Quotes from Kenny Baker

I do enjoy doing pantomime at Christmas. If I didn't do it, I'd feel as though I was missing something.

I started performing in 1950 at the age of 16 when I joined the Burton Lester's Midgets as a performer. Shortly after, I became a DJ with Mecca Organization before joining Billy Smart's Circus as a clown and shadow Ringmaster.

Everything in my house has had to be specially adapted, from the height of the bed to the positioning of doorknobs. Even my Rolls Royce had special stacked pedals and an extra-low steering wheel.

I've always been a cabaret-vaudeville artist - an hourlong cabaret and a floor show in a hotel - somebody like that. That's my main forte.

When TV came in, it closed a lot of theatres. Even the 'ice' shows melted away.

I miss being able to play my instruments - I'm too much of a physical wreck these days. Playing the vibraphone gives me backache, leg ache, and everything-else ache, and the asthma means I no longer have enough puff to play harmonica.

I used to tour the theatres and clubs with an 18-foot luxury caravan strapped to the back of my Roller - it was a damn site more comfortable than most hotels.

I skated in ice shows all over Europe and South Africa for 20 years. I love to ice skate.

I'm the smallest man in show business, and I've got the smallest bird in Britain nesting in my garden.

They don't always use dwarfs, unfortunately. They shouldn't be allowed to do that! How dare they do 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' and not have dwarfs!

I had a day off, and I was walking down the street one day, and this Mercedes pulls up alongside me, and Alec Guinness leaned out and said, 'What are you doing, Kenny?' I said, 'I'm just walking around,' and he said, 'Do you want to come and see an oasis with my wife and I?' There was nothing arrogant or flash about him at all.

I started out Ice skating with Holiday On Ice and just got offered the part of R2 by chance.

I didn't really get involved too heavily with being an actual film person.

There are not very many opportunities for little people in the industry. There are small parts and character parts, but we don't get the girl-at-the-end-of-the-film kind of parts... but I was quite happy with what I was doing.