But that was Thing.
Posted on 04/16/2021 8:03:17 PM PDT by lowbridge
Felix Silla, who worked inside a body-length hairpiece, behind a pair of sunglasses and underneath a bowler hat in his guise as the mumbling Cousin Itt on the 1960s ABC comedy The Addams Family, has died. He was 84.
Silla, a longtime Las Vegas resident, died Friday after a battle with pancreatic cancer, his friend Gil Gerard, his co-star on the 1979-81 NBC series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, reported on Twitter.
Silla's face went unseen on The Addams Family, as the robot sidekick Twiki on Buck Rogers and when he was a hang-gliding Ewok in Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi (1983).
And in a notable role where he could actually be recognized, the Italian actor and stuntman shaved his head to portray the maniacal villain Litvak opposite George Segal as Sam Spade Jr. in The Maltese Falcon sequel The Black Bird (1975).
A hair under 4 feet tall and weighing 70 pounds, Silla showed up for the first time on The Addams Family in 1965 in the series' 20th episode when a zookeeper mistakes Cousin Itt for an exotic animal and wants to put him in a cage.
(The character was the idea of a producer and was not in the Charles Addams' cartoons on which the series was based, and Cousin Itt's voice on the show was provided by sound engineer Tony Magro in postproduction.)
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
A nice man. Met him at a SciFi convention.
Believe he was the evil imperial emperor in “Battlestar Galactical”, the original series.
RIP.
Grandmama was Jeanette MacDonald’s sister.
-PJ
Ted Cassidy played "Thing" - except in those few scenes in which he appeared as "Lurch." Are you saying that it was Hart's hand in those few scenes?
Regards,
I think Cousin It was related to Jeremiah the Bullfrog. I couldn’t understand a single thing he said either. Never got the wine, though.
Nice pics here...
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14675824/felix-silla-dead-addams-family-cousin-itt-cancer/
the bird is almost as big as he is
Something to be avoided at all costs: a bullfrog who drinks wine.
Did he play the little sheriff in Clint Eastwoods’ “High Plains Drifter?
Is Carolyn Jones still with us?
I always kinda liked her, and that was even before... Well you know.
‘Fraid not.
She died of cancer some years ago and lost her glorious mane of hair due to chemo.
I still love watching the reruns.
John Astin had the sexiest sideways maniacal smile, ever.
He’s still alive and teaching yoga.
He and Poe were the best things to ever come out of Bawlmer.
:)
And John Astin was a cool Gomez, I'm happy to hear that he's still with us. Urbane, dapper, cool in general, especially when he was playing with his electric trains.
Always had a pocket of lit cigars.
Bizarrely, there are multiple “warnings” on the reruns now.
Sex, violence, drug use.
What??
;D
People have no sense of humor these days. That’s what got Rocky and Bullwinkle, you know. :)
LOL
/stinking snowflakes
But that was Thing.
No. That was billy curtis
It's amazing that he still is after all this time.
The actors who played Gomez after him have had to be Latins (Raul Julia, Oscar Isaac).
And I didn’t like either of them.
Anjelica Huston was no Tish, either.
In post 8 the normal photo of him reminds me of the Sheriff. I looked it up - Billy Curtis plays the sheriff but IMHO has a strong resemblance. (Curtis also was the head(?) munchkin in Wizard of Oz.)
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