August 3rd, 1983 - Carolyn Jones, actress (Morticia-Addams Family), dies at 54 of cancer

:rip: Carolyn Jones. Your beauty and talent are missed since you left us too soon.

:rip: At the time of her death, Carolyn was acting on the daytime soap Capitol. Her on-screen daughter, Leslie Graves, grew very close to Carolyn and treated her like a surrogate mother. When Carolyn died, Leslie was so devastated she sank into a deep depression and had to take a leave from the show. Once she came back, her heart was no longer in it. Leslie left Capitol for good when her contract expired in 1984.

Sadly, Leslie Graves is also no longer with us. She died of an AIDS-related illness in 1995, leaving a husband and two small children.

(I read all this in an old book called Soap Opera Babylon.)

Here are photos of the lovely Ms. Jones from both The Addams Family and Capitol.

Carolyn looks very glamourous in those pictures. And it tells you what kind of person she was to take a younger actress under her wing.

Carolyn looks very glamourous in those pictures. And it tells you what kind of person she was to take a younger actress under her wing.
Yes, I read that because Carolyn never had kids in real life, she took the child actors she worked with under her wing, like Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax on The Addams Family. According to the book I read, Leslie Graves was in her early 20s but a lost and misguided soul in need of a friend. She and her on-screen mom Carolyn hit it off right away, and when Carolyn married her last husband in 1982, Leslie eagerly helped plan the wedding. How sad that both ladies passed on so young. :(

Here's Carolyn's on-screen daughter and off-screen surrogate daughter, the late Leslie Graves: