Billy Barty
Encyclopedia
Billy Barty was an American film actor.
, was born William John Bertanzetti in Millsboro, Pennsylvania
. He co-starred with Mickey Rooney
in the Mickey McGuire
shorts, a comedy series of the 1920s and 1930s based on the "Toonervile Trolley" comics, and similar in tone to the "Our Gang"/"Little Rascals" comedies. In The Gold Diggers of 1933, a nine-year-old Barty appeared as a baby who escapes from his stroller. He also appeared as The Child in Footlight Parade
(1933). Because of his stature, much of his work consisted of bit parts and gag roles, although he was featured prominently in The Day of the Locust
(1975), W.C. Fields and Me
(1976), The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington
(1977), Foul Play
and The Lord of the Rings
(both 1978), Under the Rainbow
(1981), Night Patrol (1984), Legend
(1985), Masters of the Universe
(1987), Willow
(1988), UHF
(1989), Life Stinks
and Radioland Murders
(1994). Barty was known for his boundless energy and enthusiasm for any productions in which he appeared. He also performed a remarkable impression of pianist Liberace
. He performed with the Spike Jones
musical comedy show on stage and television, including Club Oasis
on NBC
. Earlier, he appeared several times on NBC's The Dennis Day Show
, including once as a leprechaun
. Barty played the evil sidekick on the 1970s Saturday morning TV series Dr. Shrinker
, and was a regular cast member of Redd Foxx
's variety show The Redd Foxx Show
. He was regularly seen on the Canadian comedy show Bizarre, a weekly Canadian TV sketch comedy series, airing from 1980 to 1985. The show was hosted by John Byner
.
Barty also starred in a local Southern California children's show, "Billy Barty's Bigtop," in the mid-1960s, which regularly showed The Three Stooges shorts. In one program, Stooge Moe Howard
visited the set as a surprise guest. The program gave many Los Angeles-area children their first opportunity to become familiar with little people, who until then had been rarely glimpsed on the screen except as two-dimensional curiosities.
Barty also starred as "Sigmund" in the popular children's television show "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in 1974-1976. In 1983, Barty supplied the voice for Figment in EPCOT Center's Journey Into Imagination
dark ride. He subsequently supplied a reprisal for the second incarnation, though very brief.
Barty was a noted activist for the promotion of rights for others with dwarfism. He was disappointed with contemporary Hervé Villechaize
's insistence that they were "midget
s" instead of actors with dwarfism. Barty founded the Little People of America
to help with his activism.
Barty was married to Shirley Bolingbroke of Malad City, Idaho
, from 1962 until his death. They had two children, Lori Neilson and TV/film producer and director Braden Barty
.
Barty and his family belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A tribute book on his life was published in December 2002. Within Reach: An Inspirational Journey into the Life, Legacy and Influence of Billy Barty was produced by Barty's nephew, Michael Copeland, and Michael's wife, Debra.
Barty was a beloved annual guest-star on Canada's Telemiracle
telethon, one of the most successful (per capita) telethons in the world.
In 1990 Barty was sued in small claims court by two of the writers of his cancelled comedy TV series Short Ribbs
, which aired for 13 weeks in Fall 1989 as a local program on KDOC-TV
; producer and writer William Winckler
, and writer Warren Taylor, filed separate lawsuits against Barty for money owed, and Barty lost both cases. News of Barty losing in small claims court made headlines all over the world, with lead stories such as Barty Comes Up Short in Small Claims, and other such puns. Barty claimed the lawsuit news was the most negative publicity he ever got, and compared it to similar bad press Zsa Zsa Gabor
received for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer.
In 1991 Barty was the subject of a punk rock song called "Lou's In The House" recorded by The Squids
. The songs first lyric is "Billy Barty had a party and everyone was there."
.
Biography
Barty, an Italian AmericanItalian American
An Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...
