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Ruk

Ted Cassidy as Ruk

Ted Cassidy (31 July 193216 January 1979; age 46) was a very tall (6' 9"), gravel-voiced actor best known for portraying the macabre butler Lurch on the television series, The Addams Family. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cassidy was raised in West Virginia. He played college basketball at Stetson University in Florida and was married soon after graduation. His first career was in news radio, working for WFAA in Dallas, Texas, and he was part of the ongoing coverage of the JFK assassination.

Cassidy started working in films in 1960. One of his first television roles was in 1966, as Ruk, the ancient android discovered by Roger Korby. His deep bass voice was sought after for voice-over roles (which included voice-over roles in two other TOS epsiodes), and his large size earned him roles as physically impressive characters. While auditioning for the role of Lurch, which was supposed to be a non-speaking role, Cassidy ad-libbed the famous "You rang?" line, which was written into the series.

He played Isiah in the unsold 1973 Gene Roddenberry pilot Genesis II (which also featured Mariette Hartley, Majel Barrett and Percy Rodriguez) and its 1974 re-working Planet Earth (in which Barrett, Diana Muldaur and Craig Hundley appeared. Those two pilots, which featured the exploits of a Rip Van Winkle/Buck Rogers-type hero named Dylan Hunt, served as the basis for Roddenberry's Andromeda, the lead character of which had the same name.

During the run of the original series, Cassidy-- in full Ruk make-up-- once participated in a gag in which he pretended to be Gene Roddenberry to fool a suit salesman who had come to the studio.

Cassidy died of complications following open heart surgery in 1979, leaving behind a long-time girlfriend and two children, Sean and Cameron, both of whom are now attorneys.

Appearances

Trivia

His most famous role, Lurch from The Addams Family, would be played by TNG guest star Carel Struycken in the Addams Family movies of the 1990s. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock actor Christopher Lloyd played Uncle Fester in the first two of these films. Interestingly enough, Cassidy also played the role of Thing (the disembodied hand) on The Addams Family, a role that was credited to itself. The only times Cassidy did not play Thing were in those scenes in which Lurch and Thing appeared together.

External Links

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