Person Biography:
Herbert Khaury, better known as Tiny Tim, was born on April 12, 1932, in New York City. His parents, a Lebanese father and Jewish mother, raised him in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Khaury grew up with a fascination for the popular music of the 1890s to the 1930s, and he learned to play guitar and ukulele. He began performing professionally as "Larry Love" in the early 1950s, eventually adopting the stage name Tiny Tim.
As a cult performer in the Greenwich Village music scene, Khaury sang under the name Tiny Tim, which was allegedly suggested by a manager who worked with midgets. Despite standing at over six feet tall, the name helped to reinforce his bizarre persona. He appeared on various TV shows, including "You Are What You Eat" and "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," and became an instant sensation.
Tiny Tim's unique appearance and act, which evoked the polite manners of a bygone era, resonated with audiences and made him a cultural phenomenon. He released several albums, including "God Bless Tiny Tim" and "Tiny Tim's Second Album," and had a hit single with his falsetto cover of "Tip-Toe Through the Tulips."
In 1969, Tiny Tim married his 17-year-old girlfriend, Vicki Budinger, on "The Tonight Show," and the wedding drew the largest rating ever recorded for an evening talk show. He continued to perform and record throughout the 1970s and 1980s, eventually joining a circus and managing a small comeback in the mid-1990s. Tiny Tim died on November 30, 1996, at the age of 64, after suffering a heart attack while performing "Tip-Toe Through the Tulips" in Minneapolis.