, was born William John Bertanzetti in Millsboro, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. He co-starred with Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
in the Mickey McGuire
Mickey McGuire (film series)
Mickey McGuire was an American comedy series of short subjects from 1927 to 1934. The series was notable for essentially launching the careers of Mickey Rooney and Billy Barty. The series was based on Fontaine Fox's popular comic strip series, Toonerville Trolley. The series was very popular in its...
shorts, a comedy series of the 1920s and 1930s based on the "Toonervile Trolley" comics, and similar in tone to the "Our Gang"/"Little Rascals" comedies. In The Gold Diggers of 1933, a nine-year-old Barty appeared as a baby who escapes from his stroller. He also appeared as The Child in Footlight Parade
Footlight Parade
-Cast:*James Cagney as Chester Kent, creator of musical prologues*Joan Blondell as Nan Prescott, his secretary*Ruby Keeler as Bea Thorn, dancer turned secretary turned dancer*Dick Powell as Scott 'Scotty' Blair, juvenile lead, former protege of Mrs...
(1933). Because of his stature, much of his work consisted of bit parts and gag roles, although he was featured prominently in The Day of the Locust
The Day of the Locust (film)
The Day of the Locust is a 1975 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger. The screenplay by Waldo Salt is based on the 1939 novel of the same title by Nathanael West...
(1975), W.C. Fields and Me
W.C. Fields and Me
W.C. Fields and Me is a 1976 American biographical film directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Rod Steiger and Valerie Perrine. The screenplay by Bob Merrill is based on a memoir by Carlotta Monti, mistress of W.C. Fields for the last 14 years of his life....
(1976), The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington
The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington
The Happy Hooker goes to Washington is a 1977 comedy film directed by William A. Levey. It was the sequel to The Happy Hooker, which was released in 1975. Joey Heatherton replaced Lynn Redgrave as the lead character of Xaviera Hollander.Joe E...
(1977), Foul Play
Foul Play
Foul Play is a 1978 American comic mystery/thriller film written and directed by Colin Higgins. In it, a recently divorced librarian is drawn into a mystery when a stranger hides a roll of film in a pack of cigarettes and gives it to her for safekeeping....
and The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It contains both animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a more consistent look throughout the length of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of the high fantasy...
(both 1978), Under the Rainbow
Under the Rainbow
Under the Rainbow is a 1981 comedy film starring Chevy Chase, Carrie Fisher, Eve Arden, and Billy Barty.The plot is loosely based on the gathering of little people in a Hollywood hotel, to audition for roles as Munchkins in the movie The Wizard of Oz...
(1981), Night Patrol (1984), Legend
Legend (film)
Legend is a 1985 fantasy film released by Universal Pictures, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, and Tim Curry. Though not a very notable success when first released, it received a single Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup, and since its initial release, has developed...
(1985), Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe (film)
Masters of the Universe is a 1987 science-fiction fantasy film based on the toy line by the same name. The movie stars Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and Frank Langella as Skeletor...
(1987), Willow
Willow (film)
Willow is a 1988 American fantasy film directed by Ron Howard and produced/co-written by George Lucas. Warwick Davis stars in the film, as well as Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Jean Marsh, and Patricia Hayes...
(1988), UHF
UHF (film)
UHF is a 1989 American comedy film starring "Weird Al" Yankovic, David Bowe, Fran Drescher, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, Gedde Watanabe, Billy Barty, Anthony Geary, Emo Philips and Trinidad Silva, in whose memory the film is dedicated.The title refers to Ultra High Frequency...
(1989), Life Stinks
Life Stinks
Life Stinks is a 1991 comedy-drama directed by and starring Mel Brooks. It is known as one of the few Mel Brooks comedies that is not a parody, nor at any time does the film break the fourth wall. It co-stars Lesley Ann Warren, Howard Morris and Jeffrey Tambor...
and Radioland Murders
Radioland Murders
Radioland Murders is a 1994 black comedy mystery film directed by Mel Smith and co-written/produced by George Lucas. Radioland Murders is set in the 1939 atmosphere of old-time radio and pays homage to the screwball comedy films of the 1930s...
