She never held a microphone in front of millions. She never gave a headline interview or posted a single photo online. Yet Jan Alweiss still draws curious searches decades after her name first appeared in public. She was the second wife of Tiny Tim, one of the most unusual entertainers in American music history, and her story is quietly fascinating precisely because she refused to make it loud.
Jan Alweiss married Herbert Khaury, known professionally as Tiny Tim, on June 26, 1984. Their marriage lasted eleven years, the longest of his three unions. After their divorce in 1995, she stepped away from public life entirely and has remained there ever since.
Key Takeaways
- Jan Alweiss was born in 1961 in the United States and is best known as Tiny Tim’s second wife, known in entertainment circles as “Miss Jan.”
- She met Tiny Tim in late 1983 at the Williams Club in New York City, when she was an aspiring singer and he was 52.
- Their marriage, which lasted from June 1984 to 1995, was the longest of Tiny Tim’s three marriages.
- They maintained separate apartments in Manhattan throughout the marriage, an arrangement that was quietly unconventional for its time.
- After their divorce, Jan chose a life of complete privacy, with no social media presence, no interviews, and no public appearances.
Jan Alweiss: Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
| Full Name | Jan Alweiss (also referenced as Jan Adelweiss or Jan Alweiss Khaury) |
| Born | Circa 1961, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known For | Second wife of Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury) |
| Nickname | Miss Jan |
| Married | June 26, 1984 |
| Divorced | 1995 |
| Ex-Husband | Tiny Tim (born April 12, 1932; died November 30, 1996) |
| Children | None biological; stepmother to Tulip Victoria Khaury |
| Career | Aspiring singer |
| Net Worth | Estimated around $1 million (unverified) |
| Social Media | None |
| Current Status | Private life, believed to be in the United States |
Who Is Jan Alweiss?
Jan Alweiss is an American woman who came to public attention as the second wife of entertainer Tiny Tim, born Herbert Butros Khaury on April 12, 1932, in Manhattan, New York City. Tiny Tim was famous for his distinctive falsetto voice, his ukulele playing, and his 1968 hit “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” He was eccentric, theatrical, and almost impossible to ignore.
Jan was the opposite in nearly every way. She was composed, private, and independent. She attended events and public appearances throughout their eleven-year marriage but never sought her own spotlight. That contrast made her compelling then and still makes her interesting now.
She has never given a public interview, written a memoir, or maintained any online presence. Everything known about her comes from biographical accounts of Tiny Tim’s life, entertainment records, and the recollections of people who knew the couple. That level of restraint, in an era when even minor celebrity connections get converted into personal brands, says a great deal about who she is.
Early Life and Background
Details about Jan Alweiss’s early life are genuinely scarce. She was born in the United States around 1961, though her exact city, state, and date of birth have never been verified across any reliable source. The Wikipedia entry for Tiny Tim references her as “34-year-old Jan Adelweiss” when they met in December 1983, which would place her birth year closer to 1949 and suggests some inconsistency across sources. The exact year remains unconfirmed.
What is clear is that she grew up in a stable environment and carried herself with a poise that people who knew her consistently noticed. Tiny Tim’s third wife, Susan Marie Gardner, later described Jan as a very New York type of woman. Intelligent, worldly, socially confident, and polished in the way she dressed and carried herself. Those are not qualities that come from nowhere. They reflect an upbringing that valued education and self-presentation.
Jan also had a genuine love of music from an early age. She harbored real ambitions of becoming a singer. Not for mass fame, but because she wanted to be part of the creative world and express herself through performance. That passion for music would end up being the bridge that brought her into Tiny Tim’s orbit.
How Jan Alweiss Met Tiny Tim
The story of how Jan met Tiny Tim is one of the more charming details in an otherwise eccentric life story.
According to multiple biographical sources, including the book Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim by Justin Martell, they met in late 1983 at a gathering in New York City. The Williams Club, a private alumni club situated between Times Square and Grand Central Station, served as the setting. It was exactly the kind of place where creative personalities, artists, and musicians could cross paths naturally.
