Quotes from Ted Cassidy

I did play semi-pro ball for a time. It was the line of least resistance.

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.

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 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.

Crawling into someone's skin is what acting is all about.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

I never mention my size when I'm after a job in show business.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

There's not too much opportunity to do that in ordinary life... there's not too much call for hatchet throwers.

Only as a child is one truly innocent. When he grows, he must pull on one veneer after another.