Billy Curtis
出生 : 1909-06-27, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA
死亡 : 1988-11-09
略歴
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.
Reverend Lynch
In this comic take on big-business wheelings and dealings, an ambitious senator's son (Judge Reinhold) moves up the corporate ladder through undeserved promotions. But against his better judgment, he falls for a woman (the chairman's daughter, no less) who's leading a protest against the company's shady business practices. "Saturday Night Live" writer-performer Michael O'Donoghue scripted this satire co-starring Danny DeVito and Jane Seymour.
Barnaby
Snow White must flee from her evil stepmother. She's taken in by the lovable seven dwarves. Will the wicked queen be able to get rid of her rival?
Little Person
A relatively boring Los Angeles couple discover a bizarre, if not murderous way to get funding for opening a restaurant.
Menchkin
Broad satire and buffoonery presented as a series of movie trailers. Among the titles and subjects are: "The Howard Huge Story", "Skate-boarders from Hell", "The Invasion of the Penis Snatchers", Woody Allen (pre-Mia), movie trailer come-ons, Charlie Chaplin, war movies, Billy Jack. The source of the title is presented about an hour into the film.
Charlie P.
A story about the rich McCulloch Family, their overbearing father and the children's misguided blaming him for everything that doesn't go right.
Slick Bender
A gangster's former mistress hooks up with a troupe of circus midgets who, as a sideline, rob banks and casinos.
Mordecai
イーストウッド監督の第2作目にあたる、自らが主演した異色のミステリアス西部劇。陽炎の中から馬に跨がり現れた謎の男は、いいがかりを付けた男どもを目にも留まらぬ早業で撃ち殺しその町ラーゴに居着く。その頃、以前逮捕した無法者たちが刑期を終え、ラーゴに仕返しにくる事を知っていた町の保安官は、その男の腕前を見込んで用心棒を頼む。その役を引き受けた男は町の男どもに射撃訓練をさせるが、町中を赤いペンキで塗らせたり、野外パーティの準備をさせたりと奇妙な行動も取って行く。そしていよいよ無法者たちが町になだれ込んでくるのだが……。
Toy Cowboy (uncredited)
Orphaned and left in the desert as an infant, Evil Roy Slade (John Astin) grew up alone—save for his teddy bear—and mean. As an adult, he is notorious for being the "meanest villain in the West"—so he's thrown for quite a loop when he falls for sweet schoolteacher Betsy Potter (Pamela Austin). There's also Nelson L. Stool (Mickey Rooney), a railroad tycoon, who, along with his dimwitted nephew Clifford (Henry Gibson), is trying to get revenge on Evil Roy Slade for robbing him.
Man on the Street Interviewee
A documentary examining the use of marijuana by young people in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Included are interviews with people who regularly use marijuana and testify to its beneficial effects as an aphrodisiac and scenes of nude encounter groups, instructions for making marijuana brownies, soldiers in Vietnam smoking marijuana, etc.
Edmund B. Ratner
A Vietnam veteran returns to his Texas home but feels restless and decides to become a radio singer.
Little Person (uncredited)
世話好きの未亡人ドーリーは金持ちだが口やかましい男やもめホレスと帽子屋アイリーンの仲を取り持とうと奔走するが、そのうちドーリー自身も彼を好きになってしまい、ついには自分を売り込んでしまう。
Child Ape (uncredited)
地球を飛び立った宇宙船は１年余りの宇宙航行の末、とある惑星に不時着した。乗組員のテイラーたちは沈没してしまった宇宙船をあとにし、その陸地を彷徨い歩くと猿人たちが人間狩りをしている驚愕の光景を目にする。この星では高等動物の猿が、口の聞けない下等動物の人間を支配していたのだ。テイラーたちも捕まり、奴隷のように理不尽な扱いを受ける。しかし、テイラーはチンパンジーのジーラ博士とコーネリアス博士の理解と協力を得て、同じ人間の女性ノヴァと共に逃亡、新天地を探し求めていく。
The Man From F.L.U.S.H.
Teenage beach party/spy spoof/musical comedy about a plot to bomb a music fair. As his boss is on vacation, a superspy's butler must come to the rescue, while being pursued by a trio of gorgeous assassins who're agents of F.L.U.S.H. Features George Barris hotrods, along with the musical talents of Gary Lewis and the Playboys, The Astronauts, The Knickerbockers, Freddy and the Dreamers, and the only film appearance of The Turtles.
Self
Party, enterianment, and Behind the scenes
Super Pup / Bark Bent
Harry Earles (uncredited)
The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bearer of many personal misfortunes that even his great success could not mitigate.
Midget
A dangerous combination of radiation and insecticide causes the unfortunate Scott Carey to shrink, slowly but surely, until he is only a few inches tall. His home becomes a wilderness where he must survive everything from spiders living in the cellar to his beloved cat.
Damu
Priestess Oma is forever young in this Jungle Jim knockoff of "She" or the La of Opar stories from "Tarzan". The Jungle Jim-type character is played by Weissmuller using his own name.
