- published: 22 Feb 2016
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John Leslie Coogan (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984), known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family. In the interim, he sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, billed as the Coogan Act.
Coogan was born in 1914 in Los Angeles, California to John Henry Coogan, Jr. and Lillian Rita (Dolliver) Coogan, as John Leslie Coogan (not John Leslie Coogan, Jr., as some sources indicate). He began performing as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited role in the 1917 film Skinner's Baby. Charlie Chaplin discovered him in the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles, a vaudeville house, doing the shimmy, a popular dance at the time, on the stage. Coogan's father was also an actor. Jackie Coogan was a natural mimic and delighted Chaplin with his abilities. Chaplin subsequently cast him in a brief role in his short film A Day's Pleasure, made in 1919.
Uncle Fester, or Fester Addams, is a member of the fictional Addams Family and the antagonist of the crossover films. He was played by Jackie Coogan in the original television series, by Christopher Lloyd in the first two feature films, and by Patrick Thomas in the third, Addams Family Reunion. Finally, Michael Roberds played Fester in The New Addams Family. In the Broadway musical, the part was originated by Kevin Chamberlin, with Brad Oscar taking over on March 8, 2011.
Uncle Fester is a particularly shy man when it comes to seeing someone he likes and he is a completely hairless, hunched, and barrel-shaped man with dark, sunken eyes and often a deranged smile. He always wears a heavy, full-length fur coat. Fester was derived from a character drawn by cartoonist Charles Addams, although these were single page cartoons, with no stories or character names. Nevertheless, the character is recognizable in a number of cartoons, both by his appearance (bald, stooping, sunken eyes) and behavior (e.g. turning the shower to a special "scalding" setting, feeding his garden plants on blood plasma, or releasing an eagle on the neighbor's homing pigeons). However, he is almost never seen in the same cartoons with the rest of the family, even for family celebrations like pouring boiling oil on carol singers (though he was in one cartoon with the two children—going fishing with dynamite). It may be that he was introduced to the family at the time of the sitcom for dramatic convenience. It is known that the name "Fester" was chosen by Addams for the sitcom.
Cold aeroplanes, slow boats, warm trains
remind me of Jack-A-Lynn.
Lush hotels and pretty girls
won't cheer the misty mood I'm in.
Silly, sad, I've never had to write this before,
oh, Jack-A-Lynn.
Funny how long nights allow
thoughts of Jack-A-Lynn.
When phantoms tread around my bed
to offer restless dreams they bring.
And it's just the time and place to find
a sad song to play for Jack-A-Lynn.
Magpies that shriek, old boots that leak
call me to Jack-A-Lynn.
Coal-black cats in policeman's hats
nosing where the mice have been.
And the long miaow's beginning now
and I'm far, far from home and Jack-A-Lynn.
Jack, Jack-A-Lynn
Jack, Jack-A-Lynn
Jack, Jack-A-Lynn