Morticia Addams Is a Fictional Character from the Addams Family Television and Film Series

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Morticia Addams is a fictional character from The Addams Family television and film series. Created by cartoonist Charles Addams, she was based on his first wife Barbara. Morticia first appeared in Charles Addams' newspaper cartoons as the stern, aloof matriarch of the Family. She often appeared with the rest of the family, and was, along with Gomez and Grandmama, one of the few members to actually speak in the cartoons. Morticia is the wife of Gomez Addams and mother of Wednesday, and Pugsley. In the cartoons, none of the family members had names. When the characters were adapted to the 1964 television series, Charles Addams' selection of her name was inspired by "mortician". Morticia's maiden name is "Frump" and she has an older sister named Ophelia (also played by Carolyn Jones). In the television series, her mother (Uncle Fester's sister) was named Hester Frump (played by Margaret Hamilton). Her mother-in-law is Grandmama Addams. In the 1990s Addams Family films, Grandmama is actually Morticia's mother, not Gomez's. • Morticia is described as a witch; she is slim, with extremely pale skin and long flowing straight black hair. • She commonly wears black hobble dresses to match her hair, tightly form fitting, with a hobble dress, with fringe of octopus-like cloth "tentacles" at the lower hem. • According to Wednesday, Morticia applies baking powder to her face instead of actual makeup. • In each episode, she easily allures her husband Gomez by speaking French (or any other foreign language for that matter). • Morticia is musically inclined, and is often seen freely strumming a Japanese shamisen. • She frequently enjoys cutting the buds off of roses, which she discards (keeping only the stems), likes cutting out paper dolls with three heads and making sweaters with three arms, collecting the mail from the hand-in-the-box Thing, and cooking unusual concoctions for her husband, including eye of newt. • Her personal pet is Cleopatra, a fictitious breed of carnivorous plant called an African Strangler, to which she feeds hamburgers. Morticia's family tree can be traced back to Salem, Massachusetts, and witchcraft is also implied at times in the television series. For example, Morticia likes to "smoke," an activity that does not involve cigarettes or cigars (like her husband frequently enjoys), but smoke instead emanates from below her. .

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