Felix Silla, best known as the chatty cousin Itt on the 1960s TV sitcom The Addams family, died today of pancreatic cancer. He was 84 and according to a. Died in Las Vegas tweet of Gil Gerard, who co-starred with him in the 1979-81 NBC series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Silla wore a body of hair, sunglasses and a bowler hat to perform the role of cousin Itt, who, thanks to his strange mumbling, could only be understood by members of the Addams family. The role was one of several where Silla’s face went unnoticed, including appearing as a robot Twiki Buck Rogers and as a hang glider Ewok in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.
One role where he could be seen was as the villain Litvak, who appeared in George Segal’s Sam Spade Jr. The Maltese Falcon prosecute The black bird (1975).
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Silla, born in Italy, was just under 4 feet tall and weighed a meager 70 pounds. He came to the US in 1955 and worked with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus toured as a trapeze artist and tumbler. He came to Hollywood in 1962 and worked as a stuntman.
His skills and stature led to a number of roles, including the comedy film Gig Young-Shirley Jones A tickling affair, the Bonanza episode Hoss and the gnomes, and in the Star Trek pilot The cage in 1965.
He appears later in Monkey planet (1968), Demon Seed (1977) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). He has done stunt work in a number of major films, including ET the extraordinary, Poltergeist, The golden child and Batman returns (1992), among many other films.
On TV he was a regular performer for Sid and Marty Krofft HR Pufnstuf and Lidsville.
Silla debuts on The Addams family in 1965 in an episode where a zoo wanted to put him in a cage. The character was created by a producer and was not in the Charles Addams cartoons that were the inspiration for the TV series. Neef Itt’s voice was not Silla either – it was provided in the post-production by sound engineer Tony Magro.)
He has appeared 17 times as Cousin Itt on the show, which has largely become a fan favorite in his endless syndication.