Height – davidbruceblog #2

• Donald Davidson stood 5-foot-2 (since he was a little person, his business card measured only one inch by two inches) and spent 45 years in professional baseball — as clubhouse boy, publicist, assistant to the president, and traveling secretary. Once, he wore dark glasses and walked through a crowd with the general manager of the Braves, John Quinn. Mr. Davidson was recognized by people in the crowd every few feet, to the amusement of Mr. Quinn, who asked someone, “Tell me, how did you recognize Donald in his dark glasses?” Once, Mr. Davidson asked a couple of baseball players to punch the button for floor 26 in an elevator because he wasn’t tall enough to reach that high. They wouldn’t do it, so Mr. Davidson rode the elevator down to the lobby, and complained to the manager, “How many times have I told you never to give me a room above the third floor?”

• Artie Stander was a radio and TV comedy writer of unparalleled chutzpah. A short man, he once said, “I could have been tall, but I turned it down.” Once, Mr. Stander was writing with Charlie Isaacs. Mr. Isaacs used to pace the floor and occasionally jump up and touch the ceiling with his fingertips. Mr. Stander watched him for a while, then said, “I can do that.” Short as he was, he attempted to jump up and touch the ceiling several times, failing each time, then finally gave it up, putting the blame for his failure on his habit of smoking cigarettes. Another time, his wife saw him standing on the seat of the toilet, peeing down into the bowl. He explained, “I just wanted to see what it felt like to be (the very tall) Gary Cooper.”

• Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker got to know playwright Robert E. Sherwood (later to become twice a Pulitzer Prize-winner for Idiot’s Delightand Abe Lincoln in Illinois) because he asked to go to lunch with them — and to walk between them. They soon found out why. Mr. Sherwood was six-feet-seven, and some midgets near where he worked used to lie in wait for him and walk him to his restaurant while shouting things like “How’s the weather up there?”

• At one time, pulpits were custom built to suit the height of the local preacher. This could lead to problems when guest preachers stood up to preach. Foy E. Wallace, Jr., was a short guest preacher at a Church of Christ, but the regular preacher, Rube Porter, was over six feet tall. When preacher Wallace stood in back of the podium, no one could see him, so he said, “If you don’t see me anymore, remember that ‘faith comes by hearing,’ Romans 10:17.”

• President Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was a tall man; so was Judge Kelly of Pennsylvania. When the two met, they shook hands, then they compared heights: Lincoln was 6-foot-4, and Judge Kelly was 6-foot-3. Judge Kelly then said, “Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for years my heart has been aching for a President that I could look up to, and I’ve at last found him.”

• Until 1954, when he was drafted, New York Yankee Billy Martin, a small man, wore No. 12. During his military service, No. 1 became available, and it was waiting for him when he returned to professional baseball. According to Mr. Martin, the Yankee clubhouse manager had saved the number for him: “He said my back wasn’t big enough for two numbers.” (Note: Mr. Martin was 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds, so he must have been small for a major leaguer.)

• As a young boy, ballet student Alexander Godunov was short, even considering his age. After being told that tomato juice would make him grow, he began to drink gallons of it. He also heard that sleeping on a soft bed would keep him short, so he began to sleep on boards. Something worked — he grew to be over six feet tall.

• Prime Minister David Lloyd George (5-foot-6) was a small man. At a political meeting, he was once introduced in this way: “I had expected to see Mr. Lloyd George a big man in every sense, but you see for yourself he is quite small in stature.” Mr. Lloyd George replied, “In North Wales we measure a man from the chin up. You evidently measure from the chin down.”

• Playwright Robert Sherwood was very tall. (He was 6-foot-7 in an era before seven footers became common in the NBA.) Once humorist Robert Benchley was asked if he knew Mr. Sherwood. Mr. Benchley stood on a chair, raised his hand in the air, and said, “Why, I’ve known Bob Sherwood since he was thishigh.”

• Katherine Hepburn was taller than Spencer Tracy. When they first met, she wore high heels to make herself even taller to intimidate him, but he refused to be intimidated. After Ms. Hepburn said, “I’m afraid I’m a little tall for you, Mr. Tracy,” he replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll soon cut you down to my size.”

• Once a newspaper editor decided to print a photograph of an unusually tall man. On page 1, the photograph showed the man from his head to his knees. At the bottom of the photograph was the line, “Continued on page 10.” On page 10 was the rest of the photograph, showing the man from his knees to his feet.

• Robert E. Sherwood was wounded during World War I — he was shot in the legs and suffered from gas poisoning. Robert Benchley was surprised that Mr. Sherwood, who was 6-feet-7 inches tall — was shot in the legs, so he developed the theory that Mr. Sherwood had been lying on the ground and waving his legs in the air. Mr. Sherwood denied this.

• Figure skater Scott Hamilton is only 5-foot-3 inches tall — the result of Schwachmann’s syndrome, a rare disease which inhibits growth in children. Mr. Hamilton’s short stature didn’t hurt his skating career at all — he won four consecutive world championships and an Olympic gold medal and has a flourishing professional career.

• Many towering musical geniuses were short. Franz Schubert was 5-foot-2, Igor Stravinsky was 5-foot-3, and Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Arnold Schoenberg all were 5-foot-4.

