Four Feet Tall and Rising (18 page)

There weren’t that many agents or companies willing to represent Little People. Most of us were repped by the Coralie Jr. Theatrical Agency, the first agent to take on Little People as clients. Coralie had been around since the ’50s, and in all those years, she had somehow managed to keep her last name a secret. She refused to use computers; she kept all her
business information in her head. She repped one-of-a-kind performers no one else would touch. She still had vaudevillians on her roster, over a hundred celebrity look-alikes, circus acts, animals, magic shows, snake charmers, armpit players, fire-eaters, you name it.

That was the problem. Everyone was with Coralie, and she played favorites. She only sent out the people who kissed her ass. The rest of us sat on ours. I finally got the nerve to leave her and move to Central Artists, but I found I was getting more and more direct calls from bookers needing talent. It just made sense to stop passing the information on, and instead start booking the jobs myself, managing the talent and taking a fee for my services. Word spread quickly among the Little People community that I was considering opening a legitimate business. Allison called from out of the blue. She said, “I want in.”

Even though we butted heads at the beginning, I could tell Allison was on point. She’d show pictures of herself dressed up for all kinds of costume gigs and I realized she owned those costumes, and that’s why she worked so much. Light bulb. Owning costumes led to work. She was the hardest worker I’d ever seen. She was always on the phone, hustling. She worked twelve hours a day. She was driven to work and I could never find people who impressed me in that way, who could live up to my standards. People weren’t perfect, but I always expected them to be. Being a lady and a Little Person in the entertainment business, that was hard for Allison. She had earned my respect.

We may have hated each other in December, but by February of 2000, we launched Short Entertainment with a cheesy two-page website, business cards, a cell phone, and a fax machine. Allison handled the costumes and talent, and I handled the client relations. We mailed flyers announcing our new venture, and waited for the cell phone to ring.

Somehow, it worked. Turns out, clients liked our hands-on approach to booking. Instead of just shipping ten or twelve actors to their events, where they would have to deal with them individually, Allison and I would oversee each event, providing all the costumes, and handling the talent so our clients didn’t have to lift a finger. Except to sign the check. Actors can be a real pain in the ass, and I can say that ’cause I’ve been one. So clients liked that I was in charge. The only person a client had to deal with was me.

Over the course of our jobs, we invested $20,000 in costumes, which turned out to be the smartest thing we did, and we housed all the props and outfits in Allison’s house. We had over four hundred costumes. Elves, Oompa Loompas, leprechauns, drag queens, clowns, waiters, bartenders, Marilyn Monroe, Cher, Tattoo, Mini-Me, Elvis, and Frankenstein. All of them had to be specially made to fit Little People. If we didn’t have it, and a client ordered a specialty character, I’d include the cost of the costume in my fee, and keep the outfit once the gig was over. Upkeep of the costumes alone was a full-time job. Allison had her hands full picking up and delivering and altering costumes for every gig.

I ran a tight ship with lots of rules. Why? ’cause Little
People can be Little fuckers. I made my talent sign a ten-page morality contract before they came to work for me. I couldn’t have kids visiting Santa catch one of his elves smoking. No mommy wants to explain that to her kid. I caught a bunch of Oompa Loompas at the Playboy Mansion sticking their cameras between girls’ legs and under their skirts. At a charity event for cancer research in Vegas, the client had requested a tribe of pygmies, which was a fucking riot to see, and one of my Little fucks had the nerve to light up. At a CANCER benefit. I fired her on the spot and sent her home, dressed as a pygmy. It got to the point where Allison had to remove all the pockets from our costumes so there would be nowhere to stash shit—no keys, no nothing. Thus began the era of Shorty the Asshole Boss. I got a reputation among Little People as being mouthy and demanding, but Disney does the same damn thing to protect its brand, and nobody blinks an eye. With me, these Little bastards acted like I was oppressing them, like they were doing me a favor by existing. They didn’t like it or like me very much, but the actors were making good money, so they kept coming back for more. And believe me, none of them turned down the work.

I’d spent nearly two years performing as Alvin, and I was ready for a change, so the following Christmas, instead of signing up for the Los Angeles Radio City show, Allison told me I should ask to go on tour instead. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to leave the state of California. I was still on parole, and considered a violent offender, which meant I had to parole for the maximum number of years: three. The first parole officer
they assigned me was an ass. He had the typical attitude. “You won’t be out for long.” I didn’t even bother to learn his name.

