Billy Curtis

Billy Curtis June 27 1909 November 9 1988 was an American film and television actor He was a dwarf who had a 50year 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 127 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 MusicalWestern The Terror of Tiny Town This film is as far as is known the worlds only Western with an alldwarf cast Many of the actors in Tinytown were part of a performing troupe called Singers 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