Billy Barty has had a long career in show business, spanning some 70 years of work in movies, nightclubs, theater and television. All the more amazing because Barty is a 3-foot-11, 86 pound midget. While most height challenged actors were lucky to find less than occasional work in Hollywood in the role as a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz or in a novelty Western like The Terror of Tiny Town, Billy Barty kept working in every medium available to him, ultimately becoming the most well known performer of his kind. Talent will out, indeed. He was born William John Barty in Millsboro, Pennsylvania on October 25 in 1919, although other birth dates and years have popped up in various biographies with October 24, 1923 being the most common. The youngster was already near to his eventual height and weight when he started working as a child actor in Hollywood in the mid to late 1920s, making his movie debut at age three in a Vitaphone two reeler entitled Wedded Blisters. After being turned down by producer Hal Roach when he auditioned for the Our Gang two reel comedies, Barty became a regular fixture in the rival Mickey McGuire series, starring a young Mickey Rooney in the title role. The competing series was the only one to last in the sound era, with Barty playing McGuire's kid brother. Child actress Shirley Jean Rickert, herself a member of the Our Gang series, jumped ship in 1931 to join up with the McGuire cast. She recalls her audition for the series vividly. Her parents drove her over to the Darmour studios and while Dad waited out in the car, she and her Mother walked inside. There they encountered Billy Barty, made up as a baby for a scene. Barty jumped out of the baby carriage, lit up a cigar, and did some hand springs in front of them. Shirley Jean's Mom grabbed her and went back to the car and told her husband, "There's a baby in there doing cartwheels-my child can't do things like that." The upshot of the story is that Dad talked Mom out of leaving, they went back inside, and little Shirley Jean was cast alongside Billy as Tomboy Taylor. Although neither as innovative or as popular as the Our Gang comedies, the series was big enough to last for six years, when Rooney left the cast for brighter pastures at M-G-M. Barty never missed a beat and just kept creating his own path in show business, this next particular wrinkle finding him playing drums in a vaudeville act with his sisters, traveling the United States and Canada for the next eight years. In 1943, in between the stray movie role and honing his new nightclub solo act, Billy was attending Los Angeles City College. He went at academia with the same kind of determination that he went at show business, managing to both fully participate in intramural sports, but also hold down a major in journalism as well. In the meantime, his nightclub act was starting to kick up some noise and Billy was regularly employed throughout the late '40s into the early '50s. Barty was a one-man show; he played a brash Gene Krupa style of 'hot jazz' drumming, blew a little trumpet, sang, danced, and did some impressions. This much talent couldn't go unnoticed by someone who was in a position to showcase it for too long and that person of position turned out to be bandleader Spike Jones. Jones hired Barty as a specialty act in 1953, replacing fellow short stature performer Frankie Little. Jones ended up getting much more than he bargained for in this versatile performer. He proved to be an immediate hit, connecting big when Spike started his television show the following year. Best of all was his outrageous impression of Liberace doing "I'm in the Mood for Love, " which would become a hit for the bandleader simply by recording Billy's stage routine. "Spike and I hit it off right at the beginning, " Barty has reminisced, "He knew I wasn't a yes man; he knew I was my own boss. And he accepted me for just being me. Spike wanted me to sell programs. He said, 'That's how Frankie Little made his money.' I said, 'That's good for Frankie. I'll make my money entertaining.' I think that's what sold me to Spike; I was honest and frank right in the beginning." Billy would stay with Jones into the late 50s, until the bandleader's health began to decline due to emphysema, making touring a dodgy proposition at best. It was time to go back and start picking up some movie and tv work, perhaps. By his own estimate, Billy has made appearances in over 200 films, including some early Mack Sennett sound shorts with Gold Diggers of 1933, Roman Scandals, The Parade, Nothing Sacred, Alice In Wonderland, Footlight Parade, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Bride of Frankenstein numbering among his early credits. His post-1960s film work is plentiful and rewarding, including W.C. Fields and Me, Foul Play, Rabbit Test, Hardly Working, Under The Rainbow, Tough Guys, Life Stinks, The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington, Firepower, True Confessions, UHF, Legends, and Tough Guys to add to his numerous credits. Of particular merit is his fine dramatic turn in Day of the Locust. He scored equally big on the small screen as well. He hosted a successful children's TV program from 1963 to 1967 as well as doing superb guest turns on Circus Boy, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Phyllis, and Little House on the Prairie. In 1957, while he was working in Reno, Nevada with Spike, Billy organized the Little People of America, a non-profit organization. This later dovetailed into the establishment of the Billy Barty Foundation, doing marvelous work to heighten awareness about-and come to the aid of-persons of small stature. Some of this spirit is perhaps best exemplified in the documentary that Barty also appears in, Being Different. A little man with a big heart, some would say. Certainly proof positive that good things do, indeed, come in small packages. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide