Jim Henson
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James Maury Henson (1936 - 1990)

James Maury (Jim) Henson
Born in Greenville, Washington, Mississippi, United Statesmap
Ancestors ancestors
Husband of — married 28 May 1959 (to 1986) in Salisbury, Wicomico, Maryland, United Statesmap
Died at age 53 in New York City, New York, United Statesmap
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Profile last modified | Created 30 Nov 2014
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Biography

Notables Project
Jim Henson is Notable.
American puppeteer, animator, cartoonist, actor, inventor, composer, filmmaker and screenwriter, who achieved worldwide notice as the creator of The Muppets, Fraggle Rock; and as the director of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

James "Jim" Maury Henson was born September 24, 1936 in Greenville, Mississippi, and raised in Leland, Mississippi, and University Park, Maryland. He was the son of Paul Ransom Henson and Betty Marcella Brown.[1]

In 1954, while attending Northwestern High School, Jim began working for WTOP-TV (now WUSA-TV). He created puppets for a children's show called The Junior Morning Show.[2]

Jim graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in home economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. While he was a freshman in college he created Sam and Friends, a puppet show for WRC-TV. The characters on Sam and Friends were forerunners of the Muppets, and the show included a prototype of Henson's most famous character Kermit the Frog. He remained at WRC from 1954 to 1961.[2]

When Jim began work on Sam and Friends, he asked fellow University of Maryland senior Jane Nebel to assist him. He spent several months in Europe, where he was inspired by European puppet performers who looked on their work as an art form. He began dating Jane after his return to the United States.

Jim married Jane Nebel on May 28, 1959 at Jane's parents house in Salisbury, Maryland. Together they had the following children: Lisa, Cheryl, Brian, John and Heather. Jim and his wife separated in 1986, although they remained close for the rest of his life.[2]

Jim worked in commercials, talk shows, and children's projects before realizing his dream of the Muppets as "entertainment for everybody". The popularity of his work on Sam and Friends in the late 1950s led to a series of guest appearances on network talk and variety shows. He appeared as a guest on many shows. These television broadcasts greatly increased his exposure, leading to hundreds of commercial appearances by Henson characters throughout the '60s. Among the most popular of Henson's commercials was a series for the local Wilkins Coffee company in Washington, DC.

The commercials for Wilkins was an immediate hit and was syndicated and reshot by Jim for local coffee companies throughout the United States and he ultimately produced more than 300 coffee ads. The characters were so successful in selling coffee that soon other companies began seeking them to promote their products.

In 1963, Jim and his wife moved to New York City where the newly formed Muppets, Inc. Henson hired writer Jerry Juhl in 1961 and puppet performer Frank Oz in 1963. Henson credited them both with developing much of the humor and character of his Muppets.[2]

Jim's talk show appearances culminated when he devised Rowlf, a piano-playing anthropomorphic dog that became the first Muppet to make regular appearances on The Jimmy Dean Show.

From 1963 to 1966, Jim produced a series of experimental films. His experimental film Time Piece was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1966. He produced The Cube in 1969. Around this time, he wrote the first drafts of a live-action movie script with Jerry Juhl which became Tale of Sand. The script remained in the Henson Company archives until it was adapted in the 2012 graphic novel Jim Henson's Tale of Sand.[2]

During this time, Jim continued to work with various companies who sought out his Muppets for advertising purposes.

In 1969, television producer Joan Ganz Cooney and her staff at the Children's Television Workshop asked Jim and staff to work full-time on Sesame Street, a children's program for public television that premiered on National Educational Television on November 10, 1969. Jim performed the characters of Ernie, Guy Smiley, and Kermit. Jim was also involved in producing various shows and animation inserts during the first two seasons.

Jim, Oz, and his team created a series of sketches on the first season of the late-night live television variety show Saturday Night Live. Eleven Land of Gorch sketches were aired between October 1975 and January 1976 on NBC, with four additional appearances in March, April, May, and September 1976.

Jim began developing a Broadway show and a weekly television series both featuring the Muppets. The American networks rejected the series in 1976. Jim then pitched the show to British impresario Lew Grade to finance the show. The show would be shot in the United Kingdom and syndicated worldwide. That same year, he scrapped plans for his Broadway show and moved his creative team to England, where The Muppet Show began taping.

The Muppets appeared in their first theatrical feature film The Muppet Movie in 1979. It was both a critical and financial success. Jim as Kermit sang "The Rainbow Connection", and it hit number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The Henson-directed The Great Muppet Caper (1981) followed, and Jim decided to end the Muppet Show to concentrate on making films, though the Muppet characters continued to appear in TV movies and specials.

Jim also aided others in their work. The producers of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) asked him to aid make-up artist Stuart Freeborn in the creation and articulation of Yoda. He suggested that George Lucas use Frank Oz as the puppeteer and voice of Yoda.

In 1982, Jim founded the Jim Henson Foundation to promote and develop the art of puppetry in the United States. Around that time, he began creating darker and more realistic fantasy films. He co-directed The Dark Crystal (1982).[2]

Also in 1982, Henson co-founded Henson International Television with Peter Orton and Sophie Turner Laing as his partners. The company was a distribution company for children's, teens' and family television.

Labyrinth (1986) was a fantasy that Henson directed by himself.

Jim continued creating children's television, such as Fraggle Rock and the animated Muppet Babies. He also continued to address darker, more mature themes with the folk tale and mythology oriented show The Storyteller (1988), which won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program. The next year, he returned to television with The Jim Henson Hour. It was critically well-received and won him another Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Variety or Music Program.

