S9E7: My Funny Valentine | Charles Addams & Carol Saroyan Matthau

Happy Valentine’s Day! We both realized we’d already released some stories that hit the Valentine’s Day sweet spot for us over on Patreon! Stacie has the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky story of cartoonist Charles Addams, whose decades of darkly screwball New Yorker cartoons became The Addams Family. Then, Alicia has perhaps the perfect distillation of Truman Capote’s Swans, the actress and author Carol Saroyan Matthau, who may be the most direct inspiration for Capote’s Holly Golightly character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Stacie’s Receipts

The Cultural History of ‘The Addams Family’, Patrick Sauer, Smithsonian Magazine

An Addams Family History, Dan Owens, Dan’s Media Digest

Charles Addams, Lambiek.net (Includes the “Downhill Skier” cartoon)

Meet the New Addams Family: The weird brood from Charles Addams cartoons and ’60s TV is back in a big-name, $30-million movie, Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times (1991)

When Alabama flourished as divorce mill, famous people flocked here to get unhitched, Kelly Kazek, Alabama.com

Google Groups copy of the obituary for second wife Barbara Barb, later Lady Colyton

Charles Addams Dead at 76; Found Humor in the Macabre (Published 1988) New York Times

Alicia’s Receipts

Among the Porcupines: A Memoir, Carol Matthau (Amazon link)

This Funny Valentine (washingtonpost.com)

Object of Desire: Carol Matthau Has Devoted a Lifetime to Charming, Soothing and Inspiring Great, Sometimes Troubled Men (latimes.com)

Carol Matthau, a Frank and Tart Memoirist, Dies at 78 (nytimes.com)

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