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But there were benefits: "At least you could say to your colleagues, 'I'm working with George Lucas.'"

A more significant role in Willow led to various TV appearances — and chances to act. Fondacaro is especially proud of his portrayal of a dwarf father with an average-sized son in Touched by an Angel.

"That's me. I'm not an Ewok. I'm a dwarf who has average-sized children," Fondacaro says. "That's a situation a lot of little people face. That's real life."

Bittersweet Munchkin Memories

Any actor will tell you a good role doesn't come along every day, and little people have had a brutal history in Hollywood. In the early days, little people were hardly treated better than performing animals.

When The Wizard of Oz was being made, show business impresario Leo "Papa" Singer acted as agent for most of the Munchkins and took a whopping 50 percent commission. Munchkins still grouse that they were paid $50 a week for their work on The Wizard of Oz — less than half what Toto the dog was bringing home.

"That's a lot of dog biscuits. Toto must have had a good agent," former Munchkin Jerry Maren, 81, told The Wolf Files last year. "That mutt should have been working for scraps."

With a half-century of screen credits, Maren has played Buster Brown and the Hamburglar in commercials. He also served as a stand-in for Jerry Mathers on Leave It to Beaver. He's had minor roles in more than 50 films, including a part as chimpanzee baby in the original Planet of the Apes.

"It's a rough business and you have to keep busy," he said. "It's a different world than what it used to be. But it's show business. It's never easy."

Buck Wolf is entertainment producer at ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files is published Tuesdays. If you want to receive weekly notice when a new column is published, join the e-mail list.