Tiny Tim socked it to them Wednesday night at The Great American Circus across from the Winter Haven Fire Department. The Firemen's Association sponsored the event. More than 200 people saw the first show and about 150 cheered the featured performer at the second performance as he belted out a non-stop medley of songs like "Around The World", "When The Saints Go Marching In", "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands", and "Just A Gigolo". Then he sang his well known hit, "Tip Toe Through The Tulips With Me", and the excited crowd shouted "Go, Tiny, Go!" During intermission he signed autographs and later I was able to talk with him about his career. Tim has been with the circus since March 23, performing two shows a day every day of the week except Easter Sunday. "I'm very grateful I have this job," he said. "Producer Alan C. Hill has innovated something new here. I'm the very first singer who's been up there and down to ever come back and work this long for the circus. Presley worked for the circus before he became a name. Joe Lewis and Tom Mix were down and worked for the circus-never a singer. It's a great experience because I've worked with kids. If I have another hit record, I'm back on top for another 20 years".

Tim is 54, an only child of a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, born and raised in New York City. His real name is Herbert Khaury. Along the way he's also been known as Larry Love and Darry Dover. Tim's only formal musical education was the violin, which he took up in the early 1940's, but he studied it less than 12 months before giving it up. "I never had any singing training," Tim said. "However, the 1940's singer Dick Haymes' mother had a singing school right in the heart of New York. I remember going up there on 57th and Broadway and seeing a plush studio and elegant carpets. I was nervous like anything and I sang a song. I was told, "you have a good voice there; you need some training and some help". I sang straight then. They told me it would cost $700 for six months' training. I said I couldn't afford it, so they said in that case, send in $3.98, and get a book called "The Haymes Way-How To Sing," which I did. "It helped. It told me how to relax and keep the lips puckered and how to think of things when I'm singing".

The first time Tim received money for performing was in 1950 in a Jolson contest at the Loew's 86th Street Theatre. He came in second and received $10. Coincidentally, his first paid engagement in March 1962 also paid him $10 a night. It was the heyday of the coffeehouses, and he appeared in Greenwich Village at the Club Bizarre. His agent took $5 a night, but Tim says it was worth it just to be working. He fell in love with a waitress there who invited him up to her apartment for yogurt. His boss told him not to go, so he didn't. "And she was so beautiful too," Tim said. Tim caught on in Greenwich Village and Mo Ostin, head of Warner-Reprise Records, caught his act at a small club called "The Scene". Ostin offered him a recording contract. Rick Sklar, a disc jockey for WABC in New York, played Tim's record on the air and Tim's star was on the rise. He went from making $41.50 a week at "The Scene" in 1966 to $50,000 a week headlining at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in 1968. Along the way there were many television appearances on "Laugh-In" and Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show". It was on the "Tonight Show" that he married Miss Vicki in 1969. They divorced several years ago and Tim sees their 14-year old daughter, Tulip, when he can. He said, "I never gave Miss Vicki a divorce; the state of New Jersey gave it to her. I don't believe in divorce." "What breaks up my marriage is I have to have my women always with me. I love to be alone, but marriage is something the Lord wants and I don't believe in fooling around outside marriage. I'd rather marry 100 times and lose than be happy outside marriage. "I believe in Jesus Christ as the answer to life and I try to follow the way he wanted it in the scriptures. I don't believe in birth control; I don't believe in planned parenthood." Tim said, "I'm looking for the eternal princess. If I don't find her here, then, if I get to heaven, I'll find her there."

Tim has been wearing his hair long and curly since 1952. It appears to be dyed a reddish color. "Absolutely," he said. "I wash it evry day. I use a shampoo called Emulsified Coconut Oil Shampoo which is out of the 40's. Only a special dealer can get it for me out of New York. I use Wella Balsam's rinse and color it with Clairol's shade 81, redwood brown about every ten days. My real hair color is somewhere between brown and black." Tim doesn't drive and never has. "I never took it up." A driver takes him from town to town to appear in the circus. He used to sleep in an Airstream trailer, but since being involved in an accident in New York, he now stays in motels.

He is 6-feet tall and used to weigh 190. He now weighs 240. "I love to eat. No.1 is pizza, no. 2 is Chinese food. No. 3 is popcorn. I buy big jars of Prego spaghetti sauce and drink it all right up out of the jar. And, I like Ronzoni tomato sauce because it has seedsin it. I love to chew the seeds."

To relax, Tim enjoys keeping up with baseball. He's followed his favorite team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, religiously since the 40's, listening to every game whether they were ahead or behind, "I wouldn't go out until the game was over. I still believe being behind 13-0 with two men out in the ninth that they can win 14-13."

He was asked what his funniest experience has been with the circus. "We travel to 200 cities in nine months and the funniest thing that has happened to me is not remembering where I was. It's happened several times. The first time was the most embarrassing. Getting up and saying, "Ladies and Gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be here tonight in...uh... uh...where are we, Mr. Martin (the ringmaster) ?" Veteran circus performer Edwardo Steeples, whose family presents the bear and chimp act for Great American, was asked about Tim. "When they said Tiny Tim was going to be featured, the wife and I were contemplating how could Tiny Tim be featured in the circus. It didn't seem feasible at all," Steeples said. "And we figured, OK, we're going to have a real snooty celebrity here...but when we met him, the guy couldn't be nicer. He's got time for you and he's more concerned about your problems than his own always."