Over the course of my parole, they switched me to five different officers. As long as I reported on my assigned day, wasn’t arrested again, and came up clean on drug tests, I was considered a model citizen. I had only one more year left to report. I figured I could fly back and forth a few times and they’d never be the wiser for it, so I took a leave of absence from Universal Studios and headed to Branson, Missouri, with the Rockettes. If I’d known they were gonna send me to Branson, I’d have stayed in L.A.! There was a whole lot of nothing to do in Branson. The highlight of a Saturday night was a trip to the Walmart.

We were dark on Mondays, and flying out of Branson wasn’t happening, flying out of Springfield wasn’t happening, so once a month, I had to rent a car and drive all the way to St. Louis or Kansas City without letting anyone in the Radio City production office know I was gone. They had no idea I was an ex-con, so I couldn’t tell them I had to report for parole.

I’d fly out Sunday night, turn around and report to my parole officer on Monday morning, then fly out Monday night or Tuesday morning and arrive in time for the Tuesday night call time. This worked pretty well for October and November, but once the weather started to get bad in December, it was a crapshoot. I got stuck in a snowstorm in December and missed a show. They put in my understudy, and when I was confronted about the no-show, I just claimed I’d had a death in the family.

I wasn’t crazy about lying to people all the time, but there was no way to work unless I did. I figured I wasn’t hurting anyone. I wasn’t running drugs and I wasn’t messing with the wrong crowd anymore. I was paying my bills, paying my taxes, and making ends meet as a performer. I’d never slip back into street life, of that much I was determined. I didn’t even have the desire. Yeah, there were days when I’d think about how hard it is to make a buck in the real world, and compare it to how easy it was to make thousands and thousands of dollars dealing drugs or helping somebody out with their dirt. Then I’d think about all those months of jury trials. Of getting up every morning at 4:30 a.m., the bus ride, and being behind prison bars, and it was very clear. I’d rather be busting my ass to pay my bills than be stuck like that again.

It didn’t mean I didn’t fuck up every now and again. I ended up getting suspended for ten days from the Alvin show for knocking the tall actor who played the character “Dave” off the stage. This actor was notorious for stepping on us Little People and grabbing us roughly. He just wouldn’t pay attention to where we were or how he handled us. After he stepped on me for the umpteenth time, I got mad and pushed him off stage. I knew I was in trouble when I saw my supervisor standing in the wings. He’d seen it all.

I got called into my boss’s office. I felt like I was back in detention. My boss reprimanded me, “You’ve gotta write a letter of apology, Shorty.” I protested, saying, “We’ve been bitching about this asshole for months and you guys haven’t done
nothing about him.” My boss agreed with me, but said, “That doesn’t mean you can violently push him off stage in front of an audience.” I threw my hands in the air. “Violently? He may have landed violently, but I just bumped him.” There was no compromise to be had. My boss drew the line in the sand. “You either apologize like I asked, or I will suspend you.” I opted for the suspension.

I took it as a sign that it was time to move on. I started auditioning for TV shows and movies. At first, I was frustrated ’cause every time I went to an audition for a male Little Person, they didn’t care about acting skills or talent. They wanted a certain look. An impish, elfish, deformed look, and I wasn’t that. There were times when I’d come close. I’d get a callback for a speaking role, and some jealous Little Person would sabotage me by telling the casting director or producer that I’d been in prison. Every Little Person knew I’d been in the joint. They’d read about it in the Little People of America newsletter back in 1988 when I was arrested. Damn gossips, all of them! Most of the casting directors didn’t care, but some producers were worried about putting an ex-con into a children’s holiday movie. I lost a few jobs ’cause of those jealous fucks.

Eventually, I landed my first walk-on as an elf for
Ally McBeal
, and word got around that I was a hard worker. Then the credits kept coming. I did commercials for Miller Light, UPS, and Kia. For Miller Light, I played a gladiator. For UPS, I was an elf delivery guy, and for Kia, I was a leprechaun. I got to work with Verne Troyer on
Shasta McNasty
, and performed my
first stunt as a wrestler for the pilot of
Los Luchadores
. I hadn’t realized there was so much stunt work available for Little People.

