How was E.T character created in the movie E.T -The Extra Terrestrial?

Question

All those who are familiar with this movie, please tell me how the character was created, and using what. At that time in 1982, it was not possible to create such a live character walking, talking, etc with computers. So how was it created?

Answer 1

I those days they used to build live dolls or electrically powered movement doll, to portray a character. They also used to make costumes for actors to wear while portraying a specific character or alien-like creature.

I guess they used to create it similar to the techniques used to create and film Alf, costumes, hand puppeteers, movement dolls, and people.

Wiki quote:

Ed Verreaux created a $700,000 prototype for E.T., which Spielberg deemed useless. Carlo Rambaldi, who designed the aliens for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was hired to design the animatronics of E.T. Rambaldi's own painting Women of Delta led him to give the creature a unique, extendable neck. The creature's face was inspired by the faces of Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway. Producer Kathleen Kennedy visited the Jules Stein Eye Institute to study real and glass eyeballs. She hired Institute staffers to create E.T.'s eyes, which she felt were particularly important in engaging the audience. Four E.T. heads were created for filming, one as the main animatronic and the others for facial expressions, as well as a costume. Two dwarfs, Tamara De Treaux and Pat Bilon, as well as 12-year-old Matthew De Meritt, who was born without legs, took turns wearing the costume, depending on what scene was being filmed. Caprice Roth, a professional mime, filled prosthetics to play E.T.'s hands. The finished creature was created in three months at the cost of $1.5 million. Spielberg declared it was "something that only a mother could love."

I also read somewhere that there were three types of the E.T. creature, one was controlled mechanically by more than ten men. The other one was radio-controlled, it was used for close-ups, designed with full facial expressions. The third one was the suit mentioned in the quote. There was more than one version of each.