Gomez Addams
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gomez Addams is the fictional patriarch of The Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine in the 1930s. Gomez was played by John Astin in the 1960s American television series. Astin also voiced the character in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies which featured the family. In the first animated series by Hanna-Barbera, Gomez was voiced by Lennie Weinrib. In the second animated series, also by Hanna-Barbera, Gomez's voice was again performed by John Astin. He is known as Homero Addams in Spanish-speaking countries.
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[edit] Name origin and family
In the Charles Addams cartoons, Gomez — as with all of the members of the family — had no name. When the 1964 television series The Addams Family was being developed, Charles Addams suggested naming the character either Repelli or Gomez. Addams left the final choice up to actor John Astin, who chose Gomez.[1] Gomez is the husband of Morticia Addams, son (or, in some incarnations of the family, son-in-law) to Grandmama Addams, nephew-in-law (or sometimes brother) to Uncle Fester, and father to Wednesday and Pugsley. Gomez also has a butler named Lurch and a Cousin Itt. Gomez's paternal grandfather was Grandpa Squint Addams, who was the son of Pegleg Addams; oddly, Gomez's paternal grandmother was also named Squint.
[edit] Personality
Gomez is of Castilian extraction, and almost always dresses in a chalk-striped, dark-colored suit, sports slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin moustache. In the television shows, Gomez wore a necktie to his chalk-stripe suit, though in the films, Gomez wears a bow-tie. He enjoys smoking cigars, and is an accomplished juggler and knife-thrower. He is well versed in all types of combat, especially swordfighting. His favorite dance is The Freddy. Though head of the household, he is extremely naive and childish, with a short attention span and endless optimism. He has a childlike love for toys, especially model train sets, which he routinely enjoys destroying. Gomez is passionately in love with Morticia; he affectionately calls her romantic names like Querida ("darling") and Cara Mia ("my beloved"), and is driven insane by the slightest of her actions, whether imitating animal noises or speaking French. Like the rest of the family, Gomez is open and friendly to outsiders, though he finds their "normal" lifestyles bizarre.
Gomez Addams is an athletic, acrobatic, and eccentric multi-billionaire.[2] Though an extremely successful businessman, having acquired much of his wealth through investments, he seems to have little regard for money and will casually spend thousands of dollars on any whimsical endeavor (a fact that often mortifies visitors of the Addams household). Gomez's investments are guided more by whimsy than strategy, yet luck rarely fails him.
In the original sitcom, Gomez owned businesses around the world, including a crocodile farm ("Crocodiles Unlimited"), a buzzard farm, a salt mine, a tombstone factory, a uranium mine, and many others. It was not unheard of for him to simply forget that he owned a controlling interest in a business. Gomez studied law (voted "Most Likely Never to Pass the Bar"), and although he rarely practices, he takes an absurd delight in losing cases; This is somewhat contradicted in the episode "The Addams Family Goes to Court," where it is noted that while Gomez has never won a case, he has never lost one either ("Perfect record!" boasts Grandmama).
[edit] Film versions
Gomez was played by Raúl Juliá in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993). The film version of Gomez shares the fun-loving personality of his sitcom counterpart, including his affinity for swordfighting and train sets. Gomez also regularly plays chess with Thing, the disembodied hand, friend and servant of the family. Another quirk is his tendency to play golf on the roof of his house, enraging his next-door neighbor, who has to contend with golf balls smashing his windows. In the first film, Gomez has lost track of his brother Fester's whereabouts and has not spoken to him in 25 years. Gomez's desire to locate Fester leads him and his family being conned by grifters who want to swindle their fortune. Gomez is so depressed at being thrown out of his own home that he becomes unemployed and spends all day watching daytime TV.
The films differ from the television series in several ways, most significantly that Fester is Gomez's brother (in the television show, he was Morticia's uncle). The Addams Family notes that Gomez's parents were murdered by an angry mob. In Addams Family Values, Gomez and Morticia have a third child named Pubert, a seemingly indestructible baby with a waxed mustache like his father.
In 1998, Tim Curry took up the role in the film Addams Family Reunion, and his portrayal was much closer to the tv-series. The next year, Gomez was played by Glenn Taranto in the TV series The New Addams Family.
[edit] References
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