The Story of Tiny Tim

[Music] here is tiny tim with the game tim would you sing a song [Music] [Music] i reject the fact that you're making fun of jesus christ i'm not making fun of you yes you are that was the most viewed late night show in the history of television this is the story of tiny time [Music] i feel like someone from mars is coming to earth [Music] when i was three years old i remember him singing a song called beautiful ohio and uh that melody and his rendition of it which was during world war one always stuck with me and i was always attracted to that not only those type of records but through the medium of which a voice can come out of a box like that [Music] there's some rapport between myself and the photograph i actually feel like the victor dog because i'm sitting there alone at night and no one's around i'm just putting my ear into the horn and uh and just looking at the record label and hearing the voice come out who else influenced you in early years people are strange when you're a stranger faces look ugly if you're my age you've probably heard his music on spongebob maybe you remember this song [Music] today tiny tim is considered kind of a misunderstood folk hero from the 60s an eccentric experimental musician emerging from new york's greenwich village focusing who briefly befriended bob dylan and george harrison we have a special guest here this evening mr tiny tim tiny tim's androgynous style and his seeming challenging of gender norms can be cited as being an early beacon for queer identity he appeared frequently on television in the late 60s and early 70s displaying a unique combination of frenzied mania and introverted vulnerability with audiences and hosts either not being able to tell if he was joking or not or openly mocking him for his strangeness many appearances feel eerily similar to the plot from the film and the joker and two [Music] it doesn't matter if they laugh or howl or you know be serious themselves but everything i do i always you know take it seriously to myself did you feel that you were held up to ridicule yeah well it was tough to get letters uh after the laughing show and they said where'd you get them from what's happening to the world the los angeles times said hello boo to tiny tim but even though that was rough i'm not saying it wasn't sorry that's the same thing that happened when i had this long hair in 54 around the neighborhood in new york city in washington heights only this time it was on a larger scale it was around the world have you ever been asked what your real birth name was yeah it's herbert corey herbert b corey growing up herbert was considered somewhat odd and introspective he loved comics and the brooklyn daughters when he was three his father began introducing him to tin pan alley music and herbert would famously spend hour upon hour cranking the family's petrola playing records the shy herbert played street ball with the other kids in his neighborhood but he was often bullied for being too proper and goody-goody there was this strange sheltered kind of bizarre kid growing up but of everyone's joke who really really really desperately craved attention he had a strained relationship with his mother tilly even well into his career she never truly embraced or accepted the quirkiness of her son she always just considered him strange you know he always said oh but i love my mother but then he would talk about what she had done to him how she had really beaten them up psychically i never knew that i had a higher top register and one day i heard rudy valley [Music] we'll come back to rudy valley later as herbert seemed oddly fixated on this one particular crooner throughout his life and so he began creating various characters for himself performing in brightly colored costumes and under a various number of stage names among these were judas k fox glove texarkanatex emmett swink and vernon castle he would switch from his high voice to his low voice he would do duets with himself now how long have you been going to the name of tiny tim since 1963 that's uh one of my many managers who i had at the time he was a great fan of charles dickens word began to spread around new york about the man with the unique falsetto voice i did use it in amateur shows where there were a lot of good singers uh to break the border and it was also at this time that herbert saw a picture of movie star rudolph valentino posing with white powder makeup and long hair allegedly this is what inspired herbert to grow his hair long and paint his face although over the years he's given various reasons for this hairstyle i had this hair in 54 as a gimmick half of it half a gimmick and half because i thought it fit these styles i was going by and it seems the style he was going for was this kind of vaudevillian circus look but unfortunately at home these were all just considered the antics of a crazy person it was acting so strange that his mother thought that he should go down to bellevue to psychiatric unit down there for an evaluation see what was wrong with him and you have to understand that in those days when someone said go to bellevue they consider you nuts fortunately his father boutros intervened and prevented this trip to bellevue hospital a few years later in 1959 herbert would find work in times square of all places at hubert's museum and live flea circus it was a kind of amusement park carnival but according to herbert this was actually a sweet gig and after a few years he had gained enough exposure to secure himself both a manager and a new audience in various clubs and cafes around greenwich village and this is where we get his first collection of recordings [Music] i was actually singing subway trains singing uh in the streets and back alleys you weren't getting paid for this no only in applause are hoots i used to run by day and sing at night