One of the issues with scheduling as far out in advance as I do these days—I’ve got people on the list through January 2024, though not every date is filled that far out—is the risk that people will die while they sit on the schedule. It happened with Gavin MacLeod. And I’ve spent some time with being afraid it would happen with John Astin. And, no, I can’t simply rearrange the schedule; the death of Chadwick Boseman was proof that Just Being Really Old is not a guarantee that you’ll die first; remember that Norman Lloyd died at age 106, well after Boseman and other much younger people died. So I leave the schedule alone unless I have really good reason to change it and just cross my fingers.
John Astin has a movie in post-production. Which isn’t quite Norman Lloyd levels, but which is still quite impressive for someone whose first TV credit is from 1957. Even before that, he was on Broadway. He studied theatre at Johns Hopkins, which turns out to be a thing you can do—eventually, he was made head of the department. And by “eventually,” I mean he started teaching there in 2001. Seriously teaching; it’s the reason, from what I can tell, that he started doing less acting. Because he was teaching drama instead.
His father was the director of the National Bureau of Standards. His brother is a Professor Emeritus at UCLA who shaped the study of higher education. His son Mackenzie actually did one more episode of The Facts of Life than John did of The Addams Family. His son Sean is . . . the one of the family who needs no introduction, I think. And, yes, I count him as John’s son. John adopted him. A mere factor of biology is irrelevant, apparently to them as well as to anyone else.
John has had a varied enough career that you can pick and choose your own favourite role and not be wrong, not that you’re generally wrong to have whatever favourite you do. Personally, I’m partially to Buddy Ryan of Night Court and his refrain of, “But I’m feeling much better now!” He’s a sweet, loving figure; it’s true that his mental illness is frequently played for laughs, but on the other hand, he’s never shown to be a lesser person because of it. He’s always shown as capable of real emotion. Harry comes to love him because he’s deserving of love.
The role I always have a hard time remembering is The Judge from The Frighteners. It’s all the makeup. I suspect, though, that he was cast in the movie because Peter Jackson is himself a fan of Astin as Gomez Addams. (I doubt it’s why Sean was cast in Lord of the Rings, but it’s an interesting quirk of casting.) It turns out, though, that Astin himself named Gomez. After all, none of the characters in the cartoons have names, and they had to invent them for the TV show. Charles Addams himself suggested Repelli or Gomez, and the final choice was left to Astin. It’s also true that Gomez is a much better husband and father than Astin’s Bill Andrews in Freaky Friday.
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