Jim Henson: The Biography

by Brian Jay Jones

  While Sam was made of plastic wood—and was, in Jim’s hands, still remarkably expressive (so much so, in fact, that only three months after making his debut, Sam was named “the most brilliant newcomer to the Washington scene” by the TV critic at The Sunday Star)—puppets made of nonpliable materials would quickly become the exception. Instead, Jim discovered that foam rubber was an ideal material for sculpting puppet heads, which he could then cover with fabric, fleece, or whatever else might be on hand, whether it was pieces of carpet, yarn, twine, or his mother’s coat. This allowed for less clunky, more expressive puppets, giving the puppeteer the ability to turn in a performance—through the tilt of the puppet’s head, a slight elongation of the face, or a scrunching of the mouth—that made the character that much more alive.

  Just as important, from his lifelong love of drawing and cartooning—and perhaps with the lessons of his poster for Nine Girls in mind—Jim intuitively understood the critical importance of the placement of a character’s eyes, as well as the location of the pupils in those eyes. Early on, Jim discovered that by almost imperceptibly crossing the eyes, he actually gave the eyes focus, giving his Muppets a look of keen attentiveness rather than a vacant stare.

  As for the operation of a Muppet’s hands, in the early years, Jim manipulated his characters’ arms with long rods attached close to the Muppet’s wrist, a device that owed more to the old-style rod puppets than to marionettes. It was simple but effective—and it would be the template for the basic Muppet structure. Jim was not yet building “live hand” puppets in which he could move the mouth with his right hand and use his own left hand up inside the Muppet’s left hand—as he would with Muppets like Rowlf the Dog, or Ernie on Sesame Street—likely because with only him and Jane performing, they often needed to work with a Muppet on each arm.

  But what work it was. Left on their own now, Jim and Jane put together a madcap four-minute show—the last minute was left to sponsors like Esskay meats—that was over much too quickly for D.C. audiences (“It was so short that it was over as soon as it began!” was a typical lament). According to Jim, the name of the game on the early Sam and Friends was still pantomiming and lip-synching to comedy records and novelty songs, which Jim raided from the WRC music library or plumbed from his own extensive collection—by his own count, he had over five hundred records. The lip-synching approach meant that Jim did not have to provide voices for any of his Muppets—something he was still nervous about doing—and it was also, as Jim said, “a way that one could do entertaining pieces rather safely and easily.”

  Actually, it wasn’t always easy. Jim had worked hard to perfect his lip-synching technique, figuring out quickly that there was more to lip-synching than mere timing. Jane compared it to pushing the words out of the puppet’s mouth, rather than snapping the mouth open and closed, “like catching flies”—a habit that often plagued even an experienced performer like Burr Tillstrom, who often opened and closed Ollie’s mouth with an audible clack. Jim would practice in front of a mirror, sometimes for hours, working to master little nuances, like moving the puppet slightly forward and down as it spoke, and opening the mouth by moving his thumb rather than his fingers, which looked more natural and less like the Muppet’s head was coming unhinged and flapping open backward.

  Jim also thrived on collaboration—and so did Jane. If Jim was the energy and brilliance of the act, then Jane was the ideal performing partner, responding to and interacting with Jim’s characters naturally and intuitively. She also had a masterful sense of comic timing, and Jim continually encouraged her performances with his own sense of fun and camaraderie—a liberating combination that would similarly inspire other colleagues and collaborators in the years to come.

  The two of them worked so well together, in fact, that he was determined to keep their professional partnership going even after her graduation from the University of Maryland in 1955. Jane enrolled in a master’s program in art at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., that fall, but promised Jim she would continue their work together, tweaking her own course load to accommodate their filming for Afternoon each day, and Sam and Friends each night—no small sacrifice.

  Besides Jane, another graduate of the University of Maryland that year was Jim’s brother, Paul. It had taken Paul an additional year to complete his studies, due to a brief two semesters at Principia, a school for Christian Scientists in Elsah, Illinois, but in June 1955, Paul received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Now engaged to be married, Paul had decided on a career as a navy pilot, and would be commissioned in October 1955. From there, he would be stationed in Florida to undergo training, on his way to his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot.