In late 1989, Jim entered into negotiations to sell his company to The Walt Disney Company for almost $150 million. By 1990, he had completed production on the television special The Muppets at Walt Disney World and the Disney-MGM Studios attraction Muppet*Vision 3D and he was developing film ideas and a television series entitled Muppet High.[2]

Jim appeared with Kermit on The Arsenio Hall Show on May 4, 1990. This would be his final television appearance. On May 12, 1990, Henson traveled to Ahoskie, North Carolina, with his daughter Cheryl to visit his father and stepmother. They returned to their home in New York City the following day, and Henson cancelled a Muppet recording session that had been scheduled for May 14, 1990. His estranged wife came to visit that night.[2]

On May 15, 1990, Jim began having trouble breathing. He suggested to his wife that he might be dying, but he did not want to take time off from his schedule to visit a hospital. Two hours later, he agreed to be taken to New York–Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. Shortly after admission, he stopped breathing and was placed on a ventilator but quickly deteriorated.

On May 16, 1990, Jim Henson died in New York City[3] at the age of 53 from bacterial pneumonia.

On May 21, 1990, Jim's public memorial service was conducted in Manhattan at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Another was conducted on July 2, 1990, at St Paul's Cathedral in London. In accordance with Henson's wishes, no one in attendance wore black, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band finished the service by performing "When the Saints Go Marching In". Harry Belafonte sang "Turn the World Around", a song that he had debuted on The Muppet Show, as each member of the congregation waved a brightly colored foam butterfly attached to a puppet performer's rod. Later, Big Bird walked onto the stage and sang Kermit's signature song "Bein' Green".[2]

Jim's ashes were scattered near Taos, New Mexico.[4] In the weeks following his death, he was celebrated with a wave of tributes. He posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and was named a Disney Legend in 2011.

Sources

  1. United States Census, 1940, James Henson in household of Paul R Henson, University Park, Prince George's, Maryland, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 17-74, sheet 4A, line 37, family 80, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Wikipedia Jim Henson.
  3. Connecticut Death Index, 1949-2001, James Henson, 16 May 1990.
  4. Find A Grave, memorial page for Jim Henson (24 Sep 1936–16 May 1990), Find a Grave Memorial ID 2210.

See also:

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Kitty Smith for contributions to this profile.




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When Henson died unexpectedly from undiagnosed pneumonia in 1990, thousands of mourners, who'd been instructed not to wear black, waved foam butterflies in the air during the nearly two-and-a-half-hour memorial service. Big Bird sang Kermit the Frog's famed song, "It's Not Easy Being Green," and dozens of performers gathered on stage for a medley of Muppet songs, which they sang in their characters' voices.
posted by Richard (Jordan) J
At 17, he tried to get a job at the local TV stations but had no luck. Shortly after he tried the last one, there was a station that wanted a puppeteer. He had never used a puppet. His first show was canceled but he did not give up.This is when he started creating the Muppets.

The first Kermit was not actually a frog and was turquoise in color. It was made wiht a pointed face and each eye was half of a ping pong ball. He was the voice of this first Kermit.

November 10, 1969 he got his first big break and it was on sesame street. It was an instant hit.

Eventually he and the Muppets got their own show. Part of his message in this show was that despite all our differences and chaos around us, we are better off when we are together.

Source:

Meltzer, Brad: I am Jim Henson, Penquin

posted by Lisa (Kelsey) Murphy
When he was younger, he loved to bird watch so much that he made a book about the ones he saw and would draw the pictures of each one.

He and his family loved to have fun and laugh.

He loved the movies at 8 years old and would take 15 cents for popcorn to spend the day watching everything that came on. He would then team up wiht his friends to try and reenact what they had seen at the movies.

His middle name was Maury. He got it from being named after his grandpa. He was close with both of his grandparents.

He liked to listen to the shows on the radio too. One of his favorites was Edgar Bergen but he also liked the Green Hornet and The Shadow.

When TVs came out he bugged his parents until they gave in and got one. He loved watching it.

posted by Lisa (Kelsey) Murphy
... like a tree." He was the voice of Kermit the Frog, Ernie, Rowlf and even Dr. Teeth. He enjoyed that through the tv show Sesame Street, he taught and entertained generations, simply by sharing and believing.

Meltzer, Brad, Heroes for my son, pgs 36-37, Harper Collins Publishing

posted by Lisa (Kelsey) Murphy
He originally did not set out wanting to be a puppeteer. He just had his sights on working in TV. He started looking at 17 yrs old but was turned down. He was leaving and saw a sign looking for a puppeteer. That spurred him on to get a book on it, build a few puppets and return to the station. He told them he was now a puppeteer and would they now hire him. They gave him 5 min. to prove himself. That was all it took. He is quoted a couple times through his work as Kermit the Frog: "I've got a dream too, but it's about singing and dancing and making people happy. That's the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with." and "But green's the color of spring and green can be cool and friendly-like and green can be big like an ocean or important like a mountain or tall ...
posted by Lisa (Kelsey) Murphy

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Acadian heritage connections: Jim is 21 degrees from Beyoncé Knowles, 22 degrees from Jean Béliveau, 20 degrees from Madonna Ciccone, 22 degrees from Rhéal Cormier, 21 degrees from Joseph Drouin, 21 degrees from Jack Kerouac, 19 degrees from Anne Murray, 23 degrees from Matt LeBlanc, 21 degrees from Roméo LeBlanc, 21 degrees from Azilda Marchand, 19 degrees from Marie Travers and 22 degrees from Clarence White on our single family tree. Login to see how you relate to 33 million family members.

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Categories: Disney Legends Recipients | Puppeteers | Cremated, Ashes Scattered | Notables