there wasn't any vacant time through 1950 to 1967 there was always either a party there was a nightclub there was an amateur show there was a street alley i was always [Music] during this period tiny tim appeared in a smattering of independent films including jack smith's experimental film normal love as well as the film you are what you eat [Music] [Applause] in 1967 tiny tim met bob dylan in the basement of a club called big pink apparently the conversation went like this i told mr bob dylan when i had the pleasure of being with him alone he asked me mr tim tell me about rudy valley and i told him back in 1929 mr valley one of the greatest early romantic crooners he was the first sinatra woman went crazy over him in 1929 when he came on the microphone and here's how i felt one of his numbers [Music] he also told him mr dillon you are today to folk music what rudy valley was to romantic music in the early days of radio and records he proceeded to perform dillon's don't think twice it's all right and like a rolling stone in the style of a 30s crooner later in his career tiny tim would incorporate a bob dylan impression into his act mr dylan supposing you were alive in 1929 how would you be singing my time is your time my time is your time your time is my time we he also covered nowhere man in front of george harrison himself in his unique style oh hello two nice beatles uh it's so wonderful what a thrill it is talking here uh in mr harrison's presence mr weiss's presence and all his nice wonderful friends and the thing is i just want to say merry christmas to you all and a happy new year would you like to sing us a little song [Music] in 1966 a talent booker for the merv griffin show spotted him in a new york club and offered him a spot on the talk show but he was not well received and i wasn't able to track down this appearance mo austin went to new york to sign jimi hendrix and tiny tim was the opening act on the bill austin was a shrewd record business veteran he recognized tiny tim's earning potential even as a novelty act in the fall of 1967 austin signed the strummer to a record deal tiny cut his ties with his manager and moved to los angeles to record his first album god bless tiny time [Music] the album also featured two covers which would become very prominent fixtures of tiny tim's career including marie shevalians living in the sunshine [Music] but even more famous was his rendition of tiptoe through the tulips [Music] that is where oils become tips [Music] the album was produced by engineer richard perry [Music] no one in a million years would have ever thought that tiny tim would be able to make not only an album but an album that i'm very proud to say was revered by the rock intelligentsia by the public by everyone his producer richard perry brought him to audition for roane and martin's laffin co-host dick martin recalls when tiny tim initially auditioned he walked in in full regalia with his long coat and his shopping bag and walked up to the where we were auditioning and he pulled out the ukulele out of the shopping bag and went into a [Music] [Music] i song make believe that i'm a hockey goalie in a net uh when the hockey season's on and when the baseball season's on i make believe i'm up at bat uh and i'm batting in the opposition's party [Music] a smile will steal her heart away [Music] [Music] but even at the height of his fame tiny tim was still trying to be a musical archivist he was always trying to educate his audience about who exactly wrote these songs he was singing mauricio valiant harry richmond billy murray rudy valley charles harrison dick hames irving kaufman byron g harlan bert williams crosby and jolson henry burr and he appeared on plenty of other talk show programs other than rowan and martin's laffin including the late show with johnny carson in march of 1968. but on april 4th 1968 tiny tim's appearance went almost unnoticed that morning martin luther king jr was gunned down at the lorraine hotel in memphis tennessee as the news flashed around the world tiny tim was singing tiptoe through the tulips and being interviewed by host johnny carson it no longer seemed like tiny tim's chipper and vaudevillian style suited the time hey did you see yellow submarine no i can't stand japanese war movies [Music] and as this fame grew so did the stories of his bizarre personal life behind the scenes one of the managers described at one point going to tiny's room late at night and became aware of the fact that tiny was moving from chair to chair pretending to have a dinner party he must have been very lonely you know what i mean and then there's the issue of his religion ever since he was little herbert practiced this kind of fire and brimstone style of christianity very fundamentalist and it definitely influenced his relationships his marriages and he was very outspoken about his religious views tiny had definite images of what a woman should be and a definite perception of how a woman should be in a marriage relationship a lot of it came from his own head some of it came from the bible he felt that the woman should be subservient to the man he found this girl hiding in the shower and she proceeded to pour honey over his entire body and then slowly lick it off this was okay with him because he wasn't in any way engaging in the sexual act all my songs i always go on a dream world and i think of young beautiful angels about 19 years old and pure thoughts of course and his preference for purity would mean he would always date younger women so when he wrote a book called beautiful thoughts he went on a book tour and that's where he actually met his first wife vicki at the young age of 16. his words were i saw her face and i couldn't get her out of my mind tiny arranged a meeting within weeks tiny tim and vicki buttinger were standing face to face in atlantic city the