Jim Henson: The Biography

by Brian Jay Jones

  The enormous success of Sesame Street had created a demand for Muppet merchandise that went beyond those officially licensed by Jim and CTW, which, in turn, had the unfortunate side effect of spawning an underground market of poorly made Muppet knock-offs. Public television stations, looking for gifts to give to donors, simply copied Muppet images onto watch faces; grocery stores, unable to hire the real Big Bird, threw together sloppy homemade costumes instead. “[Jim] felt concerned about kids and the public being misled into believing that Big Bird looked the way some costumed Big Bird [did] in front of a supermarket,” said Gottesman. “It came from the integrity of the characters and of Jim.”

  With work completed on The Muppet Musicians of Bremen in March—it would air in April to generally good reviews—Jim was filing away ideas for future installments of Tales from Muppetland, such as adaptations of Aladdin and Jack and the Giant Killer. He was also interested in adapting several books that were personally meaningful to him, including The 13 Clocks (“the one property I’ve wanted to do with the Muppets for twenty years,” Jim wrote) and Margery Williams’s sentimental The Velveteen Rabbit, which Jim briefly considered producing with Raymond Wagner at MGM Studios. None of these projects, however, would advance much further than his notebooks.

  In late April, Jim took the family on a short vacation, this time making the relatively short drive from New York up to Cape Cod. As Jim flew kites in the brisk ocean air, the Henson children would chase along behind him, clambering up and down the sand dunes. When the inevitable snarl of kite string occurred, Brian Henson would patiently work apart the knots and roll the untangled string into a tight ball. “I was very good,” Brian laughed. “I found it therapeutic … I don’t know why.… It was pretty chaotic at home. My brother was certainly quite chaotic.”

  For some time now, seven-year-old John Henson had been behaving erratically and recklessly, roughly handling the Henson pets or suddenly locking his gaze on some invisible focal point; of greater concern, he would sometimes pedal his bicycle madly in circles before wrecking intentionally. “I was a strange kid,” John admitted later. Mostly, he was struggling with the frustrations of being severely dyslexic, though John attributed much of it to “an endless energy. If you look at the old home movies, everyone’s around and every once in a while you’d see this little blond blur just careen through the frame; that was me. I was just always going—and the faster the better.” At times, recalled Jane, Jim found his youngest son slightly frustrating. “[He and John] certainly cared for each other very much but I think they had probably a harder time understanding each other.” Despite the bang-ups on his bike, John was convinced that he could never be badly hurt because a guardian angel was looking out for him—an idea that Jim found fascinating. Jim and Jane consulted doctors and sent John for testing, hoping to help him overcome some of his difficulties with dyslexia and looking for advice that might help ensure their dreamy son didn’t hurt himself.

  Most likely it was John’s situation—as well as Jim’s own continued fascination with the brain—that fueled Jim’s interest in The Affect Show, a weekly program being developed by CTW with the New Age goal of “increas[ing] a child’s psychological awareness of his own thoughts and feelings as well as his understanding of the thoughts and feelings of others.” Gathering in June at the Arden House in Harriman, New York—the same location where CTW had conducted many of its reading seminars—CTW’s cluster of child development specialists, psychologists, and educators excitedly discussed the potential for such a series, eventually suggesting that the show reflect “a family mood with characters, probably puppets, who encounter situations that call for different types of personality or emotions.” CTW agreed to hold another meeting in late July, “by which time it is hoped some rough pieces of program material might be produced for reactions from the group”—a thinly veiled appeal that was aimed clearly at Jim.

  Jim was intrigued by the premise, jotting down on lined yellow paper ideas for several skits that he thought might illustrate higher psychological concepts, such as a “character that always sees things in abstract symbols” or a “character that summarizes.” It was a show, he told producer Diana Birkenfield, that was “meaningful” and “ought to be done.” Birkenfield, however, was unimpressed. As Jim’s producer, it was her job to look for projects that would be good for Jim and for Henson Associates—and she didn’t think this was one of them.

  Telling Jim no—especially when he was excited by an idea or project—was never an easy task. Over the years, only a few friends, acquaintances, and employees would ever really learn how to gently and diplomatically tell Jim if something was a bad idea or couldn’t be done. One of those who could, and did, was Frank Oz, who left diplomacy at the door when it came to giving Jim his opinion. “I’d say to him, ‘this doesn’t fucking work!’ ” Oz said, laughing. “But if he felt strongly about something, it was tough to get him to back down. Anyone could say no to Jim, but you had to do it in a certain way, and you couldn’t argue too much. You had to know when to step back.”

  Stepping back, however, was not Birkenfield’s style. A loyal and savvy producer with a sharp eye for quality, Birkenfield took her job as the first line of defense against unworthy projects almost personally. If she felt Jim was considering projects that were unworthy of his name or reputation, she would “stand up to him and get angry at him and not talk to him for a while,” recalled Gottesman. “She was totally devoted to him and devoted to his work.”

  In the case of CTW’s proposed Affect Show, Birkenfield put her thoughts on paper, pounding out a blistering memo warning Jim that the show was an ill-advised idea that would not only take up too much of his time, but move his career in the wrong direction. “In my opinion,” she wrote, “[the] Muppets should be working toward making it independently” rather than tying themselves to CTW. Attaching the Muppets to yet another CTW project, she warned, was only fueling the limited perception of Jim as a children’s performer. “Adult TV has not been cracked, nor feature films, nor live presentation … [the] big thing that people can talk about … has yet to come.” Birkenfield thought the proposed Broadway show might be the turning point in Jim’s career—but only if he dedicated himself full-time to getting it done, rather than allowing himself to be distracted by projects like The Affect Show. “In the overall picture of what [Henson Associates] has done, is doing, and should be doing,” she concluded, “I do not see your specific reasons for becoming involved with this series … [but] you make the decision … and let’s go.”

  Birkenfield was right, and Jim knew it; after producing two admittedly “poor” sample pieces, he chose not to pursue the project, and the program never got off the ground. But that sort of aggressive approach grated on Jim. “Diana was just a bit too relentless for Jim,” said Oz. “She would go after him.” Jim never got angry or upset; he never erupted or lost his temper; instead, he would get very quiet—“powerfully silent,” Oz called it—and he and Birkenfield likely spent several hours in icy silence at the Muppet offices until smoothing things over. The following year, at a meeting in California, there would be a similarly heated confrontation between Birkenfield and the outspoken Bernie Brillstein as Jim looked on in stony silence. “Diana vs. Bernie,” Jim wrote wearily in his journal. Several months later, she and Jim would have a very frank and private conversation. “Talked to Diana Birkenfield,” Jim wrote matter-of-factly in his journal, “—ended her employment.” Still, despite the difference in the communication styles, Jim admired and respected Birkenfield’s talents, and would bring her back to the company in the 1980s. “These things were never personal,” said Oz.

  Sesame Street–related projects took up much of the summer, as Jim spent the end of July working on the Bert & Ernie Sing-Along record, and August taping Sesame Street inserts at Reeves. Still, Jim took time off in mid-August to head to Oakland for the annual Puppeteers of America conference—and in September, he and Jane spent more than a week in Europe attending the festival for UNIMA
, the Union Internationale de la Marionette, an international organization “devoted to the cause of international friendship through the art of puppetry.” Jim had helped found the American branch of UNIMA in 1966, and in 1972 was serving as its American chairman. Jim was delighted with the opportunity to mingle with more than two thousand puppeteers from around the world, though perhaps the biggest thrill of the trip was meeting Russian puppeteer Sergei Obraztsov, whose book My Profession had been pivotal in helping Jim learn puppetry in 1954.

