By the BHP squad

Warning: movie stars may be smaller than they appear.

If you watched closely during any recent Academy Awards ceremony, you saw what I'm talking about. Burly Russell Crowe looks manly, yes, but is he really the 5'11" (and a half!) that he claims? Check a photo of him at the 2001 Oscars standing next to Julia Roberts, who professes to be 5'9" and note how they're the same height. And what if she's fibbing a little as well? (Yup.) Well, friends, according to my quick eyeballing (wink, wink) at a recent movie premiere not held in la-la land, she's stretching both her height and the truth! Ah, the Hollywood axiom is delete at least two years from the age and insert two inches on the height.

  But to add to the confusion we have those few truth tellers who screw the whole thing up. Sissy Spacek? An admitted 5'2". But don't go calling Judi Dench a 5'2" shorty. She'll correct you-it's 5'1' and three quarters!

  This is the dilemma we, the truth-seeking movie public, face. The movies are dream factories but reality is slapping us in the face with tiny Tom Cruise, size-impaired Sly Stallone and wee Willy Shatner. It just isn't fair, super-celebs. Either tell us the truth or agree never to come out in public again. Okay?

  Which brings us to the Web site Big-Headed Pygmies. Half of the most foolish actions occur after realizing we're having the same conversation one too many times. This particular one started years ago when we discovered the three factors that seem to lead to on-screen success: a shortage in the height department, emaciation and a noggin the size of a watermelon. Calista Flockhart isn't an aberration when her toothpick frame collapses on the "Ally McBeal" set; she's just a pumpkin-headed extreme.
  In English class they call this problem cognitive dissonance. It's where reality doesn't match up to what we're told. Such was the case a couple of years ago on the set of "Miss Congeniality."

I'm an admitted serial movie extra. Under the klieg lights I've sat on a stool in an imitation topless bar, been a fake car dealer, stood in a line outside an artificial nightclub pretending to be a sleazy record executive. "Miss Congeniality" was easy, just sit in the audience and watch an unreal beauty pageant.
  Out tromped sparkly Sandra Bullock, followed soon by demure Candice Bergen. From stage left wisecracking William Shatner emerged. The three celebs stood side by side on the stage and I knew something was askew. They were all the exact same height and, to put it gently, they were vertically challenged. My guess was 5'4". Not that there's anything wrong with that.

  At home I booted my computer and aimed for imbd.com, the site that encourages movie folk to list their own personal stats. There the unfacts sat in all their glory: Sandra Bullock, 5'7"; Candice Bergen, 5'8"; and Capt. Kirk, a whopping 5'11"!

  I slumped in my computer chair (all 6'2", uh make that 6'4", of me) and faced the extremely obvious. In the land of make believe, height is determined by a factoring program that involves the metric system, hat size and a prison diet. Translated--Shatner was obviously considered the tallest because his head was the most monstrous! Big Giant Head indeed.

  Since I was already sitting in front of the computer, I did what came naturally. I built a Web site and called it Big-Headed Pygmies.  I remembered the quote from famous drinker and Irish actor Richard Harris and made it my motto. "Tom Cruise is a midget and surrounds himself with 6'10" bodyguards who make him look even more diminutive. Actors are insignificant."

Ah, but what is next in this mission of honesty? You, my friend. If each of you emails to bigheadedpygmies@yahoo.com just one photo of you standing next to a celeb, we will be on our way. Assuming you give your correct height! Come on, what's to lose but a nasty dose of celebrity worship? Come clean. Stand tall. Breath deep. You don't even want us to start talking about Ben Affleck and fake hair...
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