and don’t rely on pratfalls. So, it seems to me, first of all, it’s very difficult to create a good script based on the Addams Family, because there are so few of them, but it seems to me that the knowledge of Addams’ cartoons isn’t deep enough.
What cartoons do you think would lend themselves cinematically?