Directed by Johan von Sydow
Written by Martin Daniel
Runtime: 1 hour 18 minutes
In theaters April 23

by Melissa Strong, Contributor

Alternately entertaining and discomfiting, the biographical documentary Tiny Tim: King for a Day examines the life and times of an entertainer who remains as polarizing a figure as he was during the peak of his popularity. Hearing his signature falsetto coming out of a 6’1” tall man with unusual looks certainly is surprising, especially when Tiny Tim used it to perform covers of popular songs–including “Tiptoe through the Tulips,” his most famous tune–on ukulele. As much as some people hated Tiny Tim, others loved him.

The people who made Tiny Tim: King for a Day adore him, as do most of those who appear in it. The doc is based on a 2016 biography, Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life Of Tiny Tim by Justin Martell, which Dr. Demento called the best book on the subject, praising its “balanced attitude toward this complex and remarkable man.” Tiny Tim: King for a Day makes a persuasive case for the complexity and cultural importance of the man his friends called Tiny. A bit short on balanced attitude, it glosses over events that don’t fit its narrative. The documentary barely acknowledges its subject’s missteps, including some truly creepy behavior involving underage girls.

Its strength is the seriousness with which it takes a cartoonish yet indelible celebrity and the way it tells his story. Tiny Tim: King for a Day uses footage of performances and interviews along with tortured, poignant diary entries solemnly voiced by “Weird Al” Yankovich to allow Tiny Tim speak for himself. The opening scene accomplishes this in a powerful way. The screen remains dark as a recording of Tiny Tim plays, his impressive vocal range encompassing both the male and female voices and characters in Sonny & Cher’s 1965 hit “I Got You Babe.” Cut to a TV appearance in which Tiny Tim, strikingly well spoken throughout, describes himself as “the biggest miracle in the history of show biz,” a self-proclaimed freak who became a star.

What made Tiny Tim a freak in the eyes of so many, including himself? It was more than his voice and its unsettling juxtaposition with his size and masculinity. Born Herbert Butrous Khaury in Manhattan in 1932, Tiny Tim was a first-generation American and the product of an intercultural, interfaith marriage during a time when such unions were even more rare than they are today. His father was a Christian from Lebanon, his mother a Jew from Belarus. However, both parents appeared to be average-looking people, and Tiny Tim: King for a Day paints them as feeling mystified by their odd-looking, misfit kid. His first audiences hurled eggs and insults at Khaury when he busked on the street. According to a friend, passersby “got mad because he was so damn weird”–a hulking, longhaired, ambiguously ethnic, ambiguously gendered person in 1950s New York. In contrast, strangers smile, nod, and compliment when I play ukulele in public, but I am a petite, unambiguously gendered, cis white woman who sings in a standard pop alto. Let’s pause for a moment to marvel at Tiny Tim’s chutzpah, tenacity, and fortitude. 

In addition to these qualities, Herbert Khaury showed musical talent as well as self-awareness from an early age. He sought solace in music, and his stage persona began to develop when he discovered his ability to sing falsetto, which he called his “new” or “sissy voice.” A diary entry intoned by Weird Al reveals that Khaury regarded his vocal range as a divine gift as well as a commandment: “God told me to sing in the sissy voice.” By the late 1950s, he landed his first steady gig in a freak show in Times Square, which billed him as Larry the Human Canary. From there, he began performing at bars and cabarets in the Village, where he was embraced by proto-counterculture types and the queer community. In these venues he adopted his stage name, which played on the juxtaposition between his appearance and his voice. At first, many wondered if Tiny Tim’s act was a gag. Realizing he was genuine won over some viewers. This was the key to his growing popularity, for despite his musical gifts, Tiny Tim is best known for embracing being a so-called freak. Little wonder then that he found supporters and fans in other cultural outsiders. As Wavy Gravy–the most vocal defender in the documentary–puts it, seeing Tiny Tim perform for the first time “cooked my brain.”

From there, Tiny Tim: King for a Day follows a series of milestones in the performer’s ascent to and fall from stardom, relating them to various sociocultural forces. All this is treated too superficially to be satisfying, especially considering that Tiny Tim’s first marriage aired live on The Tonight Show, long before the advent of reality television. More than 40 million people tuned in, making the wedding the second-biggest-ever TV audience at the time–only the Apollo 11 moon landing had more viewers. Yet as things unravel for Tiny Tim so does King for a Day, giving unsatisfactory treatment to Tiny Tim’s three marriages and fall to near-obscurity before his death on stage in 1996. Despite this, the documentary fits in a dig at Donald Trump. I’m no fan, but criticizing Trump’s lechery and sexism seems hypocritical when Tiny Tim’s get a green light.

Ultimately, Tiny Tim: King for a Day makes an unconvincing claim that the weirdo with the falsetto, the ukulele, and the shopping bag paved the way for boundary-pushing geniuses like Bowie and Prince. Rather, it argues persuasively for regarding Tiny Tim not as a novelty act but as a cultural force that responded to and resonated with the times, however briefly. Sometimes sad and always interesting, King for a Day chronicles the life of a person bold enough to embrace his authentic self even when others laughed and mocked, a feat few others can achieve.