Theodore Crawford Cassidy (July 31, 1932 – January 16, 1979) was an American actor. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction works, such as Star Trek and I Dream of Jeannie, and he played Lurch on the live-action The Addams Family TV series of the mid-1960s.[1][2] He also narrated the intro sequence for the 1977 live-action The Incredible Hulk TV series and provided the growls & roars for the Hulk for the series's first 2 seasons before his untimely passing, with actor Charles Napier providing the title character's vocals for the remainder of the series.[1][3]
Early life
Cassidy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Elwood Lewis Cassidy and Emily Cassidy (nee Crawford), of Irish ancestry, and raised in Philippi, West Virginia. In his youth, he was academically gifted and attended third grade at age six.[1] During his freshman year of high school, at age 11, he was on the football and basketball teams.[4]
Cassidy graduated from Stetson University with a BA degree. He began his broadcast career at WCOA in Pensacola Summer of 1958 through fall of 1959.
Ted Cassidy on air at WCOA Pensacola January 1959
He then moved on to work as a DJ on WFAA in Dallas.[7] He was an accomplished musician and moonlighted playing an organ for patrons of a Luby's Cafeteria in Dallas' Lochwood Shopping Center.[8] He "was right in the middle of the excitement" on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated[9] and was among the first to interview eyewitnesses W. E. Newman Jr. and Gayle Newman.[10]
Television
Cassidy (right) in The Addams Family with Jackie Coogan in 1966
Cassidy's height gave him an advantage in auditioning for unusual character roles.[4] His best-known role is Lurch on The Addams Family, in which he feigned playing the harpsichord (although he was in fact an accomplished organist).[11] With a separate contract he also played the character named Thing,[12] though associate producer Jack Voglin took on the role in scenes involving both characters. Though the character of Lurch was originally intended to be mute, Cassidy's ad-libbed "You rang?" in response to the butler call was an immediate hit. It became his signature line, and he was given more lines. Several episodes were written to feature Lurch.[13]
Cassidy reprised the role of Lurch in later appearances. In the Batman episode "The Penguin's Nest" (1966), he appears during the heroes' familiar climbing scene up the side of a building, as a tenant who is playing the Addams Family theme on a harpsichord prior to sticking his head out of the window and speaking to Batman and Robin. He voiced Lurch in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972), and in the 1973 animated series adaptation of The Addams Family. He again reprised Lurch in the TV filmHalloween with the New Addams Family (1977).
According to Thomas "Duke " Miller, a TV/movie/celebrity expert, Cassidy also had a small role opposite George Peppard in one episode of the TV movie series Banacek. Cassidy played a worker in an auto scrapyard who attempted to kill Banacek because the investigator traced him as part of the plot to steal a rare and valuable book. In addition to The Addams Family, Cassidy found steady work in a variety of other television shows.[9] He had a prominent role on NBC's The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as Injun Joe, the blood-enemy of Tom Sawyer and Huck. In the 1967 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Napoleon's Tomb Affair", Cassidy played a henchman, Edgar, who kidnaps, tortures, and repeatedly tries to kill Napoleon and Illya.
In The Beverly Hillbillies episode "The Dahlia Feud" from 1967, he played Mr. Ted, a large, muscular gardener who plants dahlias for Mrs. Drysdale. In 1968, Cassidy appeared on Mannix in the episode "To Kill a Writer" as Felipe Montoya, on Daniel Boone in "The Scrimshaw Ivory Chart" as a pirate named Gentle Sam, and in two episodes of I Dream of Jeannie as the master of Jeannie's devious sister in the episode "Genie, Genie, Who's Got the Genie?", and Jeannie's cousin in the episode "Please Don't Feed the Astronauts".
In the two-part The Six Million Dollar Man episode "The Return of Bigfoot" (1976), Cassidy provided the body and vocal effects of Bigfoot (the role was originally played by professional wrestler André the Giant in a previous two-parter). Cassidy reprised the role in the 1977 episode "Bigfoot V".
Cassidy also starred in Bonanza's "Decision in Los Robles" in 1970.[14]
Other film and TV work
Concurrent with his appearances on The Addams Family, Cassidy began doing character voices on a recurring basis for the Hanna-Barbera Studios, culminating in the role of Frankenstein Jr., in Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles series, and even reprising Lurch on several occasions for Hanna-Barbera productions (most notably for the Addams Family animated series in 1973–74). He was the voice of Meteor Man in Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, as well as the hero in the Chuck Menville pixillated short film Blaze Glory, in which his already-deep voice was enhanced with reverb echo to give the character an exaggerated super-hero sound. Cassidy also voiced Ben Grimm ("The Thing") in The New Fantastic Four. Cassidy went on to perform the roars and growls for Godzilla in the 1979 cartoon series that Hanna-Barbera co-produced with Toho, and was also the voice of Montaro in the Jana of the Jungle segments that accompanied Godzilla during its first network run. His voice was the basis for the sinister voice of Black Manta, as well as Brainiac and several others on Super Friends. Cassidy was the original voice of Moltar and Metallus on Space Ghost from 1966 to 1968. Cassidy's final role was as King Thun of the Lion Men in the television animated feature film Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All. That particular role was originally recorded shortly before Cassidy's death in 1979, until the decision was made to use the footage for a television series, The New Adventures of Flash Gordon. As such, Cassidy's death necessitated his role being recast for the series with Allan Melvin. After the series' conclusion, the original feature film and soundtrack were reassembled using Cassidy's performance and broadcast in prime time in 1982. In live-action productions for the TV series The Incredible Hulk, he provided narration of the title sequence, and the Hulk's growls and roars. In deleted scenes from the original Battlestar Galactica TV pilot movie, "Saga of a Star World", Cassidy can be heard providing temporary voice tracks of the CylonImperious Leader, before actor Patrick Macnee was contracted to voice the character.[15]
In 1965, he released a seven-inch vinyl record on Capitol Records with two songs on it: "The Lurch", written by Gary S. Paxton, and "Wesley", written by Cliffie Stone and Scott Turner.[17] He introduced the dance and performed the song "The Lurch" on September 11, 1965, on Shivaree! and performed it again on Halloween of the same year on Shindig![18]
Health issues
Cassidy suffered from acromegaly, an endocrine disorder in which there is an overproduction of growth hormone from the pituitary gland that causes excessive bone growth in certain parts of the body. His health condition kept him from serious acting roles later in life.[19]
Death
Cassidy underwent surgery at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles to have a benign tumor removed from his heart. Complications arose several days later while he was recuperating at home. He was readmitted to the same hospital, where he died on January 16, 1979, at the age of 46. He was cremated and his ashes were buried in the backyard of his home in Woodland Hills.[20][21][7]
^ abHeimer, Mel (August 16, 1967). "'Lurch' moves on, 'Injun Joe' soon". Bryan Times. Ohio. King Features Syndicate. p. 5. Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
^According to the Addams Family, Season 1, Volume 1 DVD of the original TV series, music composer Vic Mizzy states that Lurch is playing on a dead keyboard, and though Cassidy was an accomplished organist, Mizzy played all the parts. This is shown in the Snap Snap special feature.
^"Deaths elsewhere: Ted Cassidy". Toledo Blade. Ohio. Associated Press. January 24, 1979. p. 12. Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
