Evening star., 1953-10-11
Addoms Finds the Mocobre Really Jolly,
And Cartoons 1t for All of Us to Share
Portroyer of GhouIs
And Ghosts Is Shy
But Unspectrul
By Saul Petit
Assoeioted Press Staff Writer

small boy, about 2, came up and
took O'Hara's bottle out of his
hand.
Lets spike it," Addams said
quietly.
1t was the kind of thought
that comes to Addams quite nat
urally, To his many fans around
the country, who know him from
a distance and expect the worst.
it may be a surprise that he did
not stipulate arsenic as the Spik-
ing agent.
For Addams is regarded as
Americas funniest spokesman
for all the repreSSed violence
which turks in most of us.
The family which Addams
draws lives in an old Victorian
ruin, amid bats, cobwebs, sagging
plaster and creaking boards.
Almost every cliche, emotion and
aspiration of normal mankind is
regarded as fair game by the
family to turn about to their
own devilish purpose.
Even Christmas Is GriSly.
On Christmas Eve, they gather
on the roof, ready to spill a
cauldron of boiling water on
carolers below. Or the whole
menage-the witch-wife, her
pig-faced husband, Frankenstein
butler and devilish children-col-
lects in the living room to ad-
mire a new picture window with
a grand view of a cemetery.
Or the children go off by them
selves, to crouch behind a sign
saying, warning, children at
play''-ready to push a huge
boulder in the path of an oncom-
ing car. Or the uncle, a balloon
headed, snaggle-toothed idiot,
giggles at a movie which has
every one else in tears.
Charles Samuel Addams, in
whose unorthodox mind these
visions come to life, is a tall,
casually assembled man of Al,
with dark, greying hair, wide
grin and a shy. almost apologize
manner which seems to beg your
pardon for the space he's taking
up around you.
Even away from his drawing
board, Addams has a bemused,
spontaneous interest in the
macabre, in the ghoulish possibil-
tiles of the commonplace. in the
terrifying contrast between what
good little boys are suppose to be
made of and what they may
actually be thinking in their dark
little minds.
Would Dig Up the Dead.
He frequently visits his friend
Burgess Meredith, the actor. who
has a home on SO acres of Rock
land County, NY. The property
includes a small, old graveyard,
in which the most recent tomb
stone is dated 1911. Addams Of
ten suggests that one night they
ought to dig it up ''just to see
what's there"
Most of Addams' friends will
tell you that basically he is un-
comfortable with children be-
cause he is shy and they are un-
predictable. But, curiously, each
set of parents reports that he
seems to get along fine with their
youngSter. He treats the kids
like adults and they, it is re-
ported, like his gifts.
For Jonathan Meredith, eyed
2, he bought a black rubber spi-
der and assorted toy lizards. For
the 10-year-old son of Wolcott
Gibbs, the drama critic, Charley
provided a cleaning human skull.
Gibbs did not regard the gift
as morbid. after ALL" he said,
''it was clear that the child
needed skull beyond anything
else in the world"
DiStruStS the Obvious.
Like most of his colleagues on
the New Yorker Magazine, Ad-
dams has an unholy fear of the
obvious. Overstatement makes
him cringe. He suffers some
what from claustrophobia. And
bores give him the same feeling
of being trapped as he gets in
q small room.
One. at a bar, Addams was
held captive by a stranger who
insisted on telling him about
his trip up from Florida. The
man told it in detail, leaving out
not a single highway number
or roadside restaurant. Charley
tried to listen politely.
But after a half hour of grow
ing panic, by which time the
stranger had only reached Raj
eigh, N. c., the cartoonist just
had to leave.
II excused myself and started
to walk away" he recalls. ''I
had had only one drink. But I
took just two steps and fell down
in faint. Really, I tainted from
acute boredom"
For all his vocational and
avocational interest in the ma
cabre, AddamS is warmly regard
ed by his friends as a pleasant,
sensitive. intelligent, modest
companion, who likes to drink
quietly, or race foreign sports
cars noisily, or just sit and lis
ten to rhumbas and Dixieland
jazz.
Bizarre Collections.
AddamS has a serious interest
in relics and antiquities. His
apartment on upper Fifth Ave-
nue. and summer place at West
hampton abound in medieval
crossnows, lances and headsman
axes. He also has a full suit of
armor ia bargain at $700'O. a
miniature skull here and there.
tiny guillotine. a black metal
spider on the wall, and high