  As the Muppets grew in popularity, Jim was being asked to make appearances on more and more local shows—and as he began his sophomore year in autumn 1955, Jim was astonished at the money he was being paid. “When I first started working, it was $5 a show,” Jim said later. “It was probably a little higher by the time I got to my own show, but I remember that they put me under contract at $100 a week, which to me was really an astronomical price.”

  It was indeed. At a time when most college students were making a minimum wage of seventy-five cents an hour busing tables or pumping gas, nineteen-year-old Jim Henson was being paid roughly $5,200 a year to perform on television—the equivalent of about $40,000 today. Jim was expected, however, to use that money to design, build, and paint all his Muppets and the sets for Sam and Friends—an obligation that never bothered him one bit. “I was a kid and it was fun,” Jim said with a shrug. “And also there wasn’t much money in television in those days anyhow.” When he was finished with his sets, Jim was happy to spend what money was left over on friends and family, purchasing a color television and a brand-new electric organ for his mother. There would be no more puffing at the pump organ for Betty Henson.

  While the Muppets were gaining a following and their creator was earning a considerable amount of money, Jim remained unfazed by the attention and income. Those who knew Jim only through his work on Sam and Friends were often surprised to learn, on meeting him in person, that the creator of the manic Muppets was actually a soft-spoken, gentlemanly young man who was still called Jimmy by friends and family. But looking closer, it was also easy to see the twinkle in the eye and the slight grin that gave away the madcap sense of humor. “He had a warm glow,” remembered Rudy Pugliese, who taught drama at the University of Maryland. “He’s just looking at everyone to see what kind of humor he can find in them.… His wit was very apparent, very sharp and very clever. And it appeared more clever because of his shyness.… He had charisma, a warmth that made you comfortable when talking to him.” And it was during one of their regular talks, Pugliese admitted later, that he asked Jim, “Why are you wasting your time with those puppets?”

  While Jim never considered his work a waste, it was, nevertheless, a question he had often asked himself. “All the time I was in school, I didn’t take puppetry seriously,” Jim said. “I mean, it didn’t seem to be the sort of thing a grown man works at for a living.” Rather, it was a placeholder until a better opportunity came along. Just as an aspiring college journalist might take a summer job writing obituaries hoping that the experience and connections will lead to a permanent, proper press job, so, too, did Jim continue to view the Muppets as a preface to what he considered a real job in television, whether it was art and stage design, direction, or production. “I had assumed at that point that I would probably end up in scenic design or advertising art,” he said.

  Sam and Friends continued to gain a following, but in the summer of 1955, WRC—never one to be content with a good thing—began to fidget with its late evening lineup, and announced that it was canceling Sam and Friends. To Jim’s surprise and delight, angry phone calls and letters poured into WRC studios, and WRC executives immediately backtracked, putting Sam back on the air after missing only one night. Still, as the Evening Star was quick to point out, it was only a partial victory, si
nce Sam would now air only three nights a week instead of five. “Don’t be too grateful to WRC,” sniffed the Star. “Just nod politely.”

  Even the three nights wouldn’t last long, as a twitchy WRC bounced its newscast from 11:00 to 10:00 P.M., then back again. Jim moved with it at first, performing each evening at 10:25, until mid-October when WRC inexplicably handed Sam and Friends’ evening time slot over to guitar virtuoso Les Paul and his wife, Mary Ford. For the next seven months or so, then, Jim would devote his time mostly to Afternoon, where he had proven his ability to draw viewers. Wisely, Sam would be featured prominently in WRC’s newspaper ads, grinning from the pages of The Washington Post to promote the station’s afternoon lineup. Even with Sam’s shifting schedule, Jim was delighted with all he had accomplished.

  Then, in the spring of 1956, tragedy struck.

