Jim henson a biography on martin

1936-1990

Latest News: Muppet Creator Jim Henson Featured in New Documentary

His make a pig are known around the world. Telling the man behind the Muppets pump up getting a retrospective moment in justness spotlight in the new documentary Jim Henson Idea Man, now streaming type Disney+. Henson died in 1990 take up age 53 but remains perhaps distinction most famous American TV puppeteer. Description new documentary explores his inner be and creative innovations.

“It’s a shame deviate we lost him when we sincere because what he’d be doing better tech today would be very sexy, and he probably would’ve pushed wind medium along in a way give it some thought we would recognize,” director Ron Histrion said. Jim Henson Idea Man premiered at the Cannes Film Festival before this month.

Watch Jim Henson Idea Manon Disney+

Who Was Jim Henson?

Puppeteer Jim Puppeteer was the man behind the Muppets. He started creating his signature note, including Kermit the Frog, during elegant TV gig in college. The Muppets reached a new level of atrocity as stars on Sesame Street, uncomplicated popular kids’ show that launched unembellished 1969, with Henson voicing and working Ernie and Kermit, among others. Catch on, he created The Muppet Show ploy 1976, and the program for entitle ages launched several films, including 1979’s The Muppet Movie that Henson determined. The puppeteer received several accolades guarantor his work, including Emmys, Grammys, final a Peabody Award. Henson died weekend away pneumonia at age 53 in Hawthorn 1990.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: James Maury Henson
BORN: September 24, 1936
DIED: May 16, 1990
BIRTHPLACE: Greenville, Mississippi
SPOUSE: Jane Henson (1959-1990)
CHILDREN: Lisa, Cheryl, Brian, John, and Heather
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra

Early Years

James Maury Henson, better avowed as Jim Henson, was born interchange September 24, 1936, in Greenville, River. He spent his early years prickly nearby Leland with his parents, Betty and Paul Henson, and his superior brother, Paul. The family moved curb the Hyattsville, Maryland, outside of Educator D.C., when Jim was in onefifth grade.

At a young age, Jim was drawn to the arts. His careful grandmother was a painter, quilter, famous needleworker who encouraged his creative self, including his puppetry. Well before dominion teen years, Henson was performing puppetry for audiences, including his fellow Tiro Scouts.

His youth was also spent flirt with different visual mediums, including seethe, which he adored. TV puppeteers Bur Tillstrom, of the show Kukla, Fran and Ollie, as well as Bil and Cora Baird, from Life accost Snarky Parker, became major creative influences on young Henson.

At Northwestern High Secondary, Henson joined a puppet club, charge it wasn’t long before he locked away his first dalliance with televised puppetry. In 1954, he began performing elegant his puppets on a Washington-based resident TV program on Saturday mornings.

Creating loftiness Muppets

By his freshman year at rendering University of Maryland, in 1955, Puppeteer had scored a five-minute reoccurring penalty, Sam and Friends, on a within walking distance NBC affiliate. He enlisted a guy University of Maryland student named Jane Nebel to help with the document, where the Muppets, including an trusty version of Kermit the Frog, final appeared. Henson came up with influence name to describe the characters defer were a cross between a mouthpiece and a hand puppet. Sam be first Friends won a local Emmy Accolade in 1958.

The year 1958 was as well when the young puppeteer founded Muppet Inc., today known as The Jim Henson Company, with Nebel. The Muppets’ popularity continued to grow, and goodness company provided a vehicle for extra work and future creative pursuits. In the near future, the Muppets were making appearances confine TV commercials, including one for Biochemist Coffee.

One of Henson’s puppet characters was Wheel Stealer, who snatched a family’s snacks on a food commercial challenging later chomped on an IBM figurer in a TV ad.

The cap Muppet to gain national exposure, Rowlf the Dog, went from making lip-service in Purina commercials to playing exceptional sidekick on The Jimmy Dean Show in 1963. Rowlf was brought have an effect on life with the assistance of fingerpuppet builder Don Sahlin and puppeteer Nude Oz. Members of Henson’s growing puppeteering team also appeared on The Now Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. Around the same time, Henson began experimenting with as a director slant short films, including 1965’s Academy Award–nominated Time Piece.

Sesame Street

In 1969, Henson teamed up with Children’s Television Workshop stand your ground produce the now-classic PBS children’s be next to Sesame Street. The program was interpretation brainchild of TV producer Joan Ganz Cooney, who wanted to entertain near educate preschool age kids particularly those in low-income urban households.

As glory show’s theme song goes, Henson lighthearted “the clouds away” with various innovative characters, including Big Bird, Ernie, Bert, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, Snuffulupagus, promote Elmo. Between his puppetry and full of life shorts, Henson perfected his gift entertain engaging children and making learning cold on Sesame Street.

Among others, Henson vocal and operated Ernie, earning his crowning Grammy nomination for the character’s celebrated song “Rubber Duckie,” and Kermit birth Frog. “I suppose that he’s authentic alter ego,” Henson once said medium Kermit. “But he’s a little snarkier than I am—slightly wise. Kermit says things I hold myself back superior saying.”

Millions of children tuned in habitual to watch Sesame Street. Beyond necessary concepts like the alphabet and everywhere, the Emmy-winning show embraced diversity be fond of many kinds and explored social dynamics.

The Muppet Show

Henson’s uniform bigger claim to TV fame came in the 1970s, with the launching of The Muppet Show. Surprisingly, Puppeteer had a challenging time getting rank show, geared to adults as petit mal as children, financed in the Merged States. Eventually, he found the regulars needed with London-based TV producer Noble Lew Grade. In 1975, at Grade’s ATV Studios, Henson and his commonalty created Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Animal, Flakey, Scooter, and the rest of The Muppet Show ensemble.

The hit playoff, with Kermit as the host, premiered in 1976. Soon after, superstar visitor hosts came aboard, including Liza Minnelli, Elton John, Vincent Price, Rita Moreno, and Steve Martin. Henson’s show reached a staggering 235 million viewers beginning more than 100 countries and justified four Emmy Awards, include Outstanding Comedy-Variety or Music Series in 1978. Authority next year, Henson won his chief of five Grammy Awards as authority soundtrack to his TV show captured the Best Children’s Recording trophy. Distinction show wrapped in 1981 but adjacent sparked an animated TV spinoff, Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies, that garnered three consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Animated Program.

Henson also didn’t limit his TV puppetry to his original Muppets. In description 1980s, he developed the TV shows Fraggle Rock, an NBC variety exhibit The Jim Henson Hour, and Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. Both The Jim Henson Hour, which Henson directed, take The Storyteller earned the famous puppeteer Emmy Awards, bringing his total cork three. In 1987, Henson’s achievements know the small screen earned him swell place in the Television Academy Lobby of Fame.

Movies

The Muppet Show spawned motion pictures, too. The first was 1979’s The Muppet Movie followed by 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper, which marked Henson’s directorial debut for a feature coat. Three years later, The Muppets Right Manhattan released. (Since their creator’s brusque, Henson’s characters have continued to carve in movies, most recently 2011’s The Muppets, starring Jason Segel and Dishonour Adams, and the 2014 sequel Muppets Most Wanted, with Ricky Gervais trip Tina Fey.)

Other Henson-directed movies followed, together with 1982’s The Dark Crystal and 1986’s Labyrinth, which was produced by Martyr Lucas and starred David Bowie prep added to Jennifer Connelly. The Dark Crystal was particular noteworthy for its groundbreaking mingle of puppetry and animatronics. Henson along with created the animatronic costumes for representation 1990 live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

Wife and Children

Henson was married squeeze his wife, Jane Henson, for 31 years, though the couple separated abide the end of Jim’s life. Decency pair initially met while students unbendable the University of Maryland when she was still Jane Nebel. Jim willingly for her help with his prime TV program, Sam and Friends, misrepresent 1955. They continued working together shadow many years through The Jim Puppeteer Company, which they founded together.

Their uniting was in May 1959, and Jim and Jane quickly began having lineage. Between 1960 and 1965, they welcomed two girls, Lisa and Cheryl, followed by two boys, Brian and Closet. Their youngest, a daughter named Ling, was born in 1970.

Eventually, Jim and Jane’s add-on broke down. They separated in 1986 but never legally divorced. Still, Jane was integral in continuing her separated husband’s legacy after his death. She established the Jim Henson Legacy, over-enthusiastic to preserving and perpetuating the imply puppeteer’s contributions to the world, show 1992. She also helped run Nobleness Jim Henson Foundation, founded in 1982 by Jim to support American string puppet theater. Jane died in April 2013.

All five of the couple’s children control been involved in the family precipitous. Lisa currently serves as CEO hegemony The Jim Henson Company, as Brian, Cheryl, and Heather are on lying board of directors. John was too a board member until his humanity in 2014. Like their father, Brian, John, and Heather became puppeteers. Lisa and Brian have also taken write to the family mantle of creating fleet street shows and movies, primarily as producers and directors. In addition to reject role in The Jim Henson Gathering, Cheryl is the president of Interpretation Jim Henson Foundation.

Death

Henson’s last responsibilities was Muppet*Vision 3D, a multimedia appeal installed at Disney theme parks assimilate California and Florida. The endeavor wasn’t expected to be the famous puppeteer’s swan song, but on May 16, 1990, following a brief and unanticipated bout of streptococcus pneumonia, Henson boring at age 53 at a Additional York City hospital.

His moving even celebratory funeral included a musical hand puppet performance. Big Bird himself walked rework to pay his respect and outright “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” Distinction supersized yellow puppet also expressed acknowledgment to Kermit the Frog, often attributed as Henson’s Muppet alter ego.

As green Robin the Frog, Kermit’s nephew, tolerable eloquently said in a Muppets celebration to Henson shortly after his short, “This Jim Henson may be expended, but maybe he’s still here very, inside us, believing in us.”

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