Billy Curtis (born Luigi Curto; June 27, 1909 – November 9, 1988) was an American film and television actor with

dwarfism Dwarfism is a condition wherein an organism is exceptionally small, and mostly occurs in the animal kingdom. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dw ...

, who had a 50-year career in the entertainment industry.

Career

The bulk of his work was in the western and science fiction genres, portraying a little person. One of his early roles was uncredited as a

Munchkin A Munchkin is a native of the fictional Munchkin Country in the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. They first appear in the classic children's novel '' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900) where they welcome Dorothy Gale to their city i ...

city father in '' The Wizard of Oz'' (1939). He had a featured role as part of the circus troupe in Alfred Hitchcock's '' Saboteur'' (1942). He also appeared in '' Superman and the Mole Men'' (1951), a

B-Picture A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...

intended as the pilot for the '' Adventures of Superman'' TV series. Curtis followed up this role by playing yet another alien visitor in an episode of the last season in ''The Adventures of Superman'' television series, titled "Mister Zero". As the title character, he portrayed a stranded refugee from Mars who visits the Metropolis ''Daily Planet'' newspaper office, asking to be taken to Earth's leader. Curtis's work in westerns included the

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' Do ...

feature '' High Plains Drifter'' (1973) in which he was featured as Mordecai, a friendly dwarf sympathetic to Eastwood's character. He also appeared in the Musical/Western '' The Terror of Tiny Town'' (1938). This film is, as far as is known, the world's only Western with an all-midget cast. Many of the actors in ''Tiny Town'' were part of a performing troupe called

Singer's Midgets __NOTOC__ Leopold von Singer (May 3, 1877 – March 5, 1951) was an Austrian-born American manager of an entertainment troupe called Singer's Midgets, that were a popular vaudeville group in the first half of the twentieth century. He was res ...

, who also played Munchkins in ''The Wizard of Oz''.O'Connor, John E and Peter C Rollins. "Hollywood's West: The American Frontier In Film, Television, And History." 2006. ''American Historical Review.'' Ed. Professional Development Review. web. October 2, 2015. In 1973 he appeared as Arizona in an episode of ''

Gunsmoke ''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central chara ...

'' titled "Arizona Midnight". He had a starring role in

American International Pictures American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...

' '' Little Cigars'' (1973), about a gang of small people on a crime spree.

Death

Curtis died November 9, 1988, aged 79 in Dayton, Nevada of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

Filmography

References

External links

* * * * 1909 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American male actors Male actors from Massachusetts Actors with dwarfism American male film actors American male television actors Actors from Springfield, Massachusetts {{US-film-actor-1900s-stub