Updated: October 10, 2024

​Carolyn Sue Jones ( April 28, 1930 to August 3, 1983 ) was an American actress of television and film. She began her film career in the early 1950s, and by the end of the decade had achieved recognition with a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Bachelor Party ( 1957 ) and a Golden Globe Award as one of the most promising new actresses of 1959. Her film career continued for another 20 years. In 1964, Jones began playing the role of matriarch Morticia Addams in the black and white television series The Addams Family.

Early Life:

Carolyn Jones was born in Amarillo, Texas to homemaker Chloe Jeanette Southern ( 1906 to 1979 ), and Julius Alfred Jones ( 1897 to 1979 ), a barber. After their father abandoned the family in 1934, Carolyn and her younger sister, Bette Rhea Jones ( 1934 to 2020 ), moved with their mother into her maternal grandparents' Amarillo home. Jones suffered from severe asthma that often restricted her childhood activities, and when her condition prevented her from going to the movies, she became an avid reader of Hollywood fan magazines and aspired to become an actress. She enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California at age 17, with her grandfather, Charles W. Baker, paying her tuition.

Guest stars for the 1961 premiere episode of The Dick Powell Show, "Who Killed Julie Greer?". Standing, from left: Ronald Reagan, Nick Adams, Lloyd Bridges, Mickey Rooney, Edgar Bergen, Jack Carson, Ralph Bellamy, Kay Thompson, Dean Jones. Seated, from left, Carolyn Jones and Dick Powell.

Films:

After being spotted by a talent scout at the Playhouse, Jones secured a contract with Paramount Pictures and made her first film, an uncredited part in The Turning Point ( 1952 ); had an uncredited bit part as a nightclub hostess in The Big Heat ( 1953 ); and a role in House of Wax ( also 1953 ) as the woman who is converted by Vincent Price's character into a Joan of Arc statue. She played Beth in Shield for Murder ( 1954 ), earning $500 per day for playing the role.

Jones was cast in the film From Here to Eternity ( 1953 ) in the role of Alma "Lorene" Burke. A bout of pneumonia forced her to withdraw; the role earned Donna Reed the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1956 she appeared in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much, a remake of one of the director's earlier films.

In 1958, Jones was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Bachelor Party ( 1957 ), and she also shared the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year â€" Actress with Sandra Dee and Diane Varsi, and appeared with Elvis Presley in King Creole ( 1958 ).

Jones played opposite Frank Sinatra in Frank Capra's A Hole in the Head, Dean Martin in Career, and Anthony Quinn and Kirk Douglas in Last Train from Gun Hill ( all 1959 ).

In the epic Western How the West Was Won ( 1963 ), she played the role of Sheriff Jeb Rawlings' ( George Peppard ) wife. She appears with Peppard and Debbie Reynolds in the final speaking / singing scenes of the film.

Television:

She made her television debut on the DuMont series Gruen Playhouse in 1952. Jones appeared in several episodes of Dragnet starring Jack Webb from 1953 to 1955, credited as ‘’Caroline Jones’’. She appeared in two Rod Cameron syndicated series, City Detective and State Trooper, as Betty Fowler in the 1956 episode, "The Paperhanger of Pioche”. Jones also appeared on the CBS anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the episode "The Cheney Vase" ( 1955 ), as a secretary assisting her scheming boyfriend Darren McGavin in attempting an art theft, and opposite Ruta Lee.

In 1957 she had the lead in the episode "The Girl in the Grass" on CBS's Schlitz Playhouse, once again with Ray Milland and Nora Marlowe.

Jones guest-starred three times on the television series Wagon Train: in the first-season episode "The John Cameron Story" ( 1957 ) and in later color episodes "The Jenna Douglas Story" ( 1961 ) and "The Molly Kincaid Story" ( 1963 ). Also in 1963 she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star - Female for portraying quadrupletsâ€"one the murder victim and the others suspectsâ€"in the Burke's Law episode "Who Killed Sweet Betsy?"

She guest-starred in CBS's The DuPont Show with June Allyson, with James Best and Jack Mullaney, in the episode "Love on Credit" ( 1960 ).

In the 1962 to 1963 season, Jones guest-starred on CBS's The Lloyd Bridges Show, created by her second husband, television producer Aaron Spelling. While married to Spelling, she appeared on the NBC program Here's Hollywood.

In 1964, Jones donned a long coal-black wig to play Morticia Addams in the television series The Addams Family, a role which brought her a Golden Globe Award nomination and success as a comedian. She guest-starred on the 1960s TV series Batman, playing Marsha, the Queen of Diamonds, and in 1976 appeared as the title character's mother, Hippolyta, in the Wonder Woman TV series. In Tobe Hooper's movie Eaten Alive ( 1976 ), she played a madam running a rural whorehouse. The film also featured Neville Brand, Roberta Collins, and Robert Englund. Her last role was that of Myrna, the scheming matriarch of the Clegg clan, on the soap opera Capitol from the first episode in March 1982 until March 1983, though she already knew that she was dying of cancer. During her occasional absences, veteran actress Marla Adams subbed for her.

Her acting career declined after The Addams Family ended in 1966. Sporadic roles in the 1970s included that of Mrs. Moore, the wife of the plantation owner in the miniseries Roots.

Personal Life:

Jones was married four times and had no children. While studying at the Pasadena Playhouse, she married Don Donaldson, a 28-year-old fellow student. The couple soon divorced.

She converted to Judaism upon marrying Aaron Spelling; the marriage lasted from 1953 until their 1964 separation and divorce.

Her third marriage, in 1968, was to Tony Award-winning Broadway musical director, vocal arranger and co-producer Herbert Greene ( who was her vocal coach ); she left him in 1977.

Final Years and Death:

Jones gained the role of the power-driven political matriarch Myrna Clegg in the CBS daytime soap opera Capitol in 1981. The following year, shortly after Capitol debuted, she was diagnosed with colon cancer, and played many of her scenes in a wheelchair. The cancer spread quickly to her liver and stomach. Despite the pain, Jones finished the first season.

Even after being diagnosed with cancer, Jones continued to work, telling colleagues that she was being treated for ulcers. After a period of apparent remission, the cancer returned in 1982.

In July 1983, she fell into a coma at her home in West Hollywood, California, where she died on August 3rd. Her body was cremated the next day and a memorial service was held at Glasband-Willen Mortuary in Altadena, California, on August 5th. Her ashes were interred in her mother's crypt at Melrose Abbey Memorial Park & Mortuary in Anaheim, California. She donated her Morticia costume and wig to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, while a collection of The Addams Family scripts was donated by Bailey-Britton to UCLA.