UNCONVENTIONAL POP FIGURE TINY TIM DIES

MINNEAPOLIS -- Tiny Tim, 66, the scraggly-haired singer with the falsetto warble and ukulele whose campy version of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" made it a 1960s classic, died Nov. 30 after falling ill as he performed his signature song.

Tiny Tim, who had a history of heart trouble, was stricken during a benefit for the Women's Club of Minneapolis. His wife, Susan Khaury, said he cut short the song and told her he was not well. She was trying to help him back to their table when he collapsed.

"I don't think he had time to feel pain," Khaury said. "He died singing Tiptoe Through the Tulips,' and the last thing he heard was the applause, and the last thing he saw was me."

Tiny Tim was pronounced dead at a Minneapolis hospital. The official cause of death has not been determined, but he had congestive heart failure and diabetes. He had collapsed and fallen from a stage Sept. 28 after a heart attack at a ukulele festival in Massachusetts.

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"If I live 10 years, it's a miracle. Five years, it's even more of a miracle," Tiny Tim said after an 11-day hospital stay after that collapse.

"I am ready for anything that happens," he said. "Death is never polite, even when we expect it. The only thing I pray for is the strength to go out without complaining."

Tiny Tim parlayed his voice and unique appearance, which included long, stringy hair and baggy clothes, into a cult following in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He built an unusual career as an entertainer on his single hit song in 1968, his asexual, childlike stage persona and a shy man's uncanny flair for self-promotion.

His 1969 marriage to Vicki Budinger, better known simply as "Miss Vicki," on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" attracted a television audience of 40 million viewers. It was one of the most heavily watched television broadcasts of that time.

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Tiny Tim parlayed his moment of pop fame into a surprisingly durable career of concerts, albums and appearances at festivals, fairs and nightclubs.

Sometimes, he seemed surprised himself.

"In this business, you're as good as your last hit record, and mine was more than 26 years ago," he said in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Next year will be my 27th comeback."

He was born Herbert Khaury, in New York, where he grew up listening to his parents' 78-rpm records and fell under the sway of Bing Crosby and other crooners of the early and middle 20th century. He starting singing popular tunes in small public settings and took various stage names, including Larry Love.

In 1960, the 6-foot-1 entertainer was given his ultimate stage name by an agent who had been working with midget acts. He made his first national television appearance on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In."

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While the music of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin laid siege to the sensibilities of Middle America, the older Tiny Tim seemed to offer a benign, comic foil. "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" dates from the late 1920s, but Tiny Tim appropriated the song in the collective memory of the '60s.

He later cleaved to his stage persona so consistently that he almost found authenticity on the far side of camp. Fans wondered where Tiny Tim ended and Herbert Khaury began -- or if there was a difference at all anymore.

Though known for his falsetto, he sometimes sang in a baritone. His albums include "God Bless Tiny Tim," "Prisoner of Love," "Rock" and "Girl."

In recent years, he found an audience with the retro-music crowd and an enthusiastic welcome from such broadcast hosts as Howard Stern and Conan O'Brien.

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Tiny Tim had a daughter, Tulip Victoria, with Miss Vicki, whom he later divorced. After a second marriage, he married for a final time in 1995, to Susan Gardner, "Miss Sue," and the couple moved to Minneapolis.

After the September heart attack, Tiny Tim said that his touring days were over and that he would apply for Social Security to help his wife pay his expenses.

He never gave up on that elusive second hit.

"As long as you're recording and they pay the fee, it's like a lottery ticket," he said. "You never stop trying." CAPTION: TINY TIM

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