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John Leslie Coogan was an American actor and comedian who began his film career as a child actor in silent films. Coogan's role in Charlie Chaplin's film The Kid (1921) made him one of the first child stars in the history of Hollywood. He later sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers, the California Child Actor's Bill, widely known as the "Coogan Act". Coogan continued to act throughout his life, later earning renewed fame in middle age portraying Uncle Fester in the 1960s television series The Addams Family.