In most movies, producers hire a Little Person to stand in or stunt double for the kid stars. Basically, the Screen Actors Guild says that everything has to be ready to go before a director calls the stars to the set for their scenes. The camera has to be positioned and the lighting has to be right, so every major star has a stand-in that looks like him. Jim Carrey’s guy looks nothing like him, but he’s the right height and hair color, which is all that’s important. Eddie Murphy’s guy, Bruce, is a dead ringer for Eddie. So much so that if there’s a scene they can shoot from a distance, or looking over his back, they’ll put Bruce in the shot instead. That’s the way the business works when you’re getting paid $25 million a movie. Some actors have their own photo doubles and stunt doubles, in addition to a stand-in. After working on a few sets, I couldn’t watch a movie without trying to see who was doing what in each scene. Is it really Eddie or is it Bruce?

So many Little People hated stand-in work, they demanded higher pay than the regular union rate. Producers would get so fed up, they’d hire a tall person and put them on their knees. It was cheaper. Me, I’d work for scale just to be on the set, and I never complained. I wanted to learn as much as I could about stunts and movie production and how the whole process worked. I even went back to Universal and worked for their Wild West Show so I could learn how to jump off a three-story building.

The stunt guys would teach me how to fall and jump on their own time. They started me off by standing on a brick. A brick. I looked at them and said, “Can we start with something taller than me?” From there, they pushed me to go higher and higher, until I was ready to jump off a three-story building. The first landing was a rough one. I was supposed to land flat on my back but I didn’t make it. I hit the fall pads in a sitting position and felt lightning rush up my spine, all the way through the top of my head. I couldn’t move, think, or talk. I just lay there, tingling all over, and hoping I hadn’t broken my tailbone. Then I thought maybe I was paralyzed. I tried wiggling fingers and toes, and those seemed to work. Within a few minutes, I could move again. I rolled off the hay-covered fall pad and headed back up, three stories into the sky. I couldn’t let a bad landing end my stunt career on the first jump. I had to shake it off. I had to do that jump three or four times a night. Second show, I went running as fast as I could and just promised myself I wouldn’t look down. You better believe I learned how to get myself flat before I hit the mats again. No more lightning up my spine. After that, jumping was nothing. It was second nature. I never thought about my physical safety. I didn’t have a fear of heights. I knew what I was capable of doing, and I did it. If it seemed like I wasn’t capable of doing it, then damn it, I’d figure out a way to do it.

Standing in and stunt doubling for kids opened even more doors, and suddenly, I was working with A-list stars like Bruce Willis on
The Kid
, or on
Tiptoes
with Matthew McConaughey and Gary Oldman;
Daddy Day Care
with Eddie Murphy and Jeff
Garlin;
Showtime
with Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy;
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
with Jim Carrey; and
Call Me Claus
with Whoopi Goldberg.

Working on
The Grinch
was an eye-opening experience. Being on a multimillion-dollar set with Ron Howard and Jim Carrey felt like taking a college class on the Big Time. Those guys were real power players, but they treated everyone with respect, from the costumers to the stand-ins to their costars. I’d never worked in front of a green screen before, and they stuck me on top of a huge sleigh, dressed as an elf. Then they told me that Taylor Momsen’s stunt double wasn’t in that day. Taylor was the girl playing Cindy Lou Who. So it would be my job to dress up like Cindy Lou Who, and hang off the sleigh while it was shaking and rocking and flailing around in front of the green screen. That sleigh was fucking huge, but I held on. I was scared for my life. I was convinced I was gonna fall and break my neck, but we made it through the shot and I got some screen time—even if you can’t tell it’s me.

For
Daddy Day Care
, all the other Little People they’d hired to work were so busy eating at craft services, checking their phone messages, and complaining about the overtime hours that I ended up being used as the stand-in and the stunt double for most of the kids. I wasn’t gonna complain about overtime. Between meal penalties and hours, I’d walk away from a day on the set being paid $300 to learn! I loved being on set. I wanted to understand how everything worked and what everyone did and who was who and how it ran. When the camera guy wasn’t busy, I’d ask him questions. If the lighting guy
had a minute, I’d talk to him. The whole crew took me under their wing and started giving me behind-the-scenes looks at their jobs. So when the cameras were rolling, and they quickly needed a stand-in for a kid, there I was, right on set and ready to go. I even stood in for the black kid ’cause they couldn’t find the black Little Person when they needed him. They just stuck a black beanie on my head to account for his hair color. It paid off. On-screen, that’s me on the riding lawn mower.