Jim Henson: The Biography

by Brian Jay Jones

  Jim was disappointed, but pragmatic—delaying The Crystal in favor of the next Muppet film meant he could keep Froud and the team of artists and builders at work in the New York shop, where they could continue to refine the more realistic, and increasingly complex, puppets Froud was designing. “The idea of doing very naturalistic creatures that looked like living things was exciting to me,” said Jim. “I could see that it would take an awful lot of technical know-how to make it work, but we had the beginning of a team of people who could tackle that.” In fact, several members of The Crystal’s design team—including one of its lead builders, a talented sculptor and doll maker named Wendy Midener—were especially knowledgeable in the technical know-how, having worked in tandem with director George Lucas on a lifelike puppet Lucas wanted for his second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back.

  It is not surprising that Jim and Lucas would eventually cross paths. Not only were they artistically cut from the same cloth, but for the better part of a year, they were practically neighbors. “In England, while we were making [Star Wars], we worked across the street from [Elstree], which is where Jim Henson’s group was [taping The Muppet Show], and I got to know him,” said Lucas. “We were very much alike: independent, out of the spotlight, obsessed with our own films. And I really admired the Muppets … so I asked him if he thought we could get together and create a very realistic-looking puppet.” Lucas already had his own team of special effects wizards in place—including master makeup artist Stuart Freeborn, who had designed several large walkaround creatures like Chewbacca—but if a puppet was needed, Lucas wanted to be certain he had the best puppet designers and performers working side by side with his own team at Lucasfilm. Jim, too, was anxious to learn more about the dynamic special effects technology Lucas and his team were known for developing, hoping perhaps to apply some of Lucasfilm’s expertise to The Crystal. “It became a mutual thing,” said Empire Strikes Back producer Gary Kurtz, “because they needed some advice on their film and we needed their expertise in the puppet area”—and by November 1978, Jim noted in his journal that he and the Muppet team were “Working with STAR WARS on YODA.”

  Initially, Lucas had wanted Jim to perform the character. “I thought he was the best puppeteer,” said Lucas—but with his already cramped schedule, Jim was concerned he would be unable to give the project the time and attention it needed, and instead recommended Frank Oz for the job. “Jim called me into his trailer … and showed me a sketch of Yoda—and it felt right,” said Oz. “Sometimes you have to work at something before you have that feeling, but this felt really good.” Additionally, said Oz, “it was acting, not just performing”—a skill at which Oz excelled.

  Using concept drawings provided by Lucas, Wendy Midener had drawn and sculpted Yoda to make the character work in three dimensions—then watched in mild frustration as Freeborn and the Lucasfilm technicians built what was essentially a clunky and heavy doll, with thick cables trailing out of it to control the various eye, ear, and face mechanisms. “They were building a special effect,” said Muppet performer Kathy Mullen, who assisted Oz with Yoda. “But Wendy really did work hard on that to make it work and I’m sure Frank [Oz] was over there a bunch of times to try to get it right. I mean everybody worked to try to get it right.”

  Freeborn and his team continued to tinker with Yoda, but when Oz showed up at the soundstage at Elstree for the first day of filming in August 1979, the puppet, said Oz bluntly, was still “really fuckin’ heavy.” Rather than carving and constructing Yoda from foam and lightweight materials, Freeborn had built Yoda out of heavy nonpliable rubber, putting extra weight on Oz’s wrist and severely reducing the puppet’s flexibility. A thick bundle of cables trailed from Yoda’s neck to a black control box under the stage, where Midener could operate the controls for Yoda’s eyes—but the short length and additional weight of the cables only made the puppet that much heavier and more difficult to manipulate. Meanwhile, Mullen had to brace herself under Oz’s right arm to perform the character’s right hand and, at times, operate the mechanisms that wiggled Yoda’s ears or pulled his mouth back into a slight smile. The stage had been elevated, though just barely—and there was very little room for the three performers to move about as they watched their performance on monitors glowing in the darkness. “It was very hard,” groaned Mullen.

  And yet the experience was a success, not only for the wondrously memorable character that Oz and the Muppet team created for the film, but also because—as Jim hoped—it had served as a creative reconnaissance mission for The Crystal’s designers and builders. Yoda had been a kind of dry run for the sort of creatures Jim hoped to populate The Crystal’s world with—and by watching and working with Freeborn and his team they had learned even more about how the latest remote control technology could be integrated into a puppet, to blink or narrow eyes or turn up the corner of a mouth to give a character an even more lifelike appearance. Just as important, they had also learned what didn’t work. For one thing, the puppets—and all their incorporated technology—would have to be lighter and more flexible. Jim would also have to find new ways of keeping three or more performers—and all the necessary cables controlling eyes and ears and smiles—out of sight of the camera, especially if he hoped to have his puppets walking, climbing, and moving about out in the open. “It was just the sort of thing that needed a lot of research, a lot of time and experimentation,” said Jim—and now with The Crystal temporarily pushed back, time was, for once, a luxury Jim and his team had.

  For now, Brian Froud, Wendy Midener—who would marry Froud in May 1980—and the team at the New York workshop would continue their work, blending the lessons learned from their experience with Yoda with their own creative expertise in puppetry design and function. Jim, meanwhile, would start the wheels turning on the next Muppet movie, putting comedy screenwriter Jack Rose—who had penned Road to Rio, one of the early Hope-Crosby films Jim loved—to work on a film treatment. Jim was also going to direct both the next Muppet film and The Crystal himself—of that, there was no question, and Grade had never even raised the issue—but now that he would be at the helm of his first big screen features, Jim wanted to be sure he had a reliable and experienced cameraman at his right hand. In early 1980, Jim met with—and “loved”—Ossie Morris, an Oscar-winning cinematographer who had been the cameraman of choice for director John Huston, shooting epics like Moby Dick and Moulin Rouge. Morris could read a script or walk a movie set and know intuitively if what Jim saw in his head would show up on camera, and his sure eye would make him an invaluable member of Jim’s production team.

  And there was still The Muppet Show to attend to. The strike of 1979 had put the Muppet crew behind schedule, with nine episodes of the fourth season remaining to be taped in a little less than seven weeks. Even as the team speedily wrapped up their fourth year at Elstree, they remained one of London’s best-loved acts. Muppet fans continued to mob ATV so much that Jim finally had to put a stop to the popular tours of the workshop. Fan mail from around the world still poured into the Muppet offices at Elstree, most of it addressed to the characters themselves, asking for pictures or autographs. Children sent in drawings of their favorite Muppets or boldly invited Jim to dinner at their house, while their parents asked if they might be allowed to purchase a used or broken Muppet. And nearly every working puppeteer, comedy writer, or songwriter, it seemed, sent in a résumé or audition tape, begging, pleading, praying for a chance to work with the Muppets. Jim responded politely to all of them, saying a kind word or two about their material while letting them down as gently as he could. Still, Jim did find a few performers through the mail, including Karen Prell, a young performer from Washington who enclosed several photos of her handmade puppets and asked for an audition.

  More and more, Jim was coming to regard London as home—as was Lazer, who had unconsciously developed a whiff of a posh English accent. He loved dining in the city’s finer restaurants, gambling in London’s most exclusive clubs, and liked b
eing recognized by cooing British admirers as he walked Hampstead’s winding streets. And yet, while Jim may have wanted to live in London full-time—and indeed, with the house in Hampstead, it seemed to many that he already did—he literally counted the days he spent in the city each year, making sure he never stayed a day longer than six months, which would put him at the mercy of England’s astronomically high income tax rate, which hovered just over 80 percent.

  Success had also made Jim somewhat more aware of himself and how he looked, and he had recently taken steps to add a bit of polish to his comfortable, bohemian look. While one of his favorite boutiques would always be Liberty of London, where he would purchase armloads of long-sleeve shirts in colorful florals and paisleys, Jim had finally allowed Lazer to talk him into investing in several bespoke suits, shirts, vests, trousers, and even custom-made boots from London’s best tailors in Savile Row, once spending over £1,000—about $6,000 today—on clothing. At six foot one, Jim was mostly arms and legs—his waist was a waiflike thirty inches—and custom clothing meant there would be no more exposed calves when he crossed his legs on television, or wrists poking from the end of a too-short shirt. Agent Bernie Brillstein, for one, thought Jim looked great in his “beautiful suits” and was impressed to see him wearing ties. “Strange ties,” added the agent, “but ties.”

  Brillstein was also pleased to see Jim “enjoying money—you know, in a nice way.” While Jim had always been fond of showy cars and luxurious vacations, he had lately begun to indulge in art, sculpture, antiques, and furniture, with a particular eye for bold craftsmanship—an expensive habit for which Lazer felt he was partly to blame. One afternoon as he and Jim were window-shopping in London, Jim spotted a beautiful piece of art in a store window. “How much do you think that costs?” he asked Lazer excitedly, and the two spent several moments guessing the price. Finally, Lazer went inside to ask the owner, and learned the piece was available at an astronomical price. Jim arched an eyebrow quizzically at Lazer. “Should I?” he asked impishly. “Jim, if you like it, just do it,” said Lazer—and so Jim did, walking out of the store with the package tucked under his arm, beaming happily.

