Little people are everywhere in entertainment. So why can't they get more respect?
By Douglas Cudmore TORONTO STAR
THERE'S SOMETHING you'd notice if you wrote a story about dwarf entertainers, and you told a few people about it.You'd hear jokes. Things like, "Is that going to be a short story?'' or, "Are the sentences loooong or short?'' Nothing funny, but rather harmless. You'd never hear the same thing about black actors, say, or disabled actors. But it's different ... we, you know, laugh at little people. It's expected.Sure, it's not always easy for dwarfs, who are, as defined by advocacy group Little People of America (little people, or LPs, is the preferred term for many), adults standing 4 feet 10 inches or less.The causes are many, conditions with names such as achondroplasia and spondoepiphysical dysplasia — there are more than 100 types of dwarfism in all. Some leave their host perfectly healthy, while others cause problems such as pinched spinal chords and fragile bones.Still, in entertainment, dwarfs are funny. Look at Verne Troyer's Mini-Me, returning July 26 in the Austin Powers sequel, Goldmember, and looking just like a little Dr. Evil! Look at those little guys running around with rockers Blink 182, like a band, but small! Think of Howard Stern's radio sidekicks, Beetlejuice and the late Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf. They're everywhere, from the June issue of GQ (a tiny basketball team!) to dozens of Christmas commercials (elves with attitude!) to Death To Smoochy to The Man Show to Seinfeld ...As you might guess, if you're a dwarf entertainer, there's a lot of disrespect. It's just what you do with it ...
For some, that disrespect can help you make a living.Meet Danny Black, a Michigan-based dwarf clown and owner of the ShortDwarf agency. You need a dwarf for your trade-show booth in Vegas? A couple of little people in ponchos and sombreros (the brims hold nacho dip) for your Cinco de Mayo party in Philadelphia? Get in touch with him.Yes, Black's not a PC LP. He still uses the frowned-on word "midget," finding it less offensive than "little person." ("It's insignificant; it's childlike," he says. "`Little people Fisher-Price toys.'")Black, 4-feet, 2-inches and 48 years old, got his start in community college when he was in his 20s, taking a clown class on the side while studying to be a photographer. "I started working for a local singing telegram company as a little ape. Six months later, I'd already signed up for the second, advanced clown class. Six months later, I thought to myself, `Okay, I can do this myself,''' Black says. "I can make some part-time income while I'm still going to school. It's just going to be something for the next year or two."Yeah, right. Little did I know this is what I was meant to do."What he was meant to do was make people laugh. "Maybe they'll laugh with me, maybe they're gonna laugh at me," he says. But there's something about bringing happiness to a person's day.Of course, it isn't all laughter. There was also a touch of revenge. "I find some poetic justice in being able to charge 2, 3, 4, 500 bucks for an hour," he says, "to some of the same companies that, 20 years ago, if I would have gone in a three-piece suit and applied for their Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 desk job," wouldn't have hired him because of his size.Now there are too many gigs for one man, and he co-ordinates dwarf talent across the U.S. How do his associates find the work? It runs the gamut — some people will only dress in a suit and hand out brochures; some will, if they must, put on that dreaded elf costume; some will strip if the money's right. It's all about their comfort level.As for Black, he's dealt with his height and, even if it means a dip sombrero and a bit of ridicule, he wants to see some smiles. "I've taken my lemons and made lemonade," he says to his LP critics (and there are those who don't care for his work). "You obviously have taken your sour grapes and made a cheap Bordeaux."
For some, that disrespect can cut deep.Meet Cherub Freed, a 21-year-old film student and aspiring actress from Modesto, Calif. She recently wrapped up her first big-movie role (though it wasn't a main character) in Tiptoes, with Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale and Gary Oldman. (McConaughey plays an average-sized adult from a dwarf family; Oldman, through the magic of movies, is his dwarf brother.)Compared to so many films with dwarfs, Tiptoes was refreshing to Freed. "Everyone was real. They had lives and jobs. And they just lived in houses. They didn't live in tree stumps," she says.And the filming had a deeper value for her. "I'd never, ever met another little person in my life. Now I was surrounded by them," she says. "I didn't feel like a freak. I didn't feel different, finally."The film set gave her a new sense of community, so different from those tough high-school memories still fresh in her early-20s mind. "My whole school career was hellish," she says. "People would yell `midget' at me and pull stuff off my backpack. And I have horrible back problems, so I can't carry two sets of books."No one cares if you're little. They just think that you should be like everyone else."And those fresh memories are what bother her about the Mini-Me's of the entertainment world ("it bothers me ... why are they so funny?'' she says).
