1982: a look back: Our E.T. (12/26/82)

1982: a look back

Our E.T.

When Michael and Ester Bilon walked into The Weekly offices on July 2 and calmly told us that their son was E.T., frankly our first instinct was to call for the truck with the padded walls. After all, for all we knew, the star of Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie "E.T. - The Extraterrestial," was a mechanical-device, a robot and not a live actor. How wrong we were.

The Youngstown, Ohio, couple explained that their son, 34-year-old Pat Bilon, is a dwarf who stands 2 feet 10 inches, and who had played in several movies. What's more, they said it was him the audience was seeing inside an E.T. costume.

Now here was a scoop! Not only were newspapers and magazines reporting that E.T. was nothing more than an elaborate mechanical device, Mr. Spielberg himself never mentioned that an actor was involved at all. What's more, E.T. was a third-generation Ukrainian who spoke the language and was a member of UNA Branch 119 in Youngstown.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Weekly was the first paper in the country to report the true identity of the actor employed in many of E.T.'s most notable scenes, such as the one in which he gets drunk and falls down in Elliot's kitchen. (Some publications incorrectly reported that the real E.T. was another dwarf Tamara DeTreaux).

The movie has made a celebrity of Mr. Bilon, who is active in Ukrainian organizations, including the League of Ukrainian Catholics and St. Anne's Ukrainian Catholic Church. Back in Youngstown, where Mr. Bilon guest hosts the hourlong Ukrainian radio program he started, he is a favorite among children who want to meet the real E.T.

So yes, the real E.T. is Ukrainian, and remember, you read it here first.

| Home Page |