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Tiny tim king for a day8/11/2023 ![]() How can so much sadness come from a man who entertained so many? We are reminded of the song, “Tears of a Clown,” yet when one’s goal is fame, the piper must be paid. ![]() This was the year before his death, and we see the clip of when he suffered a heart attack while performing onstage, just prior to his final collapse a few months later. In 1995, he married lifelong fan, Susan Gardner. Sure, there’s the photo by Diane Arbus, but there’s also the mob control and gigs with the traveling circus. Director von Sydow pulls much of the story from the biography, Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim, by Justin Martell and Alanna Wray Mcdonald. Of course, the thing about fame is that it’s often fleeting. Carrying a shopping bag on stage and pulling out a ukulele, Tiny Tim crafted a stage persona that took over his life. In December 1969, Tiny Tim married 17-year-old Miss Vicki Budinger live on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” and 45 million viewers tuned in.īorn in New York as Herbert Butros Khaury, he was focused at an early age on being famous – on making an impact. His first album, “God Bless Tiny Tim,” was released in 1968, but it was the following year that caused the biggest splash. Yankovic reads passages from Tiny Tim’s diary, and we gain perspective on what it’s like to go through life as a “freak.” From the diary we learn, “God told me to sing the sissy way,” and that was evidently his motivation for using the falsetto…allowing him to be billed as “The Human Canary” early on. “Tiptoe Through The Tulips” was actually a hit song from 1929, and Tiny Tim reinvented it as a novelty song – and we see the clip of him performing it in 1968 for a national audience on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”. Documentary filmmaker Johan von Sydow compiles archival footage, raw interviews, music, and animation as his tools to tell the story of, known to audiences. ![]() Weird Al Yankovic is the narrator that guides us through the story, and there are interviews with Tiny Tim’s widow Susan, his daughter Tulip (yep), and personality Wavy Gravy (best known for the Woodstock movie), as well as friends, musicians, directors, and others who provide insight into the man and his life and career. ![]() It’s likely a jarring opening for those unfamiliar with him, but it captures his unique style and stage presence. Others – about his sleazier side – might best be left unanswered.) All that said, it’s highly recommended.Filmmaker Johan von Sydow opens with a clip of Tiny Tim singing “I’ve Got You Babe,” a hit song for Sonny and Cher. (Some – such as why the priest at his funeral called him “the kindest person I ever met” – are intriguing. It could have done with more explication of what was great about his work and his extraordinary singing style, and it does leave a few questions unanswered. This one is arguably not quite in the same league, but it’s still very good. The great pop artist and Tiny Tim superfan Martin Sharp made an excellent film about him called Street of Dreams, but it’s very hard to find. The interviewees include an ex-wife, his daughter and his former manager – but also various luminaries of the old underground like Wavy Gravy and Jonas Mekas. The career, and the complex personality, are presented here through an effective combination of masses of archival footage (a lot of it rare), animation, diary entries (read by Weird Al Yankovic) and interviews. (His marriage, on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, attracted more viewers than any other TV show in American history apart from the moon landing.) Though his career slumped, he struggled indefatigably for the rest of his life to regain the limelight, while never compromising. It’s easy to forget now just how famous and successful the man was for a couple of brief years in the late Sixties. Considered a freak by many of his peers, Tiny Tim left no one unaffected. Tiny Tim (real name Herbert Khaury) was an absolute one-off: walking archive of popular song, phenomenal interpreter, eccentric… This documentary, inspired by the book Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life Of Tiny Tim, is about as substantial a portrait as you could cram into 78 minutes. An outcast from a young age, Herbert Khary’s rise to stardom as Tiny Tim is the ultimate fairytale.
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