Billy Curtis

Known for ActingBorn 1909-06-27Died 1988-11-09Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

Billy Curtis (June 27, 1909 - November 9, 1988) was an American film and television actor. He was a dwarf who had a 50-year career in a variety of roles. He was born on 27 June 1909 in Springfield, Massachusetts, and died November 9, 1988 in Dayton, Nevada, of a heart attack. According to the IMDb site, his birth name was Luigi Curto, and his height was 4 feet 2 inches (1.27 m). The bulk of his work was in the western and science fiction genres. One of his early jobs was as one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. He also appeared in Adventures of Superman in the 1950s. Most notably, Curtis worked in westerns, including the Clint Eastwood feature, High Plains Drifter in which he featured as Mordecai, a friendly dwarf sympathetic to Eastwood, he also appeared in the 1938 Musical/Western The Terror of Tiny Town. This film is, as far as is known, the world's only Western with an all-dwarf cast. Many of the actors in Tinytown were part of a performing troupe called Singer's Midgets, who also played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz, released in 1939. He also had a starring role in American International Pictures' 1973 release, Little Cigars, about a gang of "midgets" on a crime spree.Read more

Movies & web series

Lucky Legs

Faerie Tale Theatre

Star Trek

The Twilight Zone

Get Smart

Bewitched

Limelight

87th Precinct

Planet of the Apes

Dirty Harry

The Greatest Show on Earth

The Incredible Shrinking Man

High Plains Drifter

The Wizard of Oz

Batman

Laverne & Shirley

Princess of the Nile

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

White House Madness

Hello, Dolly!

Knots Landing

77 Sunset Strip

Hellzapoppin'

Bob Hope Christmas Show

Backstage Party

The Beverly Hillbillies

Maisie Was a Lady

Here's Lucy

Man of a Thousand Faces

Eating Raoul

Saboteur

Friendly Persuasion

The Monkees

Gunsmoke

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Evil Roy Slade

Adventures of Superman

Don't Lie

Shirley Temple's Storybook

This Is Your Life

April Showers

Tightrope

Buck Privates Come Home

Robin and the 7 Hoods

The Hard Way

Two on a Guillotine

Norwood

The Comic