chemistry between the lanky crooner and the nubile teenager was instant in his typically formal manner tiny tim referred to his new girlfriend as miss vicki could have been maybe a month month and a half and then they were already talking about you know getting married and then later in 1968 tiny tim returned to the johnny carson show when he first announced that he had a girlfriend people assumed and i think carson assumed that she would be a female version of tiny and invited him to have her on the show the next time he came on and he brings out this very pretty young girl dressed very demurely and i think people are genuinely shocked but tiny always had extremely high standards for female beauty during the interview tiny tim mentioned the couple's impending nuptials and it was during the commercial break rudy went over to johnny's desk and whispered in his ear we came back from commercial johnny turned too tiny and said well why don't you and miss vicki get married here people remember that that was the most viewed late night show in the history of television this was the height of tiny tim's fame tiny tim and miss vicki's wedding was viewed by over 21 million households on the tonight show [Applause] [Music] were you abusive during that marriage at all i only once was trying i i could have lost have lost my temper she knew what jesus christ meant that i didn't believe in cheating she left me there was a letter from somebody in bermuda some man she met who wrote to her without my knowing and she had committed adultery before the marriage then one day i had a date she was ready to go and then she changed her mind i said you're changing your mind now you're embarrassing me so basically of course i get angry there i mean uh i i mean i i think i was a little justified and i still wouldn't divorce her because i don't believe in divorce she got a divorce because the state of jersey gave it to her in 1977 when i couldn't afford to come up there if you could talk to tulip right now what would you say to her i would say to her you don't have to call me father because right i wasn't there so it's very easy to see why miss vicki left him and even though tiny tim would remarry several times throughout his life he would often write that miss vicki was his only true wife because he did not believe in divorce meanwhile his career continued to plug along mostly with appearances on variety shows he also began singing in a lower register to kind of distance himself from what he saw as a gimmick he even did a pretty good elvish [Music] [Music] well everyone has feelings everyone has emotions are you real mona lisa no i guess i'm just a cold and lonely lovely work of art tiny tim's second album was called appropriately enough tiny tim's second album and even though it was not as well received as his first it has some really good songs [Music] [Applause] so actually when the real second album came out to the latter part of 68 in the fall it didn't move anymore and i didn't have a good reputation in the business and then from there you did the end the big children's album you did and uh and that this one wasn't too this was a record that this this was the worst record in record history oh dear apparently these people wanted twenty five thousand dollars this was done in 62. okay and when the typical tools came out in 68 they wanted 25 000 not to put it out and warners wouldn't pay the bribe and so for a while it killed me in the business years ago they said i'd never make it [Music] they tried to stick a pin in my balloon they said i was too strange and my dreams were all in vain but they said the same about man there are people out there in this business who'll sign everybody up especially they know they're looking for a break they'll take any talent good or bad and sign into a contract have the forms printed up in a contract uh printing office have a pad and sign them up and put in a drawer they don't know what they're signing right off the streets and promise them everything and it'll go into a drawer i'll never hear from them again and it should be noted at this time tiny tim did have a daughter with miss vicki but he was estranged her name was tulip and tiny tim was not supportive so miss vicki was forced to go on welfare tiny's appearances began to dwindle more and more and since tony really didn't care how little money he made he would perform no matter how sparse performing second class lounges he performed in motel lounges he even once played at a trailer park bar in 1984 tiny joined the allen sea hill great american circus that's right has been star singer in the circus at any time who sung half this long the wall street journal came down and said how can they travel i mean from las vegas to the mudshow they called it and i said frankly you haven't got the right idea you know this is like the last living part of wardrobe [Music] and during the last phase of tiny tim's career many of his appearances begin to feel more like exploitation than opportunity he appeared as a clown in a horror film exactly one of his heartbeats you want my body and you think i'm sexy come on what do you expect in two days in two days you could do all your holiday shopping at ames [Music] and in his attempts to reclaim his former fame it started to get pretty weird in 1990 the performer ran unsuccessfully for mayor of new york city in 1992 he signed on his running mate for perennial presidential candidate comedian pat paulson while his political efforts failed tiny tim continued to play low rent venues his odd behavior became even odder i used one a day instead of underwear it keeps me nice and clean it's so sanitary i wish the pen would make an elastic underwear like that throwaways up to the waist so i don't have to use those cumbersome straps he would go through uh three or four big jars of fulfill the fish at a time and uh