Actor, stuntman and musician Felix Silla, who played the hair-covered Cousin Itt on the original 1964 TV series The Addams Family, has passed away at the age of 84.
Silla had been suffering from pancreatic cancer before his death on Friday, April 16, reported THR. He is survived by his wife of many years, Sue, and their two children.
Italian by birth, Silla moved to the United States in 1955 and performed in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus as a stunt rider and acrobat before his career in Hollywood began. His height of under four feet, paired with his athletic ability, landed him many roles as non-human characters and as a stand-in for child actors.
Silla played The Addams Family's Cousin Itt completely concealed under a floor-length wig, with the character's unintelligible chirping speech added in post-production. Although Silla appeared in only 17 episodes of the series, Cousin Itt has become a fan favorite and a staple of the cast in the many reboots and revivals that the original live-action The Addams Family inspired.
Other notable roles include the robot Twiki on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, another early genre show, and an Ewok in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi which made a memorable entrance on a hang-glider.
Silla appeared without a face-covering costume in 1975's The Black Bird, a sequel to The Maltese Falcon, as an over-the-top Hitler-esque villain. He was in the classic sci-fi spoof Spaceballs and played Emperor Penguin in 1992's Batman Returns, with numerous appearances in film and TV.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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