Lou Cutell, an actor known for his roles in Grey’s Anatomy, Seinfeld, and PeeWee’s Big Adventure died on Sunday, his former friends and former coworkers confirm on social media. He was 91 years old. The cause of death remains unknown at this time.
“After 91 years, and a great life, my friend Lou Cutell went home. A film, theater and character actor. Big Larry in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Ass Man in Seinfeld, Abe in Grey’s Anatomy Season 12, Episode 4. He took me to Lucille Ball’s house in 1986. Rest in peace Lou,” Mark Furman said on Facebook.
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He also received a tribute from PeeWee Herman on Twitter, who wrote: “Lou Cutell, the actor who played The Amazing Larry in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, passed away on Sunday. During a career that spanned well over fifty years, he acted in an extraordinary number of diverse movies and television shows.”
“Besides my own film, my favorite thing Lou acted in was when he played an alien doctor in 1965’s Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster. In real life, he was wonderful—sweet, caring and unassuming. He was also slyly and wickedly funny,” the comedian added, before sharing a story from their time together. “Toward the beginning of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, there was a scene in Mario’s Magic Shop that was cut from the finished movie where Lou, as The Amazing Larry, is working on a levitating toupee trick. A little later, when I’m unraveling in my basement and yell at Lou “Is this something you can share with the rest of us, Amazing Larry?!” the movie studio told Tim Burton and I that it would have to also be cut because no one knew who Amazing Larry was.”
“I assured them that it would stand alone as a joke—that between him being busted for whispering during a very tense scene, a middle-aged man with a rainbow mohawk, and being named Amazing Larry, the audience would laugh,” Herman said. “Lou was surrounded by family who loved him when he passed. A couple of days before, I was lucky enough to be able to tell him how much he meant to me and that I’d never forget him. It’s obvious and corny to say, but nevertheless true: he was amazing.”
