Billy Curtis

Billy Curtis
Born	Luigi Curto June 27, 1909 Springfield, Massachusetts,
Died	November 9, 1988(1988-11-09) (aged 79) Dayton, Nevada
Other names	Little Billy , The Singer Midgets
Years active	1938-1988
Height	4 feet 2 inches
Spouse	Joann Curtis (1948 - 1988) 2 children

Billy Curtis (born Luigi Curto; 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, most notably in the 1951 feature film Superman and the Mole Men.

Curtis was known for his work 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.

External links

• Billy Curtis at the Internet Movie Database
• The Terror of Tiny Town at the Internet Movie Database