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• Michael Caine’s shortest audition occurred for a movie that starred Alan Ladd, who was short for a leading man. Mr. Caine (six-feet-two) walked into the audition and immediately heard “Next!” He asked, “Can’t I audition or do something?” The casting agent said, “No, look at your left.” To Mr. Caine’s left was a mark on the doorway. Anyone who was taller than that mark was immediately rejected for the role. Mr. Caine says, “It was my shortest audition. You had to be shorter than Alan Ladd.” Mr. Caineknows what it’s like when two actors are mismatched in height. He says, “I did a picture with Elizabeth Taylor, and she stood on a box for the whole movie to be level with me, and for three years everybody thought I was five-feet-six because everybody knew how short Elizabeth was.” Movie critic Roger Ebert says, “Alan Ladd spent his whole career on a box.” When Mr. Ladd made Boy on a Dolphinwith Sophia Loren, one scene showed them walking on the beach. A trench was dug in the beach, and Ms. Loren (five-feet-nine)had to walk in the trench during the filming of the scene so that she and Mr. Ladd were matched in height. (Mr. Ladd was five-feet-six.)

• Nate Archibald was six-foot-one, so as a player in the NBA, he was called “Tiny.” When coach Bob Cousy drafted Tiny to play for the Cincinnati Royals, he had never seen Tiny play, although he had heard much about his impressive basketball abilities. When Tiny met Mr. Cousy for the first time at the coach’s hotel room, Mr. Cousy was shocked by how small he was. Mr. Cousy said, “I knew he was little, but I didn’t know he was that little. Or that skinny. Or that baby-faced. I thought he was the bellhop.” When Tiny showed up by himself to play the Knicks at the Madison Square Garden, at first the guard at the players’ gate wouldn’t let him through. Tiny told the guard that he played for the Royals, but the guard replied, “Sure, kid. And I’m the shortstop for the Yankees.” Mr. Cousy ended up telling the guard, “He’s one of my guys, but I don’t blame you for wondering about it. We haven’t even got a uniform that fits him yet. His number’s stuffed halfway down his pants.”

• Body type is important to ballerinas, and even a great ballerina can lose a role simply because her body type doesn’t fit a preconceived conception. Evelyn Hart desperately wanted to dance the role of Juliet in Kenneth MacMillan’s production of Romeo and Julietat the American Ballet Theater; however, although she begged him to let her do the role, he would not, stating that she would be taller than Juliet’s mother. Ms. Hart protested that in real life she was taller than her own mother, but this argument had no effect on Mr. MacMillan. Other ballerinas have not had the opportunity to work with accomplished male ballet dancers because of height issues. Mikhail Barynshikov often would find a talented ballerina, but be disappointed because she was too tall to be paired with him.

• Chico and Harpo, two of the famous Marx Brothers, were almost equal in height, but Chico was 1/16 of an inch taller. Occasionally, they would bet $5 on who was taller, with the taller person getting the money, and Harpo always lost. But one day Harpo said, “Fifty dollars says that I’m taller.” Chico bet the money, and Harpo was just over an inch taller, even after both brothers had taken off their shoes. Chico paid the money, and he learned later that Harpo had gone to a place that advertised, “Increase your height dramatically!” For several hours, he had been stretched, and for several hours, he was an inch taller, and then he returned to his normal height.

• David Garrick, the famous 18^th-century actor, was short, standing only five-feet-four-inches tall. Once, he and Spranger Barry engaged in a theatrical competition. They both played Romeo at two theaters located near each other and tried to attract larger audiences than the other. Garrick’s lack of height caused a wit to compose this epigram: “So reversed are the notions of Capulet’s daughters, / One loves a whole length, the other three-quarters.”

• In Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws, he used a huge mechanical shark. During one scene in which Richard Dreyfuss’ character goes underwater in a protective cage, Mr. Spielberg used a real great white shark. The real shark was much smaller than the mechanical shark, so to make the shark appear as big as the mechanical shark, Mr. Spielberg used a little person (aka midget or dwarf) to stand in for Mr. Dreyfuss in the scene.

• At the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Soviet gymnast Polina Grigorievna Astakhova won gold on bars, silver in the floor exercise, and bronze in the all-around competition. For a gymnast, she was tall (five-feet-five). She also had light skin and blonde hair, and she stood very erect. For these reasons, her friends and fans referred to her as “the Russian birch tree.”

• Mezzo Mignon Dunn was five-feet-nine, and many of her fellow male opera singers were shorter than she, so on stage she often sang with her knees bent. However, one day director Tyrone Guthrie saw her doing that and asked, “You cow, what on earth are you doing?” Afterward, she sang with unbended knees.

• Russian Svetlana Khorkina is five-foot-five and 105 pounds, making her a giant among elite women’s gymnasts. Want to know how to recognize her at a gymnastics meet? It’s not difficult. She says, “I’m very easy to see on the podium, because everyone else is small.”

• Basketball player Wilt Chamberlain was seven feet tall, and as a Harlem Globetrotter, he traveled to many places where no one had ever seen a person that tall before. While walking down a street in Bologna, Italy, he turned around and saw 300 natives following him.

• Mike Adamle played professional football during the 1970s, despite being very small for a professional football player: five-feet-nine, 188 lbs. Because of his small size, he wore No. 1 — according to Mr. Adamle, this number made him look taller.