Jan was still an aspiring singer at the time. Tiny Tim, while well past his commercial peak, remained a recognizable figure in music and entertainment. They connected quickly. He was loud, theatrical, and full of energy. She was grounded, self-possessed, and calm. Tiny Tim was reportedly taken by her intelligence and her confidence. She, in turn, was drawn to the human being behind the performance, a side that the public rarely got to see.
Their relationship developed fast. Within months, they were a couple. Within a year, they were married.
Marriage to Tiny Tim
Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim married on June 26, 1984. The ceremony was private, and deliberately so. Tiny Tim’s first wedding in 1969, to his then-17-year-old girlfriend Victoria Mae Budinger, had been broadcast live on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and watched by an estimated 45 million viewers.
It was one of the most-watched events in American television history at the time. This time, there were no cameras, no live broadcast, no public spectacle. The ceremony reflected Jan’s personality: she wanted something real, not a performance.
After the wedding, she became known in entertainment circles as “Miss Jan,” fitting Tiny Tim’s old-fashioned, courtly way of addressing the women in his life. She attended events and public appearances alongside him, always composed, always well-dressed. People who saw them together noticed that she balanced his intensity with a quiet steadiness that seemed to work for both of them.
The Separate Apartments Arrangement
One of the most often-discussed details of their marriage is that Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim lived in separate apartments in Manhattan throughout their relationship. Her place was roughly two blocks from his. On the surface, it sounds unusual. But it made practical sense.
Tiny Tim had deeply ingrained habits, rituals, and obsessions around cleanliness and daily routine that made close cohabitation genuinely difficult. Jan was also unwilling to live with Tiny Tim’s elderly Yiddish-speaking mother, who lived with him when he went on tours. Tiny Tim’s mother passed away in July 1986 at the age of 93.
By maintaining her own space, Jan preserved her independence, her peace, and ultimately her own identity within the relationship. What might now be described as a “living apart together” arrangement was, in the mid-1980s, quietly radical. For Jan, it was simply practical. And by most accounts, it helped the marriage last as long as it did.
What Made Their Relationship Work (For a Decade)
Eleven years is not a short marriage by any standard, especially when one partner is as difficult to live with as Tiny Tim reportedly was. Several factors seem to have contributed to their longevity together. Jan understood him in a way that few people could.
According to Susan Gardner, who later became Tiny Tim’s third wife, Jan grasped who Herbert Khaury actually was beneath the persona. She was not intimidated by the eccentricity, and she was not naive about his flaws. She went into the marriage with clear eyes, and she navigated it with patience.
Tiny Tim, for his part, deeply respected Jan’s intelligence. Multiple biographical sources note that he considered her to have a brilliant mind and revered her judgment. In a life full of performative relationships, his marriage to Jan represented his most sustained attempt at genuine partnership.
She also traveled with him during performances and kept a watchful eye on his wellbeing in ways that rarely got public attention. While she stayed backstage rather than walking red carpets for photographs, her presence was felt and relied upon.
Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim’s Stepdaughter
Jan had no biological children of her own. During her marriage, she became the stepmother of Tulip Victoria Khaury, Tiny Tim’s daughter from his first marriage to Miss Vicki. Tulip was born in 1971 and was approximately 13 years old when Jan entered the family through marriage in 1984.
Neither Jan nor Tulip has ever spoken publicly about their relationship with each other. What can be noted is that Tulip, like Jan, has chosen an intensely private life as an adult. Whether Jan played any role in shaping that inclination is unknown, but the parallel is striking.
Why the Marriage Ended
By the early 1990s, the marriage was under serious strain. Biographical accounts point to two recurring factors: Tiny Tim’s infidelity and the cumulative weight of his eccentric lifestyle. Tiny Tim struggled with fidelity throughout his adult life. Even during the marriage, he was known to admire other women and engaged in a pattern of emotional wandering that placed ongoing pressure on the relationship.
The dynamics of his career, which brought him into constant contact with fans and public attention, created an environment that was difficult to sustain privately. In a moment that underlined how complicated their situation had become, Tiny Tim actually renewed his wedding vows with Jan on October 31, 1994, at the Spooky World theme park in Berlin, Massachusetts, in a ceremony broadcast live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
The event came one month after he had become engaged to Susan Marie Gardner. According to Wikipedia’s account of Tiny Tim’s life, he had objected to marrying Gardner at the theme park and suggested the vow renewal with Jan as a substitute. The following day, he filed for divorce from Jan. The divorce was finalized in 1995. There were no dramatic headlines, no public statements, and no media spectacle.
Jan handled it, as she handled everything, with composure and silence. Just months later, Tiny Tim married Susan Marie Gardner on August 18, 1995. She was a 39-year-old Harvard honors graduate. He was 60. They lived in Minneapolis together until his death on November 30, 1996, from a heart attack suffered during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Tiny Tim: A Brief Profile for Context
Understanding Jan’s story requires understanding who Tiny Tim was. Herbert Butros Khaury was born on April 12, 1932, in Manhattan. He spent decades as a struggling performer before his career exploded in 1968, largely through appearances on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and his hit recording of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”
His first appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968 became one of the most-watched television moments of the era, and his 1969 on-air wedding to Miss Vicki cemented his place in pop culture history. By the time Jan met him in 1983, his commercial peak was well behind him, though he continued performing regularly.
He was a complex figure: deeply religious, obsessed with cleanliness and health, emotionally intense, and capable of genuine warmth alongside genuine difficulty. He died in Minneapolis on November 30, 1996, at the age of 64.
Three Wives: A Comparison
| Miss Vicki (Victoria Budinger) | Jan Alweiss | Miss Sue (Susan Marie Gardner) | |
| Married | December 17, 1969 | June 26, 1984 | August 18, 1995 |
| Divorced | 1977 | 1995 | N/A (until Tiny Tim’s death) |
| Duration | ~8 years | ~11 years | ~1 year |
| Age Gap | ~15 years | ~29 years | ~21 years |
| Children | Tulip Victoria (b. 1971) | None | None |
| Wedding Type | Live TV (45 million viewers) | Private ceremony | Church ceremony, 700 guests, live TV |
Jan Alweiss’s Net Worth
There is no verified figure for Jan Alweiss’s net worth. Estimates from entertainment biography sources place it in the range of approximately $1 million, but this has never been officially confirmed. During the marriage, Jan lived connected to Tiny Tim’s career earnings, though his commercial fortunes were considerably diminished from his late-1960s peak.
After the divorce, she appears to have lived modestly and deliberately outside the economy of celebrity. She did not pursue book deals, television appearances, or any of the typical avenues through which celebrity-adjacent figures convert their connections into ongoing income.
Tiny Tim’s own net worth at the time of his death in 1996 has been reported at various figures, with some sources estimating around $30 million based on his career earnings. Jan, however, does not appear to have drawn any lasting financial benefit from that legacy.
Life After the Divorce
After the divorce was finalized in 1995, Jan Alweiss disappeared from public view. That was by choice, not by circumstance. She gave no interviews. She made no public appearances. She did not attempt to write a book about her experiences, sell her story, or remain in any way attached to the celebrity world that had surrounded her for eleven years.
Tiny Tim died just over a year after their divorce, and Jan was spared the public grief and media intrusion that his third wife, Susan, had to navigate. As of 2026, Jan Alweiss’s current whereabouts are unknown. She is believed to be living somewhere in the United States. She has no social media presence. There are no recent photographs or verified sightings in any public record.
She has, in the most complete sense, chosen to live privately. One small clarification worth noting: there is a separate individual named Jan Alweiss who works as a sustainability consultant and career coach. If you encounter references to a “Jan Alweiss” in green career or environmental circles, that is an entirely different person with no connection to Tiny Tim.
What Jan Alweiss’s Story Actually Tells Us
Jan Alweiss matters as a historical figure not because of what she did publicly, but because of what she chose not to do. She shared a decade of her life with a man who was half performance, half person, and deeply complicated in both halves. She did it on her own terms, maintaining her own space, her own identity, and her own boundaries even while being publicly connected to one of the strangest entertainers America ever produced.
When the marriage ended, she did not convert the experience into content. She simply moved on. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, Jan Alweiss was the steady anchor during what biographers often call the “human era” of Tiny Tim’s life. His novelty era had passed with the 1960s. His tragic era ended with his death in 1996.
But the years in between, when Herbert Khaury was trying to be a husband and navigate middle age with some semblance of stability, those were the Jan years. She was the evidence that behind the performance there was an actual man capable of a sustained, if imperfect, relationship. She saw him. She stayed. And when it was over, she walked away with her dignity entirely intact.
Conclusion
Jan Alweiss is one of those figures who earns attention through the simple act of refusing to seek it. She came close to one of the most bizarre corners of American entertainment history, spent eleven years in it, and then quietly closed the door behind her when she left.
She was an aspiring singer who never released a record, a wife who lived two blocks from her husband, a stepmother whose relationship with her stepdaughter remains entirely private, and a woman who could have leveraged celebrity adjacency into ongoing public attention but never wanted to. That restraint is, in its own way, an impressive achievement.
Wherever she is today, Jan Alweiss has built exactly the life she chose. In an age when almost everyone is performing, that is not nothing. It might, in fact, be everything.
For more context on Tiny Tim’s broader life, career, and legacy, the full account is available on Wikipedia.
Who is Jan Alweiss?
Jan Alweiss is an American woman best known as the second wife of entertainer Tiny Tim, whose real name was Herbert Butros Khaury. She was known informally as “Miss Jan” and was married to Tiny Tim from June 1984 until their divorce in 1995.
When did Jan Alweiss marry Tiny Tim?
Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim were married on June 26, 1984. The ceremony was private, in deliberate contrast to Tiny Tim’s first wedding, which was broadcast on live television in 1969 and watched by approximately 45 million viewers.
How long were Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim married?
Their marriage lasted approximately eleven years, from June 1984 to 1995. This was the longest of Tiny Tim’s three marriages.
How did Jan Alweiss meet Tiny Tim?
They met in late 1983 at the Williams Club, a private alumni club in New York City located between Times Square and Grand Central Station. Jan was an aspiring singer at the time, and Tiny Tim was still an active performer. They began dating shortly after meeting and married the following year.
Did Jan Alweiss have children with Tiny Tim?
No. Jan Alweiss had no biological children with Tiny Tim. During their marriage, she served as stepmother to Tulip Victoria Khaury, Tiny Tim’s daughter from his first marriage to Victoria “Miss Vicki” Budinger.
Why did Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim divorce?
Biographical accounts of Tiny Tim’s life point to infidelity and the pressures of his highly eccentric lifestyle as the primary contributing factors. Tiny Tim became engaged to his future third wife, Susan Marie Gardner, in September 1994, and filed for divorce from Jan the day after publicly renewing vows with her in October 1994.
Did Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim live together?
No. Throughout their marriage, Jan Alweiss and Tiny Tim maintained separate apartments in Manhattan, roughly two blocks apart. Jan was unwilling to share a home with Tiny Tim’s mother, who lived with him, and the arrangement also gave both partners space suited to their individual habits and personalities.
What is Jan Alweiss’s net worth?
No verified figure exists. Some entertainment biography sources estimate her net worth at approximately $1 million, but this has not been confirmed by any official source. She has lived privately since her divorce and has not pursued any known income tied to her connection to Tiny Tim.
Where is Jan Alweiss now?
As of 2026, Jan Alweiss’s exact location is unknown. She is believed to be living somewhere in the United States. She has no social media presence and has given no public interviews since her divorce in 1995.
Is Jan Alweiss related to the Jan Alweiss who is a career coach?
No. There is a separate individual named Jan Alweiss who works as a sustainability consultant and career coach. That person has no connection to Tiny Tim or to the Jan Alweiss discussed in this article.
What happened to Tiny Tim after his divorce from Jan Alweiss?
Tiny Tim married Susan Marie Gardner, known as Miss Sue, on August 18, 1995. They lived in Minneapolis together. He suffered a heart attack in September 1996 while performing, was hospitalized, and was advised not to perform again. He defied that advice and died on November 30, 1996, from a second heart attack suffered during a performance in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was 64 years old.
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