His father, Butros Khaury, was a textile worker from Beirut, present-day Lebanon, and the son of a Maronite Catholic priest.

He began spending most of his free time at the New York Public Library, reading about the history of the phonograph industry and its first recording artists.

He researched sheet music, often making photographic copies to take home to learn, a hobby he continued for his entire life.

[13] Around this time, he discovered he could sing in a high register while listening to Rudy Vallée and taught himself to play ukulele using an Arthur Godfrey method book.

[13] By the early 1950s, Tiny Tim had landed a job as a messenger at the New York office of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, where he became ever more fascinated with the entertainment industry.

He started performing at dance club amateur nights under different names, such as "Texarkana Tex", "Judas K. Foxglove", "Vernon Castle", and "Emmett Swink."

[15] His mother did not understand Herbert's change in appearance and was intending to take her now-twentysomething son to see a psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital until his father stepped in.

[13] In 1959, he performed as "Larry Love, the Singing Canary" at Hubert's Museum and Live Flea Circus in New York City's Times Square.

After a show in which he was booked to follow a "midget" act, his manager George King decided to bill him as "Tiny Tim" - a name which stuck.

Co-host Dan Rowan announced that Laugh-In "(believed) in showcasing new talent" before introducing Tiny Tim, who arrived on stage with a ukulele in a shopping bag and sang "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" and "On the Good Ship Lollipop" while an apparently genuinely dumbfounded Dick Martin watched.

[5] On December 17, 1969, Tiny Tim married Miss Vicki on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson with 40 million people watching.

In January 1979, Australian artist Martin Sharp brought Tiny Tim to Luna Park in Sydney, Australia to set the world record for the longest non-stop professional singing marathon.

This was the culmination of a longstanding collaboration between Tiny Tim and Sharp, who had been openly obsessed with him for years, bringing him to Australia several times, producing his recordings and painting his portrait over and over in different styles.

The marathon performance was filmed by Sharp's camera crew and ran for over two hours and seventeen minutes, successfully setting a world record.

All of this became the basis for the film Street of Dreams, which serves as both a biography of Tiny Tim and an exploration of Luna Park and the fire.

[30] A large mural of Tiny Tim with tulip themes painted by Sharp hangs in the Macquarie University Student Council.

He was hospitalized at the nearby Franklin County Medical Center in Greenfield for approximately three weeks before being discharged with strong admonitions not to perform again because of his health, weight, and dietary needs for his diabetic and heart conditions.

[37] EMTs performed on-site CPR and transported him to Hennepin County Medical Center, where after repeated revival attempts, he was pronounced dead at 11:20 pm.

Tiny Tim: Tiptoe Through A Lifetime was released July 16, 2013, and is by Lowell Tarling (author) and Martin Sharp (illustrator).

[45] Tiny Tim was honored with a star on the outside mural of the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue,[46] recognizing performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue.