TV’s Tiniest Actress (Sep, 1955)
TV’s Tiniest Actress
Barbra Loden cavorts in miniature on the Ernie Kovacs’ show, astounding and amusing audiences with her feats.
BARBRA Loden is TV’s tiniest performer by virtue of electronic wizardry. In reality she’s a shapely 5 ft., 5 in., 112-pound gal with a mighty fine specification sheet reading 36-23-34. She performs on Ernie Kovacs’ show twice a week, cavorting through a series of weird Lilliputian escapades dreamed up by Kovacs and director Barry Shear.
Kovacs uses an electronic device known as a matting amplifier which produces artful double exposure effects enabling a “reduced” Barbra to achieve amazing feats on your TV screen. Unlike a photographic double exposure, however, where both images seem transparent to each other, matting produces two opaque figures.
Barbra stands on her toes on a huge black vellum screen, hung from behind and spread on the studio floor. One TV camera shoots her from a distance, so her image appears tiny. Meanwhile, another camera takes a close-up of Kovacs’ face, so it looms large on the screen. Ernie moves his head and Barbra dances on his cigar.
Many uncanny effects are possible with this device, such as making it look as if Kovacs has a hole in his body through which Barbra can be seen in the background. Audiences love it.