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'Carolyn Jones' (April 28, 1930 — August 3, 1983) was an American actress, she is best remembered for playing the role of Morticia Addams in the classic TV Series ''The Addams Family''.
Carolyn Sue Jones was born in Amarillo, Texas, she was named after actress Carole Lombard, and after moving to
California, joined the Pasadena Playhouse in 1947, learning her craft and acting under the stage name Carolyn Jones.
She secured a contract with Paramount Studios and made her first film in 1952. In 1953, she married aspiring film-maker Aaron Spelling (and converted to Judaism upon marriage), and her film career began to gain momentum.She had an uncredited but memorable bit part (as a nightclub hostess) in ''The Big Heat'' (1953),and a role in ''House of Wax'' (1953) brought her good reviews, and she was cast in ''From Here to Eternity'' (also 1953), but illness forced her withdrawal. Donna Reed was cast in her role and won an Oscar for playing it.
She appeared in ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' (1956) and received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for ''The Bachelor Party'' (1957). In 1958 she shared a Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer" with Sandra Dee and Diane Varsi, and appeared with Elvis Presley in ''King Creole'', and the following year played Frank Sinatra's character's girlfriend in Frank Capra's ''A Hole in the Head'' and an actor's manager opposite Dean Martin in ''Career''.
By 1963, she and Spelling were separated, and by 1964 they were divorced. In 1964, with a waist-length coal black wig covering her naturally blonde hair, Jones began playing Morticia Addams in the television series ''The Addams Family'', a role which brought her success as a comedienne and a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Her acting career began to decline after the end of ''The Addams Family'' in 1966, and while she continued to act, her roles were sporadic. While appearing in the television series ''Capitol'' in 1982, she was diagnosed with colon cancer and she played many of her scenes in a wheelchair. Carolyn's struggle with cancer, however, began far earlier. ''Lovely Me'', the biography of best-selling pulp author Jacqueline Susann, shows that Susann, herself battling cancer, would
inquire about Carolyn's condition. Susann died in 1974.
Chemotherapy did little to slow the course of the disease and she died in 1983 at her home in West Hollywood, California, at the age of fifty-three (she had married long-time boyfriend, actor Peter Bailey-Britton, a month earlier).
Carolyn told her sister, Bette Moriarty, that she wanted her epitaph to be, "She gave joy to the world".
She was entombed at Melrose Abbey Memorial Park Cemetery in Anaheim, California, beside her mother.

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★ Carolyn Jones at Find-A-Grave

★ Carolyn Jones at Cult Sirens