Felix Silla who played the famous Cousin Itt on ‘The Addams Family’ passes away at 84

Actor Felix Silla, who played the role of Cousin Itt in the comedy ‘The Addams Family’, passed away aged 84 after suffering from pancreatic cancer.

He had also played a robot in the 1979-81 NBC series ‘Buck Rogers’. Silla’s Buck Rogers co-star Gil Gerard reported on Twitter that Silla passed away on Friday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

In the 1975 Black Bird, a sequel of the Maltese Falcon, Silla played the role of Litvak, a maniac villian.  He even shaved his head for the role and starred opposite George Segal.

In the 1960s ABC comedy ‘The Addams Family’, Silla was the Cousin Itt, covered in full length body hair, a pair of sunglasses and a bowler’s hat.

Cousin Itt 

Cousin Itt was a fictional character covered in thick hair that covered his body till the floor, sporting a pair of sunglasses along with a bowler hat on his head, Itt spoke in a high pitch that was only gibberish that could be understood by the rest of his family members and no one else.

Cousin Itt was introduced as the cousin of the patriarch of the Addams family, Gomez Addams. A hilarious character that can be seen entering and leaving the Addams’ house through chimney, playing multiple roles which were all failures, including those of an actor, a singer, a married counselor as well as a zoo curator.

Felix Silla appeared as Cousin Itt in 19 episodes of the comedy series while the last two appearances were played by Roger Arroyo.

After attending a casting call for the series in Los Angeles, Felix was granted the role of cousin Itt without having him to audition for the same.  His long hair costume was changed to fire-retardent material amidst the dangers of the initial real human hair material to set on fire by the smokers.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 2014, Silla shared that the hair he played beneath as Cousin Itt was made up of actual humar hair that made it quite heavy and uncomfortable.

As the hair costume was inflammable too, Silla feared that it may have caught fire on the sets as almost  everyone smoked. He said, “All the guys on the set smoked. They just dropped their butts and stepped on them. The producers worried that I might step on a smoldering cigarette and go up in flames. They gave me synthetic hair, which was flame-retardant.”

Silla had the mere job of moving around the set as instructed as his dialogues were dubbed during the post-production. He anyway had a difficult time sometimes trying to see through the costume.

Cousin Itt has also appeared in a much smaller character in 2019 animated film and was dubbed by Snoop Dog.

He was a residence of Las Vegas for quite a long time since he first moved there in 2003. At his time here, Silla played harmonica in a band and attended lots of fan conventions to sign autographs.