  On October 21, amid a particulary hectic meeting and travel schedule—including a Los Angeles meeting to discuss the Broadway show with writer Larry Gelbart and musician Billy Goldenberg—Jim learned that his mother had died in Albuquerque. The precise cause of Betty’s death would remain a mystery; some thought she had simply pined away since Paul Jr.’s death more than fifteen years earlier. “I think it’s fascinating that Jim and the whole family were content to live with that mystery,” said Lisa Henson. “It was the religion, partially, but also an acceptance of certain unanswered questions.” Jim flew immediately to New Mexico to be with his father—but a typically packed schedule demanded that he turn around less than twenty-four hours later to go to Los Angeles to tape a Perry Como Christmas special. He returned to Albuquerque on the morning of October 23 to oversee his mother’s funeral and spend several days tending to his father. Only Jane was with him; the children had been left in Bedford. “My parents weren’t really big on funerals,” said Cheryl.

  Betty Henson’s death affected Jim perhaps more deeply than he let on to others. “Mom passed on,” he confided privately in his journal, giving his mother three words more notice than he had given even to his beloved Dear after her death in 1967. In December, Jim immersed himself in Ruth Montgomery’s recently published book, A World Beyond, an “account of life in the next stages of existence” that Montgomery had purportedly written while channeling a deceased psychic. Montgomery’s reassuring message—that death is only a step toward a new level of existence—was closely in tune with Jim’s own unique brand of spiritualism: a belief in a higher consciousness, a higher calling, and a higher, inherent order to the universe. It was a message brimming with hope for a son coping with the loss of a parent.

  While afterimages of his Christian Science upbringing would remain part of his personal convictions, when it came down to it, Jim was more spiritual than religious, though he always remained “very respectful” of religion. “My dad would never, ever be snippy about somebody else’s beliefs,” Cheryl said. If Jim had a guiding ethos, then, it was optimism—a faith that human beings lived their lives for a purpose, and everything would come out all right in the end. As Jim later wrote:

  I’ve read and studied about various other ways of thinking and I like the way most religions are based on the same good underlying principles.…

  I believe in taking a positive attitude toward the world, toward people, and toward my work. I think I’m here for a purpose. I think it’s likely that we all are, but I’m only sure about myself. I try to tune myself in to whatever it is that I’m supposed to be, and I try to think of myself as a part of all of us—all mankind and all life. I find it’s not easy to keep these lofty thoughts in mind as the day goes by, but it certainly helps me a great deal to start out this way.…

  Despite this discussion of things spiritual, I still think of myself as a very “human” being, I have the full complement of weaknesses, fears, problems, ego and sensuality. But I think this is why we’re here—to work our way through all this and, hopefully, come out a bit wiser and better for having gone through it all.

  But Jim’s faith in the order of things—“the innocence and the simple optimism,” said Jerry Juhl, that he “really loved”—also entailed a balance between darkness and light. “There was that dark side that he dealt with,” said Juhl, “and I think he kept searching into spirituality, looking for ways to synthesize what was happening, for ways to explain the dark side.” Jim felt “very strongly” about reincarnation as one opportunity to balance the universe and atone for mistakes in this and past lives, said Richard Hunt—but added that Jim “wasn’t some looney spiritualist type character. He just would look into everything.”

  Muppet performer Fran Brill, too, was impressed with Jim’s willingness to explore new ideas and new ways of thinking.

  One of the extraordinary things about Jim was that he was a perpetual student of life. Genius that he was, he was always searching, questioning, exploring. When I first met Jim, in the early years of Sesame Street, he was … going to psychics and palm-readers, experiencing transcendental meditation, doing est—whatever was out there. He was judgmental about nothing—open to almost everything. I think he felt that all these “journeys” were the means to the same end—raising his level of consciousness, deepening his understanding of how all things on earth were related one to another, that every action had a reaction. He told me that for him there was no one right way, but that he took a little something from all of them.

  Ultimately, said Jim, “I believe that life is basically a process of growth—that we go through many lives, choosing those situations and problems that we will learn through.” For now, that was enough.

