Born in Bal­ti­more, John Astin was the son of Mar­garet Lin­nie and Dr. Allen V. Astin, direc­tor of the National Bureau of Stan­dards (now the National Insti­tute of Stan­dards and Technology).

As a youth, Astin had a remark­able facil­ity for math­e­mat­ics. Accord­ing to lore, he com­pleted an entire semester’s worth of study in one evening. He stud­ied math at Johns Hop­kins, but switched his major after appear­ing in the senior play.

After doing grad­u­ate work in dra­mat­ics at Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota, Astin moved to New York, where he worked as a jan­i­tor in the­atres until land­ing a role in an off-broadway pro­duc­tion of Three­penny Opera.

Astin’s break­through was a small but mem­o­rable role as a dance chap­er­one in West Side Story (1961). On his first sit­com, the blue-collar I’m Dick­ens, He’s Fen­ster, Astin played a mar­ried car­pen­ter with a wacky bach­e­lor co-worker played by Marty Ingels. His most mem­o­rable role is Gomez Addams, the pas­sion­ate patri­arch of The Addams Fam­ily, which ran from 1964 to 1966.

Astin was mar­ried to Patty Duke from 1972 to 1985, and adopted Sean Astin, also an actor.

Astin made reg­u­lar appear­ances on the sit­coms Oper­a­tion Pet­ti­coat and Night Court, and por­trayed Gomez Addams’ father in the short-lived late-90s ver­sion of The Addams Fam­ily. He has also guest-starred in dozens of other sit­coms and dra­mas over the years, from Hazel to Mav­er­ick to Diff’rent Strokes to The Hughleys.

He also has toured the one-man play Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Mid­night. With a rep­u­ta­tion as some­thing of a bohemian, Astin often toured the coun­try in stage pro­duc­tions between sit­coms and other projects, usu­ally liv­ing in his van rather than spend­ing money on hotels.

Since 2001, Astin, has taught the­atre at Johns Hop­kins. He lives in Bal­ti­more with his third wife, Valerie Ann Sandobal.