Latest Essay: Actual Heights of Selected Notables

Latest List: Steve Horton's Commuting Gripes

Actual Heights of Selected Notables

There he was on the Tube platform at King's Cross, unmistakably himself: poised, well-dressed in that flamboyant actor manner, greying in a distinguished way at the temples, clearly self-possessed after a lifetime in the public eye, and indisputably, amazingly so in fact, SHORT. My God, what a shrimp: we're talking five-seven at the very best, probably five-six in fact! On screen and on the telly, well, you'd have always given him nearly six foot.

I believe we've probably all had a similar experience. Living in central London simply ratchets up the opportunities for spotting celebrities going about their business. I've occasionally spotted world stars (Liz Taylor in a wheelchair outside the Dorchester, Freddy Kruger actor Michael Englund on Carnaby Street, Lucy Lui shopping at Selfridge's) and less vaunted individuals just about every time I pop out for a few hours going anywhere. One can't move for the bleeders

And, boy, do they tend to have one thing in common, these famous folk. They're absolutely tiny. 

Lucy Lui was an insignificant dot of a person, seemingly so physically fragile and in need of cake that one could almost pity her all those Swiss bank account millions. Indeed I would one day like to pursue this correlation between success in the public realm and height deficiency, expecting to reveal some kind of demented publicity-addicted Napoleonic little man syndrome at work. We are told that extra height equates to greater lifetime earnings, more sexual partners, and higher social positions, yet this seems to break down completely among the glitterati.

In fact, there's more:

Beethoven (5 ft 3), Ghandi (5 ft 3), Khrushchev (5 ft 2), La Guardia (5 ft 0), Onassis (5ft 4),Marquis de Sade (5ft 3), Stalin (5ft 6), Hitler (5 ft 7), Picasso (5ft 4), Genghis Khan (4 ft 11),Alexander the Great (4 ft 11).........I could go on.

Imagine if you will Mayor La Guardia meeting Bill Clinton (6ft 2). We're talking cricked necks, giggles, cartoons.

If, like me, you're a solid average-to-tall 5 ft 10 and a bit and have stood next to a powerful men five inches shorter than you, the question inevitably arises: how on earth have these people managed to do it? You can't see them in a crowd, they have little hands, the top of their balding heads are always visible to most of the rest of us, it's lucky they've got plenty of cash because there's definitely nothing off the peg outside boys age 12 with an inside leg that small. Their will to succeed and determination to prevail must be off the chart, their talent all the more admirable.

And yet:

Lincoln (6ft 4), Howard Hughes (6ft 4), Lyndon Johnson (6 ft 3), Wyatt Earp (6ft 4), Mandela (6ft 2), De Gaulle (6ft 4), Bin Laden (6ft 4), Charlemagne (6ft 4), Idi Amin (6ft 4)

Imagine as well if you will, Wyatt Earp ever being played on screen by Kurt Russell (5 ft 8). Oh, he was. Shame.

And if, like me, you sometimes find it a little intimidating to stand next to a powerful men five inches taller than you, the question again arises: how on God's sweet earth did all of those other successful Munchkin guys manage it with all these giants blocking their way?

Somebody needs to do some research. For now, here is some of my own.

The average British man today is 5 ft 10 inches tall, the average Dutchman is 6ft, while the average Cambodian is just 5 ft 6. The world-wide variations are neither insignificant nor particularly surprising. China is a short nation, but is home to more 6ft plus individuals than the whole of Europe. The smallest man in the world is from mountainous Nepal (21.5 inches) and the tallest lives in mountainous Turkey (8 ft 1). American silver screen actor Alan Ladd was so short (5 ft 6) that his leading ladies walked beside him in trenches. Tom Cruise's height (5ft 8) is the most discussed in celebrity history. Most football fans will tell you that professional players regularly overestimate their heights by about two inches when reporting stats to Panini and the like (Michael Owen is down as 5ft 10: if you believe that, you'll believe anything). Conversely if human pond skater Peter Crouch is only 6ft 7 then I really am a Dutchman! Cary Grant was a tad over 6 foot but round shoulders took him below that mark and required the correctional assistance of a kind of girdle. Clint Eastwood was 6ft 4 in his Man with No Name pomp but comes in at a decidedly reduced and elderly 6 ft 1 these days. Hitler was the same height as Paris Hilton; put them together at a Berlin hotel bar in 1933 and the world might have been saved an awful lot of trouble. And anybody who has met the British Royal Family would encourage the view that they are doll-sized versions of the posh people regularly seen on TV.

Robert Pershing Wadlow, statistically the tallest man who ever lived at 8ft 11, was notoriously ineffectual with women despite obvious and unavoidable anatomical inferences, whereas Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (5ft 1) was known as the the 'teapot' by the girls in the brothel he inhabited for much of his life, so apparently blessed was he in the same respect.  

So maybe the height thing is a bit overstated.

And famous women? Freida Pinto's luminous screen beauty seemed sadly reduced when I encountered her in a restaurant in Islington and discovering that she was about the size of the average British eleven year-old. There are unexpectedly tall famous women beyond the obvious Uma Thurmans, Princess Dianas, Brigitte Nielsens, Sigourney Weavers, several supermodels and a few tennis players. Macy Gray is 6 foot for example, Carly Simon 5 ft 11 and Courtney Love 5ft 10. In heels, all these ladies would dwarf a chap like me (Alan Ladd need not even imagine such a thing).

And from history, the following remarkably tall women:....................................

That's right, there are none. Nothing. Not a single notable woman, from Cleopatra to Annie Oakley, has ever been described as tall, or being obviously taller than most. How curious.

However, if we were to list the ten most influential people in history, as proposed by Michael H. Hart in The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History to be: Muhammad, Newton, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confucius, Paul of Tarsus, Cài Lún, Gutenberg, Columbus and Einstein (no Darwin, Michael?) then we must draw a very clear conclusion. With the exception of the apparently tallish but hardly giant first century Palestinian Jesus of Nazareth, all of these towering cultural and scientific figures were by all reports corporeally rather average in height.

Maybe by avoiding the pitfalls that may come with either excessive or diminutive stature and the scrutiny of those others who would make an issue of such, they were they able to maximise the forces surging within them and go on to conquer their own worlds.

All ye of average height, rejoice!

William Ruby

Appendix: see www.celebheights.com if you want to find out which famous people share, or shared, your height. For me, these are: Robert Redford, John Lennon, Starsky, George Clooney, Rolf Harris and Mr T!


Latest List:

Steve Horton's Commuting Gripes

1. the "men" who have bags on wheels - for your summer jaunt to Benidorm: 
TICK; for your daily trip to the office: NO TICK
2. the tribe who crave hot food - cant you wait till you get home, stinker? 
3. the “cans” – they aren’t Dr Dre's; we’re hearing everything, idiot
4. the train walkers who congregate like sheep at the first set of doors in the first carriage

   as it reaches London  
5. the backpack/rucksack twat
6. the loudmouth mobile conversationalists – no filter, no class
7. last-minute barrier ticket-finder bollocks
8. impatient boarders……let us get off first, you cock monkey!
9. the family troop/part-time travellers…..how dare you get on my train?!
10.in fact the general public as a whole…lacking self-awareness, lacking deodorant, not giving up its seat to the elderly….you should be confined to your miserable suburban homes.