As KROQ radio put it this morning, “Billy Barty has kicked the little bucket.” CNN article online
They say these things happen in threes. First there was Kirsty MacColl, then Victor Borge, now Billy Barty.
Requiescat in pace, little guy.
Mr. Barty will be laid to rest inside a shoebox in the garden (only to be dug-up by the neighbors dog come spring).
If I remember correctly – and it’s way too late on Christmas Eve to go look this up on IMDB – Barty was in 1935’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in some early work. I also remember him in 1980’s Foul Play with Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn and in 1985’s Night Patrol.
He got a lot of work over the years, especially since he was such a dimunitive (and obviously typecast) man.
He bestrode the world like a Colossus…
Met him once on some kid’s show shoot at the Fort. A very nice man, and I couldn’t help feel sorry that he had to dress up as an elf and run around the freezing woods at his age to earn a living.
Hey, how the heck can you forget Under the Rainbow?!
He also did a kickass Liberace impression when he worked with Spike Jones back in the 50s. He will be missed.
I was much more upset by Billy Barty’s death than Jason Robards’. Remember Billy as all those evil, satanically grinning babies in the 1930s Busby Berkeley films?
More deaths you may have missed: Pauline Curley, 97, silent film star who made several films with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
And don’t forget Dr. Shrinker… the only show where I was cheering for the bad guys (in this case, Billy Barty and that other guy) to win.
Well, I still remember DynaGirl getting hypnotized, and I kept hoping the villain would make her get naked. She was such a hottie.