Ken Weatherwax, actor, died at 59

  Dead Famous

Dead, famous American child actor Kenneth Patrick Weatherwax died on the 7th of December 2014 at the age of 59 of a heart attack at his Los Angeles, California home, born on September 29, 1955 he played Pugsley Addams on the original The Addams Family television series.

Weatherwax was best known for having played Pugsley Addams on the original The Addams Family black-and-white television series and reprised the role in the television movie Halloween with the New Addams Family.

Pugsley was the older of the two Addams children on the cheekily macabre comedy, based on Charles Addams’ darkly humoured New Yorker cartoons.

His father, Gomez, was played by John Astin, and mother Morticia was played by Carolyn Jones.

The series ran from 1964 to 1966. Weatherwax, who was about 9 when the show started, played the part for all 64 episodes.

The show (and its catchy, finger-snapping theme song) was popular enough in reruns to spawn two movies in the 1990s and a 2009 Broadway musical. Pugsley was a 10 year old boy who was inventive, energetic and wanted to be a scientist.

He liked to build gadgets likes missiles, ray-guns and disintegrators. One of his pastimes was experimenting with dynamite.

One cannot forget that his hobbies included collecting stop signs from busy intersections. He once collected a “bridge out” sign.

Ken got his start in show biz in early in the 1960s with Gleem Toothpaste commercials as a child called Chester.

He had a brief, but memorable acting career. In fact, the only acting part he has had with Pugsley.

He got the part because he is the nephew of actress Ruby Keeler, and half-brother of Donald Keeler.

Donald is the actor who played Porky Brockway on Lassie. Showbiz also ran in the family: His aunt was the 1930s Warner Bros. dancing star Ruby Keeler (42nd Street) and his uncle was Lassie’s trainer, Rudd Weatherwax, said the trade journal.

Besides acting on The Addams Family, which was based on the merrily macabre New Yorker cartoons by Charles Addams and ran on ABC for two seasons beginning in 1964 – Carolyn Jones and John Astin starred as Pugsley’s parents, Morticia and Gomez Addams – Weatherwax served in the Army and worked for Universal Studios as a grip, said his niece, Shanyn Vieira.

In a 2007 interview on Fox News, Weatherwax spoke well of his time on the show, but said the role typecast him and in school he was teased about his character’s name.

He stayed in show business after he grew up, although on the other side of the camera.

Weatherwax worked as a grip on the sets of several Hollywood productions, said Vieira, a former actor himself who played the character Porky in the original “Lassie” series.

Weatherwax retired a few years ago for medical reasons, Vieira said.