probably uh six eight pieces of fish in the jar i'm and he'd just stick his hands in there and pull it out and eat it with his hands and then down it with a with a beer when it appeared the singer's career was at an all-time low tiny tim was invited to be a guest on howard stern's radio show his career really started to change when howard stern started inviting him on the show that changed a lot because people started to hear tiny every day and really realized that this was not an act the appearances on howard stern brought tiny tim back into the limelight until they had a falling out over jesus is it hard calling a grown man tiny how should i know when was the last time he did the show see the day it happened i had no idea that that uh tiny was into jesus and i must have casually said like look when you're on the air you say oh jesus i said it a couple of times i don't remember saying that much about jesus but something set him off and he hasn't been on the show since this happened and it's too bad because this is another guy who's a phenomenal radio guest he's turned us down at least a half a dozen times since then this is a man who had just talked about giving a back rep to another man how could we have upset him i'm telling you the truth the way it is i thank jesus christ for saving my soul and i've gone through the whole rigmarole all right this is not mentioned on this show i understand i know you're a light funny show here yes but you should tell your listeners that jesus christ does rule my life and i have sinned like everyone else but i thankfully would if you i'd like to say that i was about to say it no you wouldn't have because you had talked over me jesus i want to pray to jesus right now you know you've changed me i want to pray to jesus if i may all right he's getting upset i think i am getting upset because you're taking jesus christ's name in vain it's one thing to talk about other things but you're supposed to be normal and on the show and you're taking his name in vain and i reject it i i despise that oh well wait a second when did you do that i don't know i'm not sure when say i'm gonna pray to jesus now myself blessed are christ that's right blessed be christ put tiny ukulele in his mouth forever i reject the fact that you're making fun of jesus christ i'm not making fun of you yes you are i'm not you're mocking his name you don't believe in him i do believe it oh you don't like kind well now can you come on tommy you can get into an argument with tiny tim huh i don't know i'm getting nervous here at this point though his penchant for binge eating and drinking were starting to catch up with him he was diagnosed with diabetes but against doctors recommendations he continued performing and he's i have a show to do in two hours and i'm gonna go play and he wouldn't listen to the doctor by now he was 62 and although his health was deteriorating his appetite for young women was not in 1995 the performer met 39 year old harvard graduate sue gardner in minneapolis the fact that when he got married to mizzou i think there was a it was a turning point in his life it was the first stable relationship he had mitsu was the best thing that ever happened to him in 1979 tiny tim played when the saints go marching in for about two hours and 17 minutes before he gracefully transitioned into tiptoes [Music] is [Music] fortunately doctors revived him and there's footage of him after this accident in the hospital after he bumped his head and one short month later tiny tim was performing tiptoe through the tulips for the women's club of minneapolis minnesota when suddenly he stopped singing he clutched his chest and staggered off stage miss sue asked him are you alright and he said no tiny tim suffered a fatal heart attack and was pronounced dead on arrival he left behind miss sue and an estranged daughter so where do we place tiny tim in our collective conscious if he were still around today he surely would have been cancelled for all the misogynistic behavior he openly displayed throughout his life when i started delving into the research for this video i would have never predicted that this silly man this eclectic and daring singer from the 60s would also be such a troubled and kind of disturbing figure at the same time he longed so much to exist in the past that he had no chance of staying relevant in the future nor able to stay aligned with basic modern values to me he always seemed kind of frustrated in his appearances like no one is really getting it he's trying to show them what in his mind is the most beautiful thing in the world but they just laughed at him or saw him as a kind of curiosity and it doesn't seem like anyone in his life except maybe miss sue was able to fully appreciate the sincerity of his pursuit since his death his music has been used not only in cartoons but also horror films [Music] vicky was it love at first sight um it was really lovely no don't say that tiny tim was a complex troubled troubadour he was king for a day but he suffered a lifetime of defeats [Music] regardless he'll always be remembered best for tiptoeing through those tulips if there is another 20 years uh i think that time is all going to be out in space you think you'll be out there too well i hope i am i hope i'm with you uh i think it's all gonna be out in space uh it's all gonna be way up there thanks so much for watching and thanks so much to my patrons over at patreon you guys make a big difference and and make it possible for me to keep doing these videos so thank you so much and if you'd like to subscribe please click below yada yada all right guys have a great day do you sleep in the nude no way

Channel: Jeffrey Stillwell

Views: 335,456

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Id: Iq3zLzycthY

Length: 30min 42sec (1842 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020