When Henson began work on Sam and Friends, he asked fellow University of Maryland senior Jane Nebel to assist him.
Additionally, he wanted the Muppet characters to "speak" more creatively than was possible for previous puppets, which had random mouth movements, so he used precise lip-sync mouth movements to match the dialogue. A marionette's arms are manipulated by strings, but Henson used rods to move his Muppets' arms, allowing greater control of expression. He believed that television puppets needed to have "life and sensitivity" and began making characters from flexible, fabric-covered foam rubber, allowing them to express a wider array of emotions at a time when many puppets were made of carved wood. In the show, Henson began experimenting with techniques that changed the way in which puppetry was used on television, including eliminating the conventional proscenium arch and using the frame defined by the camera shot to allow the puppet performer to work from off-camera. 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. As a freshman, he created Sam and Friends, a five-minute puppet show for WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. He graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in home economics. A puppetry class offered in the applied arts department introduced him to the craft and textiles courses in the college of home economics.
He enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park as a studio arts major upon graduation, thinking that he might become a commercial artist. Īt age 18, Henson began working for WTOP-TV (now WUSA-TV) in 1954 while attending Northwestern High School, creating puppets for a Saturday morning children's show called The Junior Morning Show. He remained a Christian Scientist at least into his twenties when he taught Sunday school, but he wrote to a Christian Science church in 1975 to inform them that he was no longer a practicing member. He remembered the arrival of the family's first television as "the biggest event of his adolescence", being heavily influenced by radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and the early television puppets of Burr Tillstrom on Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Bil and Cora Baird. He was raised as a Christian Scientist and spent his early childhood in nearby Leland, Mississippi, before moving with his family to University Park, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., in the late 1940s. Henson's older brother, Paul Ransom Henson, Jr. Henson was born James Maury Henson on September 24, 1936, in Greenville, Mississippi, the younger of two children of Paul Ransom Henson (1904–1994), an agronomist for the United States Department of Agriculture, and his wife Betty Marcella ( née Brown, 1904–1972). He posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and was named a Disney Legend in 2011.īiography Early life: 1936–1960 At the time of his death, he was in negotiations to sell his company to The Walt Disney Company, but talks fell through after his passing. On May 16, 1990, Henson died in New York City at age 53 from streptococcal toxic shock syndrome caused by Streptococcus pyogenes. He won the Emmy Award twice for his involvement in The StoryTeller (1987–1988) and The Jim Henson Hour (1989). During the later years of his life, he founded the Jim Henson Foundation and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He won fame for his characters, particularly Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog and Ernie.
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He produced the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show (1976–1981) during this period. He and his creative team also appeared on the first season of the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975–present). In 1969, Henson joined the children's educational television program Sesame Street (1969–present) where he helped to develop Muppet characters for the series. with Jane it later became The Jim Henson Company. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in home economics, after which he and Jane produced coffee advertisements and developed experimental films. He created Sam and Friends (1955–1961), a short-form comedy television program, while he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park in collaboration with Jane Nebel, who was a senior there. Henson began developing puppets in high school.
He was born in Greenville, Mississippi, and raised in both Leland, Mississippi, and University Park, Maryland. James Maury Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, animator, cartoonist, actor, inventor, and filmmaker who achieved worldwide notability as the creator of The Muppets and Fraggle Rock (1983–1987) and director of The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986).
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