  On Sunday, April 15, 1956, Jim’s brother, Paul—now serving as an ensign in the U.S. Navy and undergoing his pilot training in Pensacola, Florida—was riding in a car with two other young men when the driver suddenly lost control. The car veered off the road and rolled four times, instantly killing the driver and critically injuring Paul Henson. After receiving the phone call informing them of the accident, Betty and Paul Henson, Sr., sped for Florida, but too late: twenty-three-year-old Paul Henson, Jr., passed away later that afternoon.

  For the Henson family, it was a devastating loss. While there was some solace to be found through Christian Science—in the belief that spiritual development actively continues even after death, and that death is simply another state in which a person may attain the love of God—Betty Henson “never got over” Paul’s death. The silly, joking Betty Henson—the one who would pour milk to overflowing—was still pleasant and loving, but her family—including Jim—always thought a part of her died along with Paul. As much as he might try, Jim would never really get over Paul’s death, either—and for the rest of his life, during quiet moments, Jim would often remark that he still missed Paul terribly. Unlike Betty, however, Jim would channel his sorrow into silliness, his anxiety into art.

  Partly, it was a typically Henson way of coping; just as Dear had rarely allowed discussion of the suicide of her father, Oscar, the Hensons simply soldiered on, remaining pleasant and sociable, and rarely speaking of Paul’s death with outsiders. “The way of carrying on would be to keep a smile on your face” said one Henson family member. “The idea of being sociable, and conversational, and fun in conversation, is very highly valued.” In fact, one of the highest compliments a Henson could administer would be to declare that someone was “good company.” For Jim, then, art was part of his way of carrying on, of being good company.

  But Paul’s death was, to Jim, more than just the sense of loss. Suddenly, the nineteen-year-old who already seemed to work harder than everyone else was aware that the clock was ticking. Years later, Jim’s oldest daughter, Lisa, would speak of Jim’s sorrow as an almost “repressed sadness” that motivated Jim’s work. “He shared so much with his brother as a young kid, and then to have that survivor crisis—thinking, ‘Now I have to be him and me’—and he had rocket fuel in his career from then on.” Said Jim’s friend and longtime collaborator Frank Oz, “When his brother died, he felt like he maybe didn’t have enough time. Not like he was feeling his mortality or a premonition that he would die young or anything like that—but he realized that he just didn’t have an infinite amount of time to do all the things he wanted to do.”

  As he had done at the time of Pop’s death a year earlier, Jim turned to work for release, applying himself—if that was possible—even harder. “His intention of working [was] probably increased by Paul’s death,” said Jane Henson. “And I think he was very aware that he then became the only child and was responsible to be not only what he was going to be, but what Paul would have been as well. And it was heavy on him.” There would always be, said Jane, a touch of “sublime, sweet melancholy” in Jim’s work.

  Melancholy wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. For Jim, whose Christian Science faith had been tinted and colored by his own creative enthusiasm and singular sense of humor, there was “a rightness” in the ups and downs in life, a comfort in the consistency of its joys and sorrows. While Paul’s death may have driven Jim to work harder than ever and make the most of his own life, it may also have helped Jim to more fully clarify and appreciate his own unique outlook on our existence. “I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out for the best,” Jim said later. “I know I drive some people crazy with what seems to be ridiculous optimism, but it has always worked out for me.” Jim’s optimism and enthusiasm for life, even in the face of hardship or sadness, would remain one of his most endearing and inspiring qualities.

  Working out from under the shadow of Paul’s death that summer, Jim’s “ridiculous optimism” would be justified—for professionally, things were suddenly working out for the best. WRC was continuing to tinker with its scheduling, this time fiddling with its afternoon lineup, and had decided to cancel Afternoon. However, unlike the previous winter, when Jim had forfeited his time slot to another, the producers had worked overtime to find a new way to spotlight Jim’s talents.

