Words matter. These are the best Ted Cassidy Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Max Baer called me one morning and told me that Carl Foreman was making a movie based on the book ‘Mackenna’s Gold’ and he was sure that I was right for one of the parts. He was so ebullient about it that he bent my ear for 20 minutes.
I turned down a part in ‘Petticoat Junction.’ They wanted me to play a circus giant. I didn’t want to take that step into type casting. I don’t want to play freaks and science-fiction monsters.
Whenever I’d find myself talking to someone in the kitchen of their home, I’d automatically rest my arm on the refrigerator, simply because it was most convenient. I had to watch myself pretty close – I didn’t mind the dusty sleeve, but that glare from the hostess was something else!
There is no gainsaying that Lurch has put me where I am today. Lurch bought the house I live in. But what’s going to happen to a guy like me when it’s over? What happens when the show dies in maybe five years? Do I die too? No! I want to go on with other things.
I think kids like Lurch because he’s kind of an earthbound superman. They know he’s physically strong and they sense that he’s a gentle man who loves kids.
Only as a child is one truly innocent. When he grows, he must pull on one veneer after another.
Getting Lurch’s character straightened out was fun because I was brand new to professional film acting. I had only been in radio up till then as an announcer or a program director.
Acting Is unlike any other profession in the world. It’s a succession of jobs. When ‘The Addams Family’ ends, however good you may be, when that job ends, you end. My gettng the show was a million-to-one shot.
It was nice to be working steadily and piling up some money in the bank but there really wasn’t much to do except walk around and… well, be Lurch.
I get no amusement having people eyeball me because of my size.
It’s not enough to be 6 feet 9 to get along in this world.
Lurch’s quietness is a result of personal dignity. He appreciates things of quality. His greatest joy is playing Bach on the harpsichord, and he recognizes the music as the result of ‘a great human effort to express.
If things get slow, I can always drop around to the gym and dunk a few.
I figure, I want to get a role on my ability, not my size. And anyway, after the director or producer sees me, he remembers what I look like, anyway.
I got to know the cast pretty well. Not so much Leonard Nimoy, I got to know William Shatner pretty well. They are a pretty good gang. The production company that made ‘Star Trek’ is the kind of production company that likes to have fun.
That’s one of my pet peeves, that big guys apparently don’t have an I.Q. above 50 in the eyes of audiences and producers.
I don’t get the sense of doing anything of national importance. I travel to the studio, work and go home.
I did play semi-pro ball for a time. It was the line of least resistance.
I didn’t only play Lurch. I also was ‘Thing,’ the hand that came up and on-camera every now and then. You should try acting with only one hand sometime. Great discipline.
An actor feels the dilemma of being a human being and through his art tries to explain the condition of man.