  As Jim coped with his mother’s death, there was a business-related problem to deal with as well. For nearly a year, Topper Toys—one of the busiest producers of Sesame Street–related merchandise—had been hemorrhaging money, due largely to an ill-advised decision to try to compete with the highly popular Barbie with a lower rent doll called Dawn. After posting nearly $10 million in losses, there was an “awkward mess” between CTW and Topper over continued licensing rights to Sesame Street, with Henson Associates squarely in the middle. In sticky cases like this, the lawyers for both CTW and Henson Associates would usually appeal to Jim and Joan Cooney to try to resolve the matter personally. “We’ve got to stay together for the children,” Cooney would earnestly say to Jim—which was usually all that was needed for her and Jim to resolve the matter quickly. In the case of the problematic Topper, the licensing agreement would be terminated in January 1973, with Ideal and Fisher-Price swooping in to pick up the merchandising opportunity.

  Just after the New Year, Jim took the family to Stratton, Vermont, for his first try at skiing. Despite his prowess on the tennis court, Jim never considered himself much of an athlete; even his own family would giggle when Jim tried to do anything physical—when he once tried scuba diving, Lisa had nearly hyperventilated with laughter. (“I looked underwater, and I saw him all lanky, with his arms and legs flailing, and I just died laughing!”) Nonetheless, he gamely accepted Jon Stone’s offer to join him at his Vermont home for a few days in January to take some skiing lessons and try out some of Stratton’s gentler, sloping ski trails.

  “Like every other first-day skier, he spent a lot of time on his backside until he was absolutely covered with snow,” recalled Stone. “It was all over his clothes, in his beard, [and] in his hair.” At the end of the afternoon, Stone remembered waiting for Jim at the bottom of the mountain when he suddenly saw “this skinny snowman coming at me down that gentle little hill, standing straight up, arms straight out to the side, poles dangling. I remember telling him he looked like Christ of the Andes, and we both sat down in the snow, laughing.”

  Jim loved learning to ski alongside his children. “He really didn’t like to do something with the kids where he was already good at it, because he didn’t have the patience of them not knowing anything,” said Jane. “So his approach to skiing was, ‘I have never skiied, so I’m going to learn to ski with the kids.’ ” The kids loved it, too; part of the fun was having their father struggling and laughing right next to them. “We were all about the same level,” said Brian, “which was fun.”

  On their many regular return trips to Stratton, the family would rent a house near the mountain and ski all day in a group—except for Jane, who was often stranded back at the cabin taking care of Heather. Admittedly, spending all day skiing—or scuba div
ing or horseback riding—wasn’t Jane’s idea of a vacation. Just as Jane had simpler, earthier tastes in décor, so, too, were her tastes in vacations. She preferred casual, low-key family drives or visits to Cape Cod rather than the galloping, diving, rowdy vacations favored by Jim. “[Driving] across country … that was more her style of thing,” said Lisa. “He liked a more active, kind of luxury trip … [while] my mom would stay home.”

  Apart from his new pastime, Jim was taking an interest in the burgeoning environmental movement, participating in a spring 1973 ecology special called Keep U.S. Beautiful where he performed a musical number with monsters made from garbage—ancestors of Fraggle Rock’s Marjorie the Trash Heap. Typically, Jim downplayed his activism. “I’m not an ecology nut, but I do have my own personal cause,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “People are messing up the cities something awful.… The aim of the program is not to tell people what to do, but to bring the problem out into the open so that hopefully they will think twice before they dirty up the streets and the roads again.” In other words, there would be no heavy-handed messages; as he told his children time and time again, They remember what you are. The Muppets would lead by example.

  Jim was continuing to hire new designers and builders for the Muppet workshop, bringing in two craftsmen who, in different ways, would have a lasting impact on the Muppets. The need for additional designers and builders was due partly to the recent reduction in Don Sahlin’s hours, a difficult but necessary decision prompted by Sahlin’s increasingly slow method of working. One new designer was the bespectacled and slightly eccentric Franz “Faz” Fazakas, a former employee of Bil Baird’s who could out-gadget and out-tinker even the versatile Sahlin. While Fazakas had performed some minor puppetry on The Frog Prince and The Muppet Musicians of Bremen, his real strength was in designing and inventing intricate mechanisms that gave Muppets more versatility. It was Fazakas, for example, who would improve the eye mechanisms on Big Bird and Sweetums, giving both characters a much broader range of emotions.