Billy Curtis
Photoplayd Industry Rating
Not enough rated films yet to compute a weighted score.
Roles are weighted by involvement: director 1.0, screenwriter 0.7, lead 0.8, supporting 0.4, crew 0.1.
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.
Known for
Credits
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
as Munchkin (uncredited)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
as Child Ape (uncredited)
High Plains Drifter (1973)
as Mordecai
Hello, Dolly! (1969)
as Little Person (uncredited)
Limelight (1952)
as Midget in Agent's Office (uncredited)
Friendly Persuasion (1956)
as Midget at County Fair (uncredited)
Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
as Newsboy
Saboteur (1942)
as Midget - Circus Troupe
The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)
as Clown (uncredited)
Princess of the Nile (1954)
as Tut (uncredited)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
as Midget
Superman and the Mole Men (1951)
as Mole-Man (uncredited)
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (1984)
as Elf #2
Buck Privates Come Home (1947)
Actor
Backstage Party (1961)
as Self
Eating Raoul (1982)
as Little Person
Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
as Harry Earles (uncredited)
Head Office (1985)
as Reverend Lynch
Hellzapoppin' (1941)
as Bodyguard (uncredited)
Evil Roy Slade (1972)
as Toy Cowboy (uncredited)
Two on a Guillotine (1965)
as Big Mike (uncredited)
Little Cigars (1973)
as Slick Bender
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1984)
as Barnaby
Loose Shoes (1978)
as Menchkin
Three Texas Steers (1939)
as Hercules - the Midget
The Comic (1969)
as Lifeguard in Film (uncredited)
April Showers (1948)
as Capt. Rudolph L. Nemo
The Hard Way (1943)
as Vaudeville Midget (Uncredited)
Aphrodisiac: The Love Secret (1971)
as Man on the Street Interviewee
Norwood (1970)
as Edmund B. Ratner
Pygmy Island (1950)
as Makuba
Bob Hope Christmas Show (1965)
as Self
The Wild McCullochs (1975)
as Charlie P.
Maisie Was a Lady (1941)
as Midget (Uncredited)
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp! (1942)
as Midget
Out of Sight (1966)
as The Man From F.L.U.S.H.
Emergency Landing (1941)
as Judge
The Terror of Tiny Town (1938)
as The Hero (Buck Lawson)
Homicide for Three (1948)
as Circus Performer
Ice-Capades (1941)
as George
Jungle Moon Men (1955)
as Damu
Lucky Legs (1942)
as Newsboy
White House Madness (1975)
as Secret Service Man
Don't Lie (1942)
as Melinda, the chimp
Father Guido Sarducci's Vatican Inquirer: The Pope's Tour (1986)
as Monsignor Duffy