Short Stories

Thursday night Sally and I watched a show about Rachael Ray on E! cable network. Ray is a TV personality with an uptempo style that can get tiring. But I like biographies, whether I like the subject or not. What was interesting to me is how Ray met her husband, John Cusimano. She said they were at a party, the room was full of tall people, and she spotted Cusimano, the only other short person in the room.

Pictures of Ray with her husband show he is a shorty, so more power to you, mate.

I looked up an online short people support group, and saw the heights of famous people who are also challenged in the vertical inches achieved category. I find people as famous as the artist Thomas Hart Benton and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie were both 5 feet tall.

The most decorated soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy, who went on to make movies until he died, was 5' 5".

Sharing the lineup at 5' 4" are Houdini, Picasso, movie director Martin Scorcese, and even two of the three stooges, Moe and Larry. Curly towered over his buddies at 5' 5".

What I want to know is, how do these short people support group folks know those were actual heights? In some cases they have to be estimates. They obviously couldn't put a tape measure to the notorious Marquis de Sade to find out he was 5' 3".

I'd think that celebrities would wear lifts in their shoes, or otherwise try to obscure the fact that they are shorter than average. I can't imagine a worse thing if I were famous, having someone come up to me at an airport and say, "You're a lot shorter than you look on screen." Mae West is reputed to have been 5' tall, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from this photo.

Short people have a problem in a tall people world. Cupboards are too tall, grocery store shelves are too tall, people standing in front of them at a parade are too tall. All of that has nothing to do with Rachael Ray, though. In a tall person world, even at her height, she looms large.