Sydney Lassick


Sydney Lassick was an American actor perhaps best known for his role as Charlie Cheswick in the feature film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Lassick's first name was sometimes spelled Sidney.

Biography

He was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Russian Jewish immigrants. Lassick, who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and afterwards studied drama at DePaul University, began acting in both films and TV shows in the late 1950s. Portly and bespectacled, with a high-pitched, querulous voice, Lassick was usually cast as peevish neurotics, obsequious toadies, and fretful everyman types.
Lassick is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Charlie Cheswick, a whiny and childish manic depressive patient in the 1975 Academy Award-winning film One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Other memorable roles include a fey Fairy Godfather in the lowbrow Sinderella and the Golden Bra; the spitefully sarcastic English teacher in the 1976 horror film Carrie; the perverse and abusive innkeeper Ernest Keller in slasher horror The Unseen; the slimy Charlie P. in the cult film Sonny Boy; and the effeminate lackey Gopher in Deep Cover. Lassick also was the voice of Straycatcher #2 in the 1992 animated feature film
In television, Lassick guest starred on such shows as Eight Is Enough, Baretta, Hawaii Five-O, Barney Miller, Matt Houston, Moonlighting, Night Court, Knots Landing, Dream On and The X-Files. While usually a supporting actor, he played the lead in an episode of Amazing Stories called "Remote Control Man."
Though a successful actor, Lassick maintained a steady job as a trucking company's dispatcher throughout his career. He asserted that actors never knew when the acting jobs would stop coming.

Death

Lassick died from complications of diabetes, at age 80 in Los Angeles, California. Lassick was buried in a simple Jewish service, in the southwest Maimonides section, at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Filmography