Carel Struycken
Carel Struycken (born
July 30,
1948 in
The Hague,
Zuid-Holland,
Netherlands) is a
character actor in film, television, and stage. He is an exceptionally tall man at 7' (213 cm) and thus is often called upon to play character or
comedic roles in which height plays a major part. Notably he was featured as
Mr. Homn on the television series
Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Lurch the butler in the
Addams Family films
The Addams Family,
Addams Family Values, and
Addams Family Reunion, and as The Giant on the
Twin Peaks television series.
When he was only 4 years old his family moved to
Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean. At age 15, when he was living on the island of Curaçao, he composed several Caribbean waltzes. At 16 he returned to his home country, where he finished high school. He graduated from the directing program at the film school in
Amsterdam, following which he spent a year at the
American Film Institute in
Los Angeles. After that he collaborated on a number of projects of writer/director
Rene Daalder. He was "discovered" as an actor at the corner of
Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles by a lady who had abandoned her car in the middle of the street, calling after him: "We need you for a movie!". The movie was
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The turning point in his acting career however was
Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, based on the
Ewok creatures from
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi In addition to cinema he has also appeared on TV, Carel has also helped in hardware and software development of Virtual Reality systems. He also starred in the
1987 film
The Witches of Eastwick with
Jack NicholsonHe has been diagnosed with
acromegaly.
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