One-hit wonder Tiny Tim

Surely Tiny Tim, born Herbert Butros Khaury, was the strangest entetainer ever to come down the pike. He was a good-sized man, over six feet and well-fed looking, yet gangling, geekish and given to odd, girlish mannerisms. He usually sang in a high, trembling falsetto, although his actual range was that of a baritone, and he accompanied himself by strumming a ukulele. His hair was long and apparently unkempt. His one big hit was Tiptoe Through the Tulips, which was an oldie like many of the numbers he used in his act. His singing harkened back to the days of Vaudeville and Rudy Valee.

Tiny was a walking font of knowledge about America's musical past, although he also sang more recent songs such as Your Cheatin' Heart or Are You Lonesome Tonight (It took guts to follow Elvis on that one).

Much of America got to know him on the Johnny Carson Show, and a record audience watched (and probably made wisecracks) when Tiny married "Miss Vicki," Victoria Budinger, who was a tender 17 compared to Tiny's 36 at that time, 1969--on the Carson Show. The couple divorced in 1971 having had a daugher, Tulip. His career floundered, he married again (to "Miss Jan"--his habit was to call everyone Miss this or Mr. that-- worked for a time with a circus and again divorced in 1995, soon thereafter marrying for a third time, this time around to "Miss Sue." In 1996, during a Minneapolis performance of Tiptoe Through the Tulips, he collapsed and died of a heart attack. There have been many entertainers who were diffrent and might be said to have danced to a different tune. Tiny Tim danced to a whole different orchestra.