Lisa Loring, best known for originating the young, macabre icon Wednesday Addams in the 1960s sitcom The Addams Family, has died. She was 64.
Loring’s daughter, Vanessa Foumberg, confirmed news of the actor’s passing to Variety on Sunday. She said Loring died of a stroke.
“She went peacefully with both her daughters holding her hands,” Foumberg told the outlet.
On Facebook, Loring’s friend Laurie Jacobson wrote that “she suffered a massive stroke brought on by smoking and high blood pressure.” Jacobson said Loring was on life support for three days prior to her death.
Loring was only six years old when she won the hearts of international audiences for her 1964 portrayal of Wednesday Addams. She played the gothic, pigtail-wearing Addams daughter for two years until the sitcom ended in 1966.
The Addams Family, which was originally a New Yorker cartoon by Charles Addams, has been revamped several times over the years. Most recently, popular actor Jenna Ortega donned the jet-black braids in the Tim Burton-led Netflix series Wednesday.
In a since-viral dance scene, Ortega, 20, paid homage to Loring’s famous Wednesday frug dance, called “The Drew,” with a jig of her own. On Twitter, Ortega thanked Loring, among others, for helping to create the highly replicated dance.
Loring, whose real name is Lisa Ann DeCinces, was born in the Marshall Islands in 1958. She began her modelling career at three years old.
After The Addams Family, Loring starred in the TV shows The Pruitts of Southampton and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. She was a recurring character on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns.
In the 1980s, Loring starred in several slasher films, including Savage Harbor and Blood Frenzy. She also worked regularly as a makeup artist on adult film sets under the name “Maxine Factor.”
Loring has two daughters, Marianne and Vanessa. Her husband, adult film actor Jerry Butler, died in 2018.