Young people won't know Tiny Tim, but for a brief period in the mid-to-late 1960s, he was such a big star that he was actually married (to his first wife) on "The Johnny Carson Show," the premiere late-night TV talk show in America at the time. Born Herbert Khoury in New York City of a Lebanese Christian father and a Russian Jewish mother in 1932, he endured a harsh childhood because his parents showed no love toward him and he was always, always weird. His need to express his authentic self, which was simultaneously batty, serious, male, female, and to the greatest height honest, brought him huge problems - but also his great success; there literally was nobody else like him. For a time in the 1960s, that great celebratory time of authentic selfhood, he was the most lauded artist in the land; for the rest of his life (he died of a heart attack in 1996), he was not. In some ways his later life was tragically sad, reduced to playing in circus carnivals (where he also got his start) or in high school auditoriums where teenagers laughed at him, but in other ways it was revelatory, because he could never stop being his authentic self. Some unsavory bits to his life, of course (as a woman I wasn't too happy with his attitudes towards women, for example, and his association with Mafia types was rather unfortunate), but overall this documentary shows the life of an exceptional man. The "inner voice" narrative, fittingly provided by Weird Al Yankovic, comes from Tim's own diaries, adding even greater understanding and pathos to this unique individual. Well worth a look; highly recommended!