  In May 1956, the Muppets were made a regular part of the newest incarnation of the WRC staple Footlight Theatre, serving as supporting players to guitar strummer Paul Arnold, who was expected to keep things moving between installments of banal singing cowboy films like Rainbow over the Rockies (“that whole Footlight Theatre was so contrived,” Jane groaned). That usually involved bantering with Sam and the Muppets, who, truth be told, were probably attracting more viewers than Arnold. But Jim collaborated with the versatile Arnold with typical gusto, even adding a new member to the Muppet cast, a vaguely camel-like pirate named Omar, whom Arnold voiced. Jim worked hard that spring, rehearsing and performing for Footlight Theatre, making public appearances with the Muppets, and continuing to run his silkscreen poster business out of the student union building at the University of Maryland. The work continued to pay dividends. In 1956, the car lover finally purchased a gorgeous, gleaming sports car of his very own, the first of many sleek-lined cars Jim would own in his lifetime.

  When it came to cars, Jim’s love was practically genetic: Jim’s great-uncle Fritz—one of Dear’s fun-loving younger brothers—was also a car fanatic, and had purchased a car in the early 1920s without even knowing how to drive. (“He just drove it home,” laughed Betty Henson, who had tagged along. “It was a wild ride!”) Even Betty had the car bug, as she had been the first of the Browns to purchase a car, buying “a little gray box” the year before she married Paul Henson. Jim’s particular affinity, going all the way back to his tinkering days in Leland, was for sports cars, the more streamlined the better—and in 1956, Jim snagged a gleaming white 1956 convertible Thunderbird. It wasn’t his first car; he had previously owned a Ford, but that car had been purely functional, where this was a thing of beauty, low-slung with whitewall tires and fender vents, and Jim adored it. A photo from the time shows Jim parked in his driveway in Hyattsville, sitting in the car with Sam, pointing gleefully at something off-camera as Sam responds enthusiastically. Jane said Jim’s family, always one of his best audiences, was probably looking on cheering. “After all,” she added, “Sam had made it all possible.”

  Almost immediately, Jim decided to take an extended road trip across the country, piling into the Thunderbird with Joe Irwin and a week’s worth of clean clothes for what turned out to be a three-week trip. Jim loved driving, and he especially loved driving without any schedule or destination. During the day, he and Joe would split the time behind the wheel, speeding across the countryside with the top down until their sunburned noses peeled, then all night as the mountains of Albuquerque or Las Vegas loomed up against the stars. Jim took great delight in stopping when anything caught his attention, which was just as likely to be an oddly worded sign as it was an unusually gnarled tree. “He posed himself beside these signs,” said
Irwin later, laughing. During a stop near the Grand Canyon, Jim had himself photographed blatantly disregarding a sign reading Stay On Trail, while outside the Triangle X Ranch in Wyoming, Jim posed himself against a sign advertising the Dude For Day Ranch, standing with one leg forward and one hand cocked on his hip, and looking—despite his loafers and collared shirt—every inch a gunslinger.

  Returning to Maryland later that summer, Jim was thrilled to hear the news that his hard work was getting noticed beyond the D.C. region. In New York, producers for Steve Allen’s Tonight show were hearing more and more about their lead-in down in Washington. “Producers got in touch with the Washington station and said, ‘tell us about these puppets,’ ” recalled Jane. And suddenly, in late August, she and Jim were climbing into Jim’s Thunderbird on their way to New York City to audition for NBC at WRCA studios. “Producers were impressed,” reported Lawrence Laurent in The Washington Post—and two months later, on October 11, the Muppets would make their first appearance on the Tonight show with Steve Allen. “This could be their big break,” enthused the Evening Star.

  Until now, the Muppets had never been seen outside the Washington, D.C., market. The Tonight show, with its national audience, would give Jim and Jane an enormous amount of exposure—and they were determined to give viewers a good dose of Muppet madness. Jim decided to use a relatively new but reliable sketch, featuring Rosemary Clooney’s rendition of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face” from the recent Broadway hit My Fair Lady. Following Steve Allen’s enthusiastic introduction, Jim performed Kermit—wearing a blond wig—lip-synching the song as he earnestly serenaded a squatty figure with its face concealed by a mask with a cutesy, doe-eyed face drawn on it. As the song reached the first musical interlude, the mask was slowly devoured from behind, revealing the deadpan Yorick beneath. Nervous laughter came from the live studio audience. What was all this?