Tiny Tim in Wedding LandMister Tiny Tim, age unknown, face talcumed like a baby's bottom, hair plopped over his eyes like matted anchovies, plunked his uke and brayed I Love You, That's One Thing I Know. We were sitting in his Manhattan hotel suite a few weeks before his marriage to 17-year-old Vicki Budinger of Haddonfield, N.J. It was obvious that Tiny's in love. "I hope she goes through with it," he kept repeating, rolling his eyes heavenward."It all started in Wanamaker's in Philadelphia", he said, opening his diary to June 3, 1969. "I was autographing copies of my book, Beautiful Thoughts, when I looked up and saw this angel who wanted me to sign two books! She said her name was "Miss Vicki." I froze in the clutch and forgot to give her my address. That night I wrote in my diary: 'Will I meet her again? I think I will.'" Through a local newspaper, Tiny and Vicki were reunited on June 5. On August 18, he proposed marriage, but only if her parents approved. "I may seem a little abnormal to them" he said. Replied the happy parents: "We all have our little eccentricities." Whenever Tiny Tim meets his beloved fiancee, Vicki Budinger (left), there's much sighing and singing. Below, designer Jeffrey Martin, who is creating all the Victorian costumes for the TV wedding, shows the couple sketches,and has Tiny measured for a top hat and Inverness cape. Tiny's bride is all set for separate tables and separate rooms. It was like a Mad Hatter's tea party when the odd couple met in Manhattan to be measured for their wedding costumes. At Jeffrey Martin Enterprises, a salon with three revolving dummies in the window, Tiny and Vicki were surrounded by designers, agents, friends and Mr. Martin, who is creating all the Victorian clothes for their December 18 wedding on the Johnny Carson show. Tiny, crowned by a hatter's measuring device that looked like a mousetrap, was scolded by Vicki's sister Gene for peeping at bridal gown sketches. "Oh, wow!" he replied,when told it's bad luck. Another prenuptial ritual was a visit to The Cloisters, the medieval museum overlooking the Hudson River, where Tiny claims he saw Vicki's face in the water after they met. Here, they held hands for a moment, then Tiny cleansed both their hands with cold cream after such intimacy. Miss Vicki, a tall, shy, pretty, small town girl whose voice is almost as high as Tiny's, does not seem to mind the groom's peculiar connubial demands: separate bedrooms and bathrooms, nocturnal visits only when the call comes "from God." Another Tiny requirement: separate dining. He will never allow anyone to watch him eat. "He's different," concludes Vicki, a fact borne out by "Beautiful Thoughts", Tiny's book of maxims, which contains this gem: "Sometimes a nice long shower will straighten you out."
12-30-1969 |
In her Victorian New Jersey house, Miss Vicki (as Tiny calls her) and Gassie sit under
a queenly portrait painted by Vicki's father, an
art-supply dealer. Her dad recently altered the
Queen's face to make it look like his daughter.
Tiny's Bride is all set for separate tables and separate rooms
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