`I've taken my lemons and made lemonade.'Danny Black, owner of the ShortDwarf agency
"It encourages the idiot people who tortured me when I was little to keep doing it," she says. "Put it there and say, `Look, it's something to laugh at.'"
Sometimes, that disrespect can piss you off.Meet DwarfStar, a.k.a. Brian Kline, who's 47 years old, 4-feet-4 and looks like he could beat the crap out of you — he's one buff man. An actor, he escaped L.A. and lives in Hawaii. Here's his story: "I was training at Gold's Gym down at Venice Beach," he says, "and a lot of people in the entertainment industry, they come down there. I just kept getting approached by various people to do different things, and it took off from there."He's been in the business for 10 years, landing parts in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, My Giant, ads for Nike and Mercedes Benz, music videos. But like any actor, he looked for his big break — he thought he saw it with The Lord Of The Rings and the role of Gimli the warrior dwarf."I had a lot invested in that," Kline says. "I had hired my agent and a lot of other people, brought in a professional coach, and (he) worked with me for many hours, because I knew what it would mean for my career to be getting this major role."He auditioned for director Peter Jackson, but of course, if you've seen The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, you know what happened — those plum little-people roles, hobbits and dwarfs and such, were played by average-sized people shrunk through special effects. That was "devastating to me," says Kline.He cites a list of recent leading dwarf roles that have gone to average-sized actors. There's Kieran Culkin in The Mighty. There's John Leguizamo as Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge. The original role of diminutive villain Dr. Miguelito Loveless in TV's The Wild, Wild West was changed, with Kenneth Branagh playing his brother in the big-screen version. There was a non-dwarf dwarf in Dungeons And Dragons; as mentioned, Gary Oldman in Tiptoes (set for release next year); and of course, The Lord Of The Rings."I just kind of sat and looked and said, `You know what? Enough is enough,'" says Kline of his mindset after missing out on the role. It was tough enough for an LP actor trying to break away from stereotypes. Now the big parts were going to the big people.So Kline left L.A., flew to Hawaii and moved behind the camera, founding DwarfStar Productions. He's looking for funding to get his own script made, a film with little people as real people."The important thing is that little people, dwarfs, we're people too, just like anybody else," Kline says. "Our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations, we have our families.... There are people we care about; there are people that care about us.''
And sometimes that disrespect is there, but you can still have hope.Meet Arturo Gil, 3-feet-6 and a well-established, 17-year Hollywood veteran. You might remember him from his first big role, a Dink, in Spaceballs, or you might have seen him since — he's been in Monkeybone and Dirty Work, guested on Ally McBeal and Watching Ellie, and has a recurring gig on The Man Show.Originally a radio DJ, he landed a first part, as a stunt double, for the universally revered dwarf actor Billy Barty. "I looked up to him because he was a mentor, he was an actor, and the fact that we had something in common. ... Billy and I have the same type of dwarfism,'' says Gil."But I also looked up to him in terms of acting. ... It was very nice to work with him and learn just by watching a pro.'' The late Barty started making films back in 1927, when being a little person in entertainment often meant joining the circus. He played roles in films such as The Day Of The Locust and Willow. More notably, he used his fame to start the Little People of America.Others Gil and his colleagues cite as inspiration include two more late actors: Michael Dunn, best known for his villainy in the TV series The Wild, Wild West, but also a Tony nominee for The Ballad Of The Sad Café and Oscar nominee for Ship Of Fools; and David Rappaport, the star of Time Bandits, who later moved on to take a major role in L.A. Law.Among current actors, Meredith Eaton, from CBS's Family Law, is high on the list. "Just the fact that she portrayed a lawyer and is so talented, and has such a wit about her," Gil says. "When people see that kind of work on television, they say, `Hey, I didn't realize a little person could be a lawyer.' I think people don't realize that we can be doctors and lawyers and professionals. I think they think little people are automatically circus performers."But with such groundbreakers having fought so hard, the roles dwarfs are offered are getting better, says Gil, who has had to play his share of elves and leprechauns just to feed his family.Personally, he mentions his McBeal episode, in which he played a dwarf who had an Internet affair with a woman, who sued him for non-disclosure when they met and she discovered his stature ("very classic David Kelley," he says).The parts are getting better, not always, but most of the time. It's Gil's dream, though, to play the normal person who just happens to have a unique height, to be the sitcom star with the wacky neighbours dropping in on him.And, down in L.A., he keeps working toward that goal."We have a lot to give — we have emotions, we have feelings, we smile, we cry," he says of himself and his fellow LP actors. "We're just in a smaller shell."
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