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Tiny Tim
By Harry Stein, published in 1976 by Playboy press. Excellent 243 page book on Tiny's amazing life and career with eight pages of black & white photos.
"Tiny tells his side of the story. Because he believes it his religious obligation, he describes everything; the times as a young man he was almost committed to a mental institution; his years of struggle in gay clubs; his startling success; his sexual escapades; his highly publicized marriage to Miss Vicky; his often acrimonious relationships with an army of managers, agents and lawyers".
"Tiny tells his side of the story. Because he believes it his religious obligation, he describes everything; the times as a young man he was almost committed to a mental institution; his years of struggle in gay clubs; his startling success; his sexual escapades; his highly publicized marriage to Miss Vicky; his often acrimonious relationships with an army of managers, agents and lawyers".
243 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
79 people want to read
About the author
Harry Stein
77 books21 followersConservative author Harry Stein is known for his light touch on hard topics: How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (And Found Inner Peace): I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican; The Idiot Vote -- The Democrats' Core Constituency; etc. Now, with his comic novel Will Tripp, Pissed Off Attorney-at-Law , he does his bit to take back popular culture from the radical left.
Harry Stein is a veteran author and journalist who, in his earlier life as a liberal, regularly wrote for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Playboy and Esquire, among other places he will never appear again. A contributing editor to City Journal, he written twelve books.
Harry Stein is a veteran author and journalist who, in his earlier life as a liberal, regularly wrote for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Playboy and Esquire, among other places he will never appear again. A contributing editor to City Journal, he written twelve books.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 13, 2008
This was an interesting biography of Tiny Tim written in the 70's. Tiny Tim was a nice man but had many strange habits and ideas about many things. It seems he actually got even weirder as the years passed. He was even more off the wall in interviews I remember hearing with him on Howard Stern in the 90's than he was in this book and thats saying a lot. In this age of contrived weirdness its rather nice to read about someone who really was an entertaining unique odd personality instead of todays pathological attention seekers.
February 1, 2022
Trite as it is to say, truth is indeed stranger than fiction. If ya don't believe me, look no further than the story of Tiny Tim for proof. In this sadly out-of-print biography, author Harry Stein takes us through the story of a genuine eccentric who, for a brief moment, held the public's attention.
With his stringy hair, pancake makeup, thrift store suits, ukulele, encyclopedic knowledge of early 20th century popular music (from Tin Pan Alley to classic Hollywood musicals), and a voice that jumped from crooning baritone to eardrum-piercing falsetto, Tiny Tim became a genuine media star. His quirky, effeminate personality both charmed and confused talk-show audiences, and his biggest single was written 40 years before he cracked the top 20 with it. He set record levels for tv viewership when he and his wife were wed on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.
He was a musician, though to the public at large, he was first and foremost a freak show. (Personal aside: His Reprise albums do deserve re-evaluation, as they were ornate, thoughtful collections of old tunes brought to life in a psych-pop style. Producer Richard Perry could have cranked out cheap novelty records on Tiny Tim, but he really did strive to make them the excellent albums they are.)
But for all of his charm, Tiny was a man riddled with flaws. Naive to a fault, he would sign just about any contract placed in front of him and would blow exorbitant amounts of money while not paying attention to how badly he was being scammed by a succession of handlers, managers, agents, etc. He burned an awful lot of bridges, personally and professionally. In private, his mind was dominated by a rigorous homebrewed version of Christianity which he leaned on to control his strange sexual urges. He was governed further by his habits, obsessions, conservative views, and rituals (like constant showering, never eating in public, etc.).
Tiny Tim, it seems, was doomed to fail.
In this biography, Harry Stein charts the course of Tiny's childhood, years in the Greenwich Village talent show circuit, rise to fame, and freefall, ending in 1976 While there were still two more decades of decline to go at the time of this book's publication, Stein does a fantastic job painting a portrait of why Tiny Tim's downfall was inevitable.
Although not an oral history in the purest sense, Stein's biography is laid out in a way that doesn't just rely on an unreliable main subject. Instead, points of view are volleyed back and forth. Tiny will recount events in his life for a section, and in the following section somebody else who was involved will tell their perspective. Stein gives us context and details that are needed, but he leaves it up to the reader to suss out the truth that exists somewhere between the varied perspectives. We hear from so many important figures in Tiny's life; this includes girlfriends, managers, relatives, and even Tiny's (in)famous child bride, Miss Vicki!
This can be a frustrating read, particularly in light of Tiny Tim's habitual self-sabotage. But ultimately, it is a fascinating, engaging read for anyone with the slightest interest in this unique and singular figure in pop culture. A reprinting of this book is long overdue (copies are easily over $100, though you may be able to obtain a copy, as I did, via Inter-Library Loan).
