Beetlejuice Wiki
Advertisement
Beetlejuice Wiki
Beetlejuice Wiki
566
pages
in: Characters (BJ1), Characters (BJ2), Living Characters (BJ1),
and 5 more
English

Delia Deetz

Sign in to edit


Delia Deetz was the wife of Charles Deetz and stepmother of Lydia Deetz.

Beetlejuice (movie) canon[]

History (BJ1)[]

Sometime after his first marriage ended in divorce, Charles married Delia, a struggling artist specializing in gothic style. While she and Charles would have a ambiguous marriage, she did not get along with her stepdaughter Lydia.

Charles secretly purchases the Maitland residence as an escape from life in New York, forcing the family to move from New Yor to Connecticut. Delia immediately hates the house and makes it a goal to remodel it to her taste, much to the horror of the Maitlands who are haunting the house. In a span of 3 months, she transforms the house into one of goth style and full of her artwork.

The Maitlands try to scare the family out but Delia and Charles can not see them, though Lydia quickly finds out about them and agrees to help. Delia dismisses Lydia’s photos of the ghosts as fake and is more focused on impressing her dinner guests. During the dinner, she gets annoyed when Lydia brings up the ghosts again until the Maitlands possesses the adults into singing and dancing to Day-O. This excites Delia and Charles who sees this as a way to gain fame and wealth via using the house as a haunted amusement park. However the Maitlands refuse to show themselves from the attic where they’ve been hiding. Beetlejuice then manifests into a snake to terrorize the family before being summoned away by the Maitlands.

Otho convinces Charles and Delia to gather their guests once more for a séance to force the ghosts to appear. The Maitlands do appear but Otho has unintentionally performed an exorcism, causing them to decay and ‘die’, much to Delia’s horror. Lydia summons Beetlejuice to save the Maitlands and, after doing to, greets Charles and Delia as Lydia had agreed to marry him in exchange for his help. With them as witnesses to the ceremony, he traps them with Delia’s artwork. However they are freed when the Maitlands interfere and send him back to the afterlife. Delia and Charles then finally meet the Maitlands. Some months pass, during which the adults co exist in the house.

History (BJ2)[]

Over the next 36 years, Delia becomes famous as she continues her artwork; opening an art studio in New York and donating funds and art to schools.

She informs Lydia of her father's death and spends majority of her time in mourning. She continues her eccentric work, such as taking photo selfies of her screaming to portray the art of grief and covering the entire house in black cloth. She also makes preparations to sell the house, much to Astrid’s dismay. When Rory proposes to Lydia at Charles' wake, she is very disappointed and against the wedding, as she senses Rory has no good intentions. Lydia confides in her ‘hallucinations’ of Beetlejuice and Delia tells her to take back control of her life. On Halloween, she meets with the real estate agent to sign papers to begin the selling of the house. She then goes to the cemetery to record another video next to her late husband's grave, using hoses that were supposedly designed to remove fangs and toxins. However, they bit her in the carotid artery, killing her instantly.

Delia wakes up in the waiting room of the afterlife and is horrified to realize she is dead. The lady giving out the numbers brushes off her outbursts and Delia reluctantly summons Beetlejuice. She asks him to help her find Charles and he agrees if she helps him find Lydia. She and Beetlejuice appear at the church where Lydia and Rory’s wedding was supposed to take place. Beetlejuice reveals the deal Lydia made with him to help save Astrid, in which Lydia agreed to marry him, much to Delia’s disgust. Beetlejuice then takes Rory’s place as the groom, and forced Delia, Astrid, Rory and the priest to sing and dance as he prepares to wed Lydia. However Astrid points out the marriage contract her mother signed is null and void due to him illegally bringing Lydia into the afterlife, allowing Lydia to send him back to the afterlife. Delia is taken by Wolf Jackson back to the afterlife where she reunites with Charles at the Soul Train Station.

Personality (BJ1)[]

Delia is portrayed as a demanding and emotional creative. Her determination to succeed as a modern artist drives her to be a social climber, though it is clear by the reactions of others that she is not taken seriously. She struggles to maintain her previous lifestyle, criticizing her husband Charles for uprooting the family's life in the city, and her stepdaughter, Lydia, for her gloomy persona and constant complaining. Delia herself can rather self-absorbed and is currently preoccupied with the struggle of making herself comfortable in her new environment. While it is clear that she loves her family, she does not necessarily take them seriously, especially when Lydia starts talking about ghosts.

Upon arriving in Winter River, she immediately begins to redesign and renovate the country house into something that is more in tune with her personal tastes. This put her at odds with Charles, who is content with the house the way the Maitlands left it. She aggressively argues that he must compromise on the remodel in exchange for her agreement to live in it. However, she is content to allow the study to remain untouched to give Charles a space that he controls.

Throughout the film, Delia does not appear to appreciate humor when it comes to her art. Every time people around her laugh, Delia looks momentarily stricken, then she looks around to confirm that something funny just happened, and then she finally joins in with a fake little chuckle.

When Delia discovers that their home is haunted, she is not scared due to the amusing way the Maitlands attempted to frighten her. Instead, she attempts to use the revelation as a way to connect with her friends and business manager. She shows little concern for the Maitlands, who are already dead. This cynicism leads her to allow Otho to attempt at forcing contact with the ghosts.

Once she realizes that the Maitlands are suffering from Otho's use of "The Handbook for the Recently Deceased," she demands he stop, but everyone is out of their depth. Beetlejuice brings Delia's sculptures to life and they imprison Delia and her husband. They helplessly watch in horror as Beetlejuice tries to force Lydia to marry him, and she is grateful to the Maitlands when they rescue her and banish Beetlejuice.

After this incident, Delia is shown to be content to share the house with the Maitlands, even using her experience with Beetlejuice as the basis for a sculpture that is far more intricate and personal than her former work. She uses this same sculpture to prank Charles, indicating that she is developing a sense of humor.

Gallery (BJ1)[]

Gallery (BJ2)[]

Beetlejuice (musical)[]

History (BJ:M)[]

Although her history in the musical is mostly unknown, it was confirmed that Delia got a divorce with her ex-husband after cheating on her with another man and sailing away to Rome, Italy. After changing her last name to her maiden name (Schlimmer.) She started dating widower Charles Deetz most likely after the funeral of Emily Deetz. Before this, she met her guru Otho, most likely becoming a life-coach and a vegan shortly after.

(To be edited in the future.)

Beetlejuice (animated series)[]

Personality (BJ:AS)[]

Like in the live-action movie, Delia is an eccentric sculptor and an artist. A running gag inspired by a joke in the movie has her show Charles Deetz a sculpture or other work of art she made and assumes he likes it after the work of art scares him. She also acts a lot like a stereotypical sweet, but overprotective mother, and wants her daughter to abandon her interests in scary, other-worldly things and focus on more "normal" things for a girl her age. She is also very sensitive, as shown when she adopted Beetlejuice (who at the time was stuck in the form of a dog whose name was Odeious) and was heartbroken when he ran away. Despite somewhat physically resembling Wilma Flinstone, some of Delia's habits, such as her red hair, poor cooking skills and self-absorbed Yuppie personality, resemblance that of Married with Children matriarch Peg Bundy,

Oddly, Delia also seems to enjoy the Neitherworld. When the Deetzes travel there, she always has a good time. Notably, her bizarre art is also very popular among the ghosts of Neitherwords. The Monster Across The Street buys one of her sculptures, and she puts on an award-winning show at a Neitherworld museum.

trivia (BJ:AS)[]

Gallery (BJ:AS)[]


Appearances[]

Polski
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Advertisement