Ted Cassidy

“One doesn't take a day off from love.”

“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've been a tough sailor, a foppish-type landscape gardener, a French villain, a circus strongman.”

“I turned 30 and decided if I was going to try acting I had better try or wind up still holding a desk job at 50.”

“I don't get the sense of doing anything of national importance. I travel to the studio, work and go home.”

“You will probably be hearing more about this schoolboy. His name is Wilt Chamberlain.”

“An actor feels the dilemma of being a human being and through his art tries to explain the condition of man.”

“I was lucky. I missed the struggle. I don't feel I have to pay anyone back for the miserable years. I never had them.”

“I get no amusement having people eyeball me because of my size.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“You know, I can't tell you that I'm very fond of anything I've done, including - and especially- 'The Addams Family.' That's an albatross around my neck that I've got to get rid of somehow.”

“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.”

“It doesn't matter if you're big and tall or ugly or pretty. Deep inside, every actor wants to play Hamlet, at least I hope he does, because that's the craft.”

“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 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.”

“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.”