Lisa Loring, the original Wednesday Addams actress, dies after stroke

Lisa Loring, the actress best known as the young Wednesday Addams in the 1960s series The Addams Family, has died aged 64.

She died on Saturday night of complications from a stroke caused by high blood pressure, her daughter Vanessa Foumberg told Variety.

“She went peacefully with both her daughters holding her hands,” she said.

Her friend Laurie Jacobson paid tribute on social media to Loring, “in our hearts always as Wednesday Addams”.

“Beautiful, kind, a loving mother, Lisa’s legacy in the world of entertainment is huge,” she wrote.

Loring was six years old when she took the role of Wednesday Addams, the gloomy, death-obsessed, pigtailed daughter of the Addams family.

She played the role for two years from 1964 to 1966.

After 64 episodes of The Addams Family, she was cast in the short-lived sitcom The Pruitts Of Southampton and spy drama The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., before landing a recurring role on As The World Turns from 1980 to 1983.

In 1977 she appeared as Wednesday Addams senior in the television film Halloween with the New Addams Family.

The recent Netflix adaptation Wednesday revitalised the popularity of The Addams Family, with star Jenna Ortega’s version of Loring’s spiky dance from the original spawning a viral trend.

Loring was born in 1958 in the Marshall Islands. She was briefly raised in Hawaii before moving with her mother to Los Angeles, where she began child modelling aged three.

Loring is survived by two daughters, Marianne and Vanessa.