With his stringy hair, pancake makeup, thrift store suits, ukulele, encyclopedic knowledge of early 20th century popular music (from Tin Pan Alley to classic Hollywood musicals), and a voice that jumped from crooning baritone to eardrum-piercing falsetto, Tiny Tim became a genuine media star. His quirky, effeminate personality both charmed and confused talk-show audiences, and his biggest single was written 40 years before he cracked the top 20 with it. He set record levels for tv viewership when he and his wife were wed on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.
He was a musician, though to the public at large, he was first and foremost a freak show. (Personal aside: His Reprise albums do deserve re-evaluation, as they were ornate, thoughtful collections of old tunes brought to life in a psych-pop style. Producer Richard Perry could have cranked out cheap novelty records on Tiny Tim, but he really did strive to make them the excellent albums they are.)
But for all of his charm, Tiny was a man riddled with flaws. Naive to a fault, he would sign just about any contract placed in front of him and would blow exorbitant amounts of money while not paying attention to how badly he was being scammed by a succession of handlers, managers, agents, etc. He burned an awful lot of bridges, personally and professionally. In private, his mind was dominated by a rigorous homebrewed version of Christianity which he leaned on to control his strange sexual urges. He was governed further by his habits, obsessions, conservative views, and rituals (like constant showering, never eating in public, etc.).
Tiny Tim, it seems, was doomed to fail.
In this biography, Harry Stein charts the course of Tiny's childhood, years in the Greenwich Village talent show circuit, rise to fame, and freefall, ending in 1976 While there were still two more decades of decline to go at the time of this book's publication, Stein does a fantastic job painting a portrait of why Tiny Tim's downfall was inevitable.
Although not an oral history in the purest sense, Stein's biography is laid out in a way that doesn't just rely on an unreliable main subject. Instead, points of view are volleyed back and forth. Tiny will recount events in his life for a section, and in the following section somebody else who was involved will tell their perspective. Stein gives us context and details that are needed, but he leaves it up to the reader to suss out the truth that exists somewhere between the varied perspectives. We hear from so many important figures in Tiny's life; this includes girlfriends, managers, relatives, and even Tiny's (in)famous child bride, Miss Vicki!
This can be a frustrating read, particularly in light of Tiny Tim's habitual self-sabotage. But ultimately, it is a fascinating, engaging read for anyone with the slightest interest in this unique and singular figure in pop culture. A reprinting of this book is long overdue (copies are easily over $100, though you may be able to obtain a copy, as I did, via Inter-Library Loan).
December 23, 2014
This book is an absolute treasure. I recently discovered Tiny Tim when a friend of mine posted a video of him on Facebook. After seeing it, I had to see all of them. And then I had to know everything about him. Of the three books out there on Tiny Tim, this book had the best reviews, so I decided that this was the one that I would read. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow it from my library, rather than spending $150 on an OOP copy.
This book is very cleverly written. Rather than dividing it up into chapters, the author would include Tiny's point of view of an event and then he would show other peoples' views of the same event. What made this set-up so special, is that from the very beginning, the reader realizes that Tiny has his own way that he perceives the world in both how it is and how it should be. As Tiny tells his tale, it makes perfect sense, the way he sees it. Then you are shown the point of view of how things went down from a manager, or a girlfriend's or wife's point of view and you realize that when Tiny speaks, you are dragged down into some kind of rabbit hole and reemerge in some peculiar universe where strange is perfectly normal. Tiny, as we learn in this book was such a complex person. I would even go so far as to say that he was otherworldly.
This review does not even do this book justice. It really is brilliant. If you are looking for an honest glimpse into the life of Tiny Tim, then look no further. This is the book for you. I can not recommend it enough.
This book is very cleverly written. Rather than dividing it up into chapters, the author would include Tiny's point of view of an event and then he would show other peoples' views of the same event. What made this set-up so special, is that from the very beginning, the reader realizes that Tiny has his own way that he perceives the world in both how it is and how it should be. As Tiny tells his tale, it makes perfect sense, the way he sees it. Then you are shown the point of view of how things went down from a manager, or a girlfriend's or wife's point of view and you realize that when Tiny speaks, you are dragged down into some kind of rabbit hole and reemerge in some peculiar universe where strange is perfectly normal. Tiny, as we learn in this book was such a complex person. I would even go so far as to say that he was otherworldly.
This review does not even do this book justice. It really is brilliant. If you are looking for an honest glimpse into the life of Tiny Tim, then look no further. This is the book for you. I can not recommend it enough.
July 19, 2015
This book desperately needs to be reprinted. Easily one of the most fascinating bios I've ever read, this book alternates between interviews with Tiny and others who were involved in his career up until 1975. There are, of course, big contradictions in how each person views certain events, but overall you get the idea that Tiny was doomed by his own nature and eccentricities. The book ends on a depressing note, with Tiny moving back home with his mother after his divorce from Miss Vicki, and it's a shame that we don't have an in-depth follow up to his life afterwards, with two more marriages and the small resurgence of his career.
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October 3, 2012God bless tiny Tim
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews