Is there a way to remove the need for a third person body while using the first person perspective? I'm trying to remove the need for juggling two animation controllers.
l'm not sure I understand exactly what you're looking for. If you're only using a first-person view in your game and never need to see your player's model animating from elsewhere, you can simply not render it.
Take a look at this video (and the followups in the playlist) explaining how first and third person setup is handled: