Felix Silla, who played the hairy, gibberish speaking Cousin Itt in the Addams Family TV show, died at the age of 84 yesterday in Las Vegas from pancreatic cancer.
He was famous for playing characters with his face unseen, wearing a full body hairpiece, sunglasses, and bowler hat as Cousin Itt, the robot Twiki on Buck Rogers, or a hang gliding Ewok in Star Wars. The 4 foot tall, 70 pound actor came to the U.S. from Italy in 1955 and worked with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as a trapeze artist before moving to Hollywood to be a stunt man.
His small stature led him to several roles including Planet of the Apes (1968), Demon Seed (1977), and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), but he will always be known as the cousin that only members of the Addams Family could understand.