(1994). Barty was known for his boundless energy and enthusiasm for any productions in which he appeared. He also performed a remarkable impression of pianist Liberace
Liberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...
. He performed with the Spike Jones
Spike Jones
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...
musical comedy show on stage and television, including Club Oasis
Club Oasis
Club Oasis is a 24-episode half-hour comedy-variety show, set in a chic simulated nightclub, which appeared on NBC in the 1957–1958 television season. The series alternated with The Polly Bergen Show in the 9 p.m. EST time slot on Saturday evenings...
on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
. Earlier, he appeared several times on NBC's The Dennis Day Show
The Dennis Day Show
The Dennis Day Show was a half-hour 1953–1954 NBC comedy/variety show starring Irish singer and radio and television personality Dennis Day , whose career otherwise was rooted as a supporting cast member of the long-running The Jack Benny Program on CBS and later NBC.From 1952 to 1953, Day hosted...
, including once as a leprechaun
Leprechaun
A leprechaun is a type of fairy in Irish folklore, usually taking the form of an old man, clad in a red or green coat, who enjoys partaking in mischief. Like other fairy creatures, leprechauns have been linked to the Tuatha Dé Danann of Irish mythology...
. Barty played the evil sidekick on the 1970s Saturday morning TV series Dr. Shrinker
Dr. Shrinker
Dr. Shrinker was a segment during the first season of the ABC network's The Krofft Supershow in 1976.-Plot:Dr. Shrinker is a mad scientist who creates a shrink ray that can miniaturize anything. Three young adults named Brad Fulton , B.J. Masterson and her brother Gordie Masterson , crash land...
, and was a regular cast member of Redd Foxx
Redd Foxx
John Elroy Sanford , better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best known for his starring role on the sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life:...
's variety show The Redd Foxx Show
The Redd Foxx Show
The Redd Foxx Show is a short-lived sitcom that premiered January 18, 1986 on ABC. The show ended after four months on air.-Overview:It followed the life of Al Hughes , a New York City newsstand owner who adopted a "street-wise" teenager named Toni...
. He was regularly seen on the Canadian comedy show Bizarre, a weekly Canadian TV sketch comedy series, airing from 1980 to 1985. The show was hosted by John Byner
John Byner
John Byner is an American actor, comedian, and impressionist who has had a lengthy television and movie career. His voice work includes the cartoon series The Ant and the Aardvark, in which the title characters are voiced by Byner's impressions of Dean Martin and Jackie Mason,...
.
Barty also starred in a local Southern California children's show, "Billy Barty's Bigtop," in the mid-1960s, which regularly showed The Three Stooges shorts. In one program, Stooge Moe Howard
Moe Howard
Moses Harry Horwitz , known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades...
visited the set as a surprise guest. The program gave many Los Angeles-area children their first opportunity to become familiar with little people, who until then had been rarely glimpsed on the screen except as two-dimensional curiosities.
Barty also starred as "Sigmund" in the popular children's television show "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in 1974-1976. In 1983, Barty supplied the voice for Figment in EPCOT Center's Journey Into Imagination
Journey Into Imagination
Journey Into Imagination With Figment is an attraction which is contained within The Imagination! Pavilion at the Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World and opened on March 5, 1983. It has been through three incarnations over the years, two of them featuring Figment, a small purple dragon, as a...
dark ride. He subsequently supplied a reprisal for the second incarnation, though very brief.
Barty was a noted activist for the promotion of rights for others with dwarfism. He was disappointed with contemporary Hervé Villechaize
Hervé Villechaize
Hervé Jean-Pierre Villechaize was a French actor who achieved worldwide recognition for his role as Mr. Roarke's assistant, Tattoo, in the television series Fantasy Island...
's insistence that they were "midget
Midget
A midget is a short person with relatively average bodily proportions in comparison with other human beings. The term is often improperly used to describe a person with the medical condition dwarfism. The two terms are often used synonymously because both terms originate as words defining small...
s" instead of actors with dwarfism. Barty founded the Little People of America
Little People of America
Little People of America is a non-profit organization which provides support, resources and information to individuals with dwarfism and their families...
to help with his activism.
