Carel Struycken is the 7-foot-tall actor known for such roles as Lurch in the Addams Family movies and, probably most famously, The Giant from Twin Peaks.
He was born on July 30, 1948 in The Hague. At the age of four he moved to Curaçao with his parents. At 16 he returned to Holland to attend the film school of Amsterdam, where he graduated from the directing program. After that he spent a year at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and worked on a number of projects with writer/director Rene Daalder. His acting career began when a lady abandoned her car in the middle of the street to call after him and tell him that they needed him for a movie.
The movie in question was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Currently he is working on the hardware and software development of Virtual Reality systems. The projects he has worked on include a physical therapy system with exercise programs such as one where the patient has to avoid getting sucked dry by a vampire bat, and a human pinball machine.