Mihaly "Michu" Meszaros (Hungarian: Mészáros Mihály; 1 October 1939 – 12 June 2016) was a Hungarian actor, circus performer/entertainer, and stuntman. As an American citizen, he was best remembered as a performer with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and for his role in the NBC sitcom ALF. He was 2 feet 9 inches (0.84 m) tall. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Meszaros was a television and film actor, and he also appeared opposite pop singer Michael Jackson in a Pepsi commercial. His last appearance was in 2015's Death to Cupid.
For the first season of the ALF television series, Meszaros donned a costume whenever a full-body shot was needed for scenes of the alien walking, running, or standing. For the most part, however, upper-body shots of a mechanical puppet were used instead, since the full-body costume was extremely hot and uncomfortable for the actor to wear for long periods of time under bright studio lights. The ALF puppet and costume can be distinguished on first view because the head proportions are slightly different.
Meszaros also was a member of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as the former "smallest man in the world". As a youngster, he attended a state-run school of circus arts, becoming well versed in such performing skills as juggling, acrobatics and pantomime. For many years, American circus producers Irvin Feld and Kenneth Feld had heard of the existence, somewhere in Hungary, of a man almost too small to believe. The producers finally located him in 1973; astonished at his size and talents, they made immediate arrangements to bring Meszaros from the Hungarian circus to the United States.

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