Barty was married to Shirley Bolingbroke of Malad City, Idaho
Malad City, Idaho
For the Mumbai, India Suburb, see Malad .Malad City is the only city in and the county seat of Oneida County, Idaho, United States. Its population was 2,158 at the 2000 census....
, from 1962 until his death. They had two children, Lori Neilson and TV/film producer and director Braden Barty
Braden Barty
Braden Barty is an American director and producer of music videos, reality shows and documentaries most notably Far Away Eyes and Spirit Space and Flipping Vegas. He is also owner and founder of WireWekrs Video and Shadow Storm Productions.-Early life:Barty was born in Los Angeles, California and...
.
Barty and his family belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A tribute book on his life was published in December 2002. Within Reach: An Inspirational Journey into the Life, Legacy and Influence of Billy Barty was produced by Barty's nephew, Michael Copeland, and Michael's wife, Debra.
Barty was a beloved annual guest-star on Canada's Telemiracle
Telemiracle
Telemiracle is a telethon organized by the Kinsmen and Kinettes in Saskatchewan, Canada for the benefit of the Kinsmen Telemiracle Foundation. Initially broadcast on both CTV and CBC affiliates in Saskatchewan, it is now broadcast, commercial-free, exclusively on the province's CTV affiliates...
telethon, one of the most successful (per capita) telethons in the world.
In 1990 Barty was sued in small claims court by two of the writers of his cancelled comedy TV series Short Ribbs
Short Ribbs
Short Ribbs was a weekly local sketch comedy program, broadcasted in the Orange County / Los Angeles area on KDOC-TV. Featuring a midget and dwarf cast, The show starred veteran actor Billy Barty, whose production company produced the program....
, which aired for 13 weeks in Fall 1989 as a local program on KDOC-TV
KDOC-TV
KDOC-TV is an independent television station based in Orange County, California . The station's transmitter is located on Mount Wilson, California...
; producer and writer William Winckler
William Winckler
William Winckler is an American filmmaker best known for writing, producing and directing cult movies, horror films and English dubbed anime. He produced the English version of the classic Tatsunoko Production Co. Ltd. anime series Tekkaman the Space Knight, as well as the horror film Frankenstein...
, and writer Warren Taylor, filed separate lawsuits against Barty for money owed, and Barty lost both cases. News of Barty losing in small claims court made headlines all over the world, with lead stories such as Barty Comes Up Short in Small Claims, and other such puns. Barty claimed the lawsuit news was the most negative publicity he ever got, and compared it to similar bad press Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...
received for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer.
In 1991 Barty was the subject of a punk rock song called "Lou's In The House" recorded by The Squids
The Squids
The Squids are a Chicago-based punk band that was created by Chicago born singer/songwriter Joey Spatafora and William LaTour also known as LaTour. The Squids appeared to break up recently though it is never clear when they will resurface. The Squids toured and recorded from 1990 to 2002...
. The songs first lyric is "Billy Barty had a party and everyone was there."
Death
Barty died of heart failure in 2000 at age 76. He was entombed in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park CemeteryForest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale
Forest Lawn Memorial Park is a privately owned cemetery in Glendale, California. It is the original location of Forest Lawn, a chain of cemeteries in Southern California. The land was formerly part of Providencia Ranch.-History:...
.
Quotes
- "The name of my condition is cartilage hair hypoplasia, but you can just call me Billy."
- "The general public thinks all little people are in circuses or sideshows. We have doctors, nurses, just about every field covered."
Trivia
- Owned a rollerskating rink in Fullerton, CaliforniaFullerton, CaliforniaFullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 135,161.It was founded in 1887 by George and Edward Amerige and named for George H. Fullerton, who secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway...
, called "Billy Barty's Roller Fantasy". A movie started shooting there in the mid 80's but was never completed.