Was Tiny Tim an act or was he really like that?

[WI_DEM]

Someone told me that Tiny Tim (not the Dicken's Character, but the late 60's/early 70's umm, "singer") really was the type of delicate soul we saw on television. I always just thought it was an act--a very weird act. Any thoughts.

p.s.
I would kill to see his wedding to "Miss Vicki" on the Tonight Show in full.

[KitchenWitch]

1. He was a freaking rethug

and made no secret of being a wingnut.

[WI_DEM]

2. Oh, that's sad, maybe he wasn't so delicate afterall

[Dogmudgeon]

4. He was a Jeezer for a while

He wasn't exactly a thug. A lot of people have gotten suckered into the GOP-Jesus cult.

--p!

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Tiny Tim

He was, by all accounts, really like that. His real name (IIRC) was Herbert Khaury.

He was also far more of a musical genius than he's given credit for. I don't know the actual story, but I suspect the Beatles got to meet him through Yoko Ono, since both were avant-garde musicians.

"Miss Vicki" was involved in making sure his work was published and played after his death. A little digging should find you a lot of information about the late, lamented, Tiny Tim.

--p!

[Sapphocrat]

5. Delicate soul?

From what I recall, Miss Vicki divorced him because he was an abuser. Somebody should double-check me on that, but if memory serves, it was an ugly bit of business.

It also makes me sick that Miss V was all of, what, 17, when she married him?

Btw, I saw their wedding on the Tonight Show -- it was like being on drugs without the expense. Suggest you check the Museum of Radio and TV (Google it) -- there are two locations (L.A. and NYC) where you can view lots of rare old TV videos in privacy... and I wouldn't be surprised if that one's there (you'd need to know the date of the show, tho'). Ten bucks or so will get you a four-hour pass to watch as much as you can handle.

[Strawman]

6. There was something very tragic about Tiny Tim

He was a repressed homosexual and a very paranoid person. A couple of our local morning radio jocks used to interview him from time to time near the end of his life. I remember him saying that he was so fearful of germs that he used to towel off after showering with paper towels. On top of that he had horrible health problems (diabetes, heart trouble) and died on stage. He definitely had some kooky religious beliefs, (I was unaware of his being a Republican, but that probably explains that) but I always got the impression that he was basically a gentle but very fragile person who was mentally and physically ill. Definitely a strange character. I felt sorry for him.

[orleans]

7. he also wrote a weird little book called "Beautiful"

i remember i bought it for my aunt as a gag gift. i thought it was pretty funny--but everyone looked at me like i was crazy. i remember there was something like a love poem or letter to elizabeth taylor. he had a big thing going on for her.

i also remember the talk of him abusing the young girl he married.

i always thought he was really creepy--i couldn't figure out what was up with him--there was something rather distrubing about him

[Piperay]

8. I see Tiny Tim was married

three times...Miss Vicky, Miss Jan and Miss Sue and had one daughter Tulip who is a Jehovah’s Witness. I 'googled'.

[Squeech]

9. He was really like that

But it should be noted that he didn't sing *everything* in that keening falsetto voice, just the songs that were pitched there to start with (sung originally by women, I suppose). His big thing in life was old pop music from the teens and '20s, and that's what he did.

(Maybe that was a bad career move, because you don't get royalties from singing somebody else's tunes. That's also the ultimate answer to that thread from earlier in the week, on singers who don't write their own songs: the best way to assure yourself of an ongoing income stream is to record your own compositions, *provided* you control your own publishing. One of the biggest injustices, in an industry admittedly rife with them, is that Fantasy Records told John Fogerty to assign them the rights to all his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs, so he hasn't made a nickel off that repertoire since the band broke up.)

There's also a story that Mo Ostin, who had been president of Warner Bros. records for nearly 50 years, gave an interview when he retired, and the question came up, What record were you responsible for that you think had the most to do with pure artistry, and his immediate answer was: God Bless Tiny Tim.