Hervé Villechaize, famous to all Americans during the 1970s and 1980s as a malevolent twerp in The Man with the Golden Gun and most particularly as “Tattoo” on the long-running ABC television series Fantasy Island, was a pretty interesting dude. His thick French accent and vaguely exotic countenance suggested a pint-sized “Most Interesting Man in the World” type years before the Dos Equis ad campaign. The truth wasn’t that far off: despite the physical handicap of “proportionate” dwarfism, Villechaize studied art at the Beaux-Arts school in Paris and had a successful exhibition after his graduation. He moved to Manhattan in 1964 and worked as an artist, painter and photographer. He acted in a Sam Shepard play, in Oliver Stone’s directorial debut Seizure, in Conrad Rook’s Chappaqua (with William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg), and (much later) in Richard Elfman’s delirious avant-garde cult movie Forbidden Zone.

Villechaize was infamous for constantly macking on his female co-workers, and he dated his fellow Forbidden Zone actor Susan Tyrrell, who told Michael Musto in 1983, “Herve’s a brilliant man, hilarious sense of humor, who’s very paranoid. He carried a gun and a long knife all the time. I loved him very much. You ask any woman he’s been with—he’s a very sexual man. He knows what to do!”

Sadly, Hervé Villechaize took his own life in 1993.

Incredibly, another woman in his life was Greta Garbo. In late 2012 a painting went up for auction with the following description:
 

An acrylic on panel painting of white and yellow flowers on a green background, with three embedded circular mirrors. Signed lower left “Hervé Villechaize.” Given by the actor to Greta Garbo as a gift.

 
Here is that painting:
 

 
Not many people know that Garbo herself tried her hand at painting as well. In the same auction, these two canvases by Garbo went up for sale:
 

 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Herve Villechaize painting Bettie Page