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Think Big:
The Ballad of Billy Barty
The true story of a Hollywood original, a father, a husband, a believer, and the founder of Little People of America.
Billy Barty can make any room in America laugh. He's just not sure anyone would keep him around if he couldn't.
The Riverside Hotel is glowing a little too hard — the way places do when they're outrunning their debts — and the men its manager owes prefer to collect in person. What Mert Wertheimer gets, instead of the attraction he needs, is a few hundred little people arriving from across the country for a convention nobody can agree how to name.
Billy comes to perform. He always comes to perform. But somewhere between the welcome banquet and a fight over whether they're "Midgets of America" or something with more dignity, he starts to suspect this isn't a publicity stunt. For most of the people in that room, it's the first time they've walked through a door and not been the only one.
Shirley Bolingbroke is not impressed by any of it. A designer from Idaho with pioneer stock in her spine and a habit of checking her work three times, she has built a life that does not require rescuing. When Billy finally asks her to share it, she gives him an answer he hasn't prepared for. She could marry him. But she has always meant to be married in an LDS temple, and that door does not open for a man willing to say the words — only for one who means them.
Meaning things without an audience is the one skill his career never required him to develop.
To build something that outlasts a single weekend, and to become a man who can walk into that temple honestly, Billy will have to stop being the act and start being whoever is underneath it. Preferably before the men in the lobby run out of patience.
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1927-1937
The Child Star
Billy begins as a fearless child performer in early Hollywood. He discovers that he can make people laugh, move an audience, and open doors through performance.
1940-1947
The Struggle for Purpose
As Billy grows older, Hollywood keeps asking him to be the joke, the trick, or the novelty. He wants to be more than entertainment. The draft rejection scene shows his deep need to matter beyond show business.
The Founder / Advocate
Billy’s journey expands through Shirley, faith, family, and the life he builds beyond the spotlight. This phase shows the man behind the performer: husband, father, believer, and legacy-maker.
Love and Legacy
Billy’s journey expands through Shirley, faith, family, and the life he builds beyond the spotlight. This phase shows the man behind the performer: husband, father, believer, and legacy-maker.t.
