(CNN) -- Ken Weatherwax, who played Pugsley on the 1960s TV show "The Addams Family," died Sunday, according to the Ventura County Coroner's Office. He was 59.
According to the coroner's office, he died of natural causes. His niece, Shanyn Vieira, posted on Facebook that he had a heart attack.
Pugsley was the older of
the two Addams children on the cheekily macabre comedy, based on Charles
Addams' darkly humored New Yorker cartoons. His father, Gomez, was
played by John Astin, and mother Morticia was played by Carolyn Jones.
Sister Wednesday (Lisa
Loring), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), butler Lurch (Ted Cassidy),
Grandmama (Blossom Rock) and the disembodied hand Thing rounded out the
cast.
The Addams Family cast
The series ran from 1964
to 1966. Weatherwax, who was about 9 when the show started, played the
part for all 64 episodes. The show (and its catchy, finger-snapping
theme song) were popular enough in reruns to spawn two movies in the
1990s and a 2009 Broadway musical.
After the show left the
air, Weatherwax -- who struggled to find other acting roles -- entered
the Army. He later provided the voice of Pugsley on an animated "Addams
Family" and worked as a grip and set builder in Hollywood, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Weatherwax was related to other showbiz figures, including actress Ruby Keeler and Lassie trainer Rudd Weatherwax.
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