The gruesome life of the original Wednesday Addams revealed
Lisa Loring, the first actress to bring Wednesday Addams to life, was just five years old when she became the face of America’s favorite creepy kid—but her life afterward The Addams Family was much darker than anything seen on the screen, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
As Jenna Ortega, 23, revives the morbid character for a new generation, details of Loring’s own horror story resurface – and it’s a tale of addiction, tragedy and a doomed marriage to a porn star.
Born Lisa Ann DeCinces in 1958 in the Marshall Islands to U.S. Navy parents, Loring became a household name in 1964 after she was released. The Addams Family. Her sweet but creepy portrayal of Wednesday – a ponytailed girl with a house spider named Homer and a headless doll she named Marie Antoinette – defined the character for decades.
But her own childhood was marked by unrest. Her parents divorced shortly after her birth, and she was raised by her mother, Judith Ann Callies, who later died of alcoholism when Loring was 14.
“I got it because of my pout,” she once said of her successful audition, recalling how producer Nat Perrin chose her because she resembled Carolyn Jones, who played her on-screen mother, Morticia.
She said, “Carolyn and John (Astin, who played Gomez) were like parents to me. You couldn’t have picked a better cast.”
Years later, a friend told TV Times of Loring, “She was adored on that set, but once the lights went out, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with her.”
After The Addams Family ended in 1966, Loring, then six, found it difficult to recapture fame. She got small roles Uncle’s girl And Fantasy Island before joining the long-running soap While the world turns as rebellious teenager Cricket Montgomery.
But as the 1980s dawned, her career declined and she fell into B-movie horror, appearing in low-budget titles like Blood madness.
Behind the scenes, Loring battled substance abuse and heartbreak.
Friends said she turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with fading fame and mounting debt.
“She was chasing that early success and couldn’t find it anymore,” said a former co-star.
In 1990, she entered rehab after what she later described as a near-death spiral.
Her personal life proved equally stormy. Loring was married four times, including to adult film actor Jerry Butler, whom she met while working as a makeup artist on the adult set of Traci’s big trick.
“I wouldn’t want to be involved with someone who did that,” she said at the time. “He went behind my back and lied to me – that was it.”
Butler continued to act in pornographic films after their marriage, leading to their divorce in 1992.
Tragedy struck again in 1991 when Loring discovered the body of her good friend Kelly Van Dyke, the niece of actor Dick Van Dyke, who had committed suicide.
Loring attempted suicide shortly afterwards and later said she felt “haunted by loss.”
The actress eventually remarried and rebuilt her life as a makeup artist and designer, although she rarely spoke about her Hollywood past. She died in 2023, aged 64, after suffering a stroke.
But her influence remains.
Ortega said her viral dance sequence hit Netflix Wednesday paid tribute to Loring’s original movements.
She told Jimmy Fallon in 2022: “I paid tribute to Lisa Loring, the first Wednesday Addams. I did a little bit of her shuffle that she does… it’s there – I know it is.”
For fans, it was a fitting nod to the actress who defined the Addams Girl — a role that brought her fame, but no fairytale ending.
