Terror At Three-And-A-Half Feet - The David Rappaport Story

He could have been the biggest little man in Hollywood, if only he hadn't drunk an ocean of booze, smoked a forest of dope and developed a self-destructive streak as wide as he was short...

May 1990, and a man walks his Irish wolfhounds in LA's Laurel Canyon Park. Struggling to control his giant beasts, the dog owner has no choice but to follow the pooches when they head off towards a thicket. There, the hounds discover something in the undergrowth. At first, the man assumes it must be a doll, but on closer inspection it turns out to be a very small man. Seeing blood seeping from a chest wound, he pulls out his mobile and places a frantic call to the authorities. When the police ask him about the nature of the inquiry, the man says he's found a dead tramp.

But it wasn't a transient. It was David Rappaport, star of Time Bandits and Tiswas, associate of Ken Campbell and Spike Milligan and arguably the most famous dwarf on the planet. Rapport's journey from stardom to suicide is a tragic story, coloured by epic amounts of drinking, screwing and drug-taking.

At 3' 1'', the LA Law actor had to jump to switch on his living room lights. Short as he was, there was nothing small about Rapport's appetites. He was a man for whom too much was never enough. Being the greatest dwarf actor on Earth wasn't enough either, his frustrations over failing to secure mainstream success driving him mad before they drove him to Laurel Canyon.

David Rappaport was born in London on November 23rd 1951. His mother Dinah was immediately aware that there was something special about her child - "His hands were like two bunches of canary bananas" - but eight months passed before doctors diagnosed David as an achonodroplastic dwarf.

Achondroplastic dwarfism stunts limb growth and raises the pitch of the voice. Relatively rare - the NHS estimates one case per 25,000 babies - Rappaport's condition meant he only grew as tall as a seven-year-old.