
Acting
Billy Curtis
Born 1909-06-27 · Springfield, Massachusetts, USA
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.
Acting credits
7.6Young Dorothy finds herself in a magical world where she makes friends with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man as they make their way along the yellow brick road to talk with the Wizard and ask for the things they miss most in their lives. The Wicked Witch of the West is the only thing that could stop them.
The Wizard of Oz
1939
7.7Astronaut Taylor crash lands on a distant planet ruled by apes who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Taylor finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist.
Planet of the Apes
1968
7.3A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.
High Plains Drifter
1973
7.0Dolly Levi is a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to Yonkers, New York in order to see the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. In doing so, she convinces his niece, his niece's intended, and Horace's two clerks to travel to New York City.
Hello, Dolly!
1969
7.5A 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.
The Incredible Shrinking Man
1957
6.2Set in Prohibition era Chicago, bootlegger Robbo and his cronies refuse to pay the greedy Guy Gisborne a cut of their profits after Guy shoots mob boss Big Jim and takes over. When Big Jim's daughter, Marian, gives Robbo a large sum, believing he has avenged her father's death, the gangster donates to an orphanage, cementing his reputation as a softhearted hood.
Robin and the 7 Hoods
1964
7.9A fading music hall comedian tries to help a despondent ballet dancer learn to walk and to again feel confident about life.
Limelight
1952
5.4In this comic take on big-business wheelings and dealings, an ambitious senator's son 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.
Head Office
1985
6.9Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane flees across the United States after he is wrongly accused of starting the fire that killed his best friend.
Saboteur
1942
6.6The story of a family of Quakers in Indiana in 1862. Their religious sect is strongly opposed to violence and war. It's not easy for them to meet the rules of their religion in everyday life but when Southern troops pass the area they are in real trouble. Should they fight, despite their peaceful attitude?
Friendly Persuasion
1956
6.0A dictatorial film director hires an unknown actress to play the lead role in a planned movie biography of a late, great Hollywood star.
The Legend of Lylah Clare
1968
6.5A prudish married couple feel put upon by the swingers living in their apartment building. One night, by accident, they discover a way to both rid themselves of the “perverts” down the hall and simultaneously realize their dream of opening a restaurant.
Eating Raoul
1982
6.4Two ex-soldiers return from overseas--one of them having smuggled into the country a French orphan girl he has become attached to. They wind up running into their old sergeant--who hates them--and getting involved with a race-car builder who's trying to find backers for a new midget racer he's building.
Buck Privates Come Home
1947
6.8The 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.
Man of a Thousand Faces
1957
7.3Shalimar, 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.
Princess of the Nile
1954
7.0Party, enterianment, and Behind the scenes
Backstage Party
1961
5.3Reporters 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.
Superman and the Mole Men
1951
5.9Retired cop Mike Halligan decides to show his grandson, who has never seen snow before, what a real white Christmas in New York is like. But a sudden fatal heart attack derails those plans, and Halligan makes a deal with the Archangel of Heaven to return to Earth for a week until Christmas in order to give his grandson the seasonal glories of New York City.
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
1984
7.0Showgirl 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.
Maisie Was a Lady
1941
6.1An account of the rise and fall of a silent film comic, Billy Bright. The movie begins with his funeral, as he speaks from beyond the grave in a bitter tone about his fate, and takes us through his fame, as he ruins it with womanizing and drink, and his fall, as a lonely, bitter old man unable to reconcile his life's disappointments. The movie is based loosely on the life of Buster Keaton.
The Comic
1969
6.5Helen Chernen pushes her younger sister Katherine into show business in order to escape their small town poverty.
The Hard Way
1943
6.3Orphaned and left in the desert as an infant, Evil Roy Slade 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. There's also Nelson L. Stool, a railroad tycoon, who, along with his dimwitted nephew Clifford (Henry Gibson), is trying to get revenge on Evil Roy Slade for robbing him.
Evil Roy Slade
1972
6.1The daughter of a dead magician who accidentally killed his wife, her mother, while performing a guillotine trick must spend the night in his house in order to collect her inheritance. Is the house haunted or is it all magic?
Two on a Guillotine
1965
7.2Olsen 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.
Hellzapoppin'
1941