Tut (uncredited)
Shalimar, an Egyptian princess, striving to rid her country of its Bedouin conquerors, forms an alliance with Prince Haidi, son of the Caliph of Bagdad. She practices her intrigues both at the court and, disguised as a dancing girl, in the market place.
Mole-Man (uncredited)
Reporters Clark Kent and Lois Lane arrive in the small town of Silsby to witness the drilling of the world's deepest oil well. The drill, however, has penetrated the underground home of a race of small, furry people who then come to the surface at night to look around. The fact that they glow in the dark scares the townfolk, who form a mob, led by the vicious Luke Benson, intent on killing the strange people. Only Superman has a chance to prevent this tragedy.
Circus Performer
While on shore leave to celebrate his first anniversary, Lt. Peter Duluth (Warren Douglas) takes his wife, Iris (Audrey Long), to a Los Angeles hotel but is turned away. When mysterious Colette (Stephanie Bachelor) offers them her suite, the young couple becomes entangled in a murder plot. Aided by two PIs, Peter and Iris find two corpses and are desperate to locate Colette before she becomes the next victim, but the killers are one step ahead.
Capt. Rudolph L. Nemo
A married couple who have a song-and-dance act in vaudeville are in trouble. Their struggling act is going nowhere, they're almost broke and they have to do something to get them back on top or they'll really be in trouble. They decide to put their young son in the act in hopes of attracting some new attention. The boy turns out to be a major talent, audiences love him and the act is on its way to the top. That's when an organization whose purpose is to stop children from performing on stage shows up, and they're dead set on breaking up the act.
Vaudeville Midget (Uncredited)
Helen Chernen pushes her younger sister Katherine into show business in order to escape their small town poverty.
Newsboy
Chorus girl Gloria Carroll inherits one million dollars from Broadway playboy Herbert Dinwiddle. Producer Ned McLane persuades her to advance him the money on a production called "Lucky Legs" that will star her. Unfortunately, the money has "made the rounds" prior to reaching Gloria and several less-than-scrupulous characters set out to separate Gloria from her inheritance.
Midget (Circus Troupe)
航空会社に勤務するバリーは、軍需工場への破壊工作の濡れ衣を着せられ、手錠のまま逃亡の身となるが…。
Melinda, the chimp
After Buckwheat tells the gang he's seen a big monkey, Spanky, Froggy and Mickey decide to teach him once and for all not to lie. What the gang doesn't know is that the monkey is real, and hilarity will ensue.
Midget
Jackie Gleason and Jack Durant are teamed for the first and only time as Hank and Jed, a pair of dimwitted barbers who are forced into bankruptcy because all their customers have marched off to war. Figuring that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, Hank and Jed try to join the Army themselves, only to be rejected for a variety of reasons (When asked to read the eye-chart, Hank says he can't-not because he can't see, but because he can't read).
Bodyguard (uncredited)
Olsen and Johnson, a pair of stage comedians, try to turn their play into a movie and bring together a young couple in love, while breaking the fourth wall every step of the way.
George
Bob Clemens is a cameraman for newsreels. Assigned to shoot the Swiss ice skater Karen Vadja, he arrives too late, so decides to film a woman skating on a different New York rink and pass her off as Karen. The scheme backfires when promoter Larry Herman takes a look at Bob's film and decides to make the skater a star. Unfortunately, it's actually amateur (and illegal immigrant) Marie Bergin in the newsreel footage, not the great figure skater from Switzerland. Chaos ensues as Bob tries to straighten everybody out.
Judge
A test pilot and his weather observer develop a "robot" control so airplanes can be flown without pilots, but enemy agents get wind of it and try to steal it or destroy it.
Midget (Uncredited)
Showgirl Maisie Ravier finds herself once again out of work. She meets a wealthy playboy who hires her to be his family's new maid. Maisie soon finds herself trying to mend the family's many problems.
Munchkin
カンザスの農場でおじさん夫婦と一緒に暮らす少女ドロシーは、ある日、竜巻に家ごと上空に巻き上げられ、愛犬のトトとともに魔法の国オズへとたどり着く。故郷の家に戻るためにはオズの魔法使いの力を借りる必要があると言われたドロシーは、早速魔法使いの住むエメラルド・シティを目指して旅に出る。その途中、臆病ライオンや脳のないカカシ、そして心を持たないブリキ男も仲間に加わり、一行は不思議な冒険を繰り広げていく。
Hercules - the Midget
Nancy Evans, lovely circus owner, has a ranch that she's never visited, but for sentimental reasons won't sell to Mike Abbott. Her partners, secretly in league with Abbott, sabotage the circus to force Nancy to sell the ranch; instead, she goes there to live. Will her neighbors, the Three Mesquiteers, be a match for the secret swindlers? And what's so valuable about that run-down ranch anyway?
The Hero (Buck Lawson)
Using a conventional Western story with an all dwarf cast, the filmmakers were able to showcase gags such as cowboys entering the local saloon by walking under the swinging doors, and pint-sized cowboys galloping around on Shetland ponies while roping calves.