  Lazer later said he “felt badly” that he had given Jim the approval he had seemed to be looking for to indulge himself more freely. “I think I should not have encouraged him,” said Lazer. “He started … on a buying thing … he felt free.” Still, Jim was never entirely careless with his money; when he felt an expensive antique cabinet was overpriced, he quietly had the piece appraised and discovered it was worth less than half of the $19,000 asking price. Looking back, Lazer couldn’t bring himself to begrudge Jim’s buying sprees too much. “I’m so glad he did. He bought houses where he wanted. He lived where he wanted.… I’m glad he lived while he lived.”

  Jim completed work on the fourth season of The Muppet Show in late February 1980, taping the final episode with guest Diana Ross, who charmed the entire Muppet crew by modestly asking “Was that all right?” after every take. After only a two-week break—during which Jim worked almost constantly, jetting back to New York for several days and then dashing to Paris to promote The Muppet Movie—he reassembled the Muppet team back at Elstree to begin work on the fifth season. While The Muppet Show was, at that point, arguably the most watched show in the world, Jim had even higher hopes that the show would live on in perpetuity in reruns, thereby providing a steady revenue stream. “The long range product for this show is down the road,” he had explained to Time magazine, “when it’s syndicated [in reruns].”

  For that to happen, however, a show generally needed at least one hundred completed episodes that could be put into rotation; by the end of season four, The Muppet Show had only ninety-six. Season five, then, would be pivotal, for several reasons—not only would the show reach its critical one hundredth episode, but Jim had also privately decided that the fifth season would be its last. “After five seasons, we’re doing other projects,” Jim told reporters. As the Muppet team set to work at ATV on the first few shows of season five, Jim was already conferring with Jack Rose and Jerry Juhl about the script for the second Muppet movie. And he wasn’t happy with it.

  From the beginning, Jim knew he wanted his film to be a homage to early movie musicals, “because I so enjoy those movies. I intended [the second Muppet movie] to have the fun and joy of those earlier films.” He also knew he wanted Kermit to be a reporter-turned-detective who would have to compete with a rival for Miss Piggy’s affections—but typically, he was having a difficult time articulating the rest of his story, only vaguely directing that it be “joyful” with a “positive attitude toward life,” and that it contain “several hilarious sequences [with] big laughs” as well as “some real emotions/relationships.” He thought there might be a big chase at the end, and he was certain the movie would end with all the Muppets floating down in “parachutes—everybody sings as they go down.”

  With such vague directions, it was perhaps little wonder that what he got back from Rose and Juhl wasn’t what he thought he’d asked for. “There are a great many problems with this draft,” he wrote testily of their script, confessing privately in his journal that things were “not looking good.” Frustrated, he asked veteran television comedy writers Jay Tarses and Tom Patchett—who had written for Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett—to meet with him at his house on Downshire Hill to discuss them taking over the scripting duties. In the meantime, he asked fellow Sesame Street alum Joe Raposo to begin crafting songs—despite the fact that a plot hadn’t yet been confirmed—and hired choreographer Anita Mann for dance sequences that didn’t yet exist.

  Fortunately, Patchett and Tarses worked quickly, and by early May 1980, Jim had a first draft he could work with, though one sticking point remained: the title. Patchett and Tarses had given their script the throwaway title Muppet Mania, but Jim decided to put the question to the Muppet staff, holding a contest to find the best name for the film. Among some of the more interesting or silly suggestions—The Rocky Muppet Picture Show, A Froggy Day in London—Jim found a handwritten submission from nineteen-year-old Lisa Henson, suggesting The Great Muppetcapade. Written in pencil next to it, as if rolling the words around in her mouth, she had scrawled “escapade? escpigaide? caper?” and then scratched all three alternatives out. Jim circled The Great Muppetcapade and the crossed-out word Caper. Problem solved. The Great Muppet Caper it would be.

  Lisa’s involvement was critical to another project as well, an “interactive movie” concept revolving around a story they were plotting with Maurice Sendak and Jon Stone called “The Varied Adventures of Mischievous Miles.” During a trip to Hollywood to attend the Oscars—where Jim and Oz performed the Oscar-nominated “Rainbow Connection,” only to watch it lose the Best Song trophy to “It Goes like It Goes” from Norma Rae—Jim and Lisa met with Sherry Lansing at 20th Century Fox to pitch their ambitious idea: a film in which the audience would be asked at intervals to choose the direction of the story. The mechanics were cumbersome—based on choices made by the audience, seventy-two different variations of the film were possible—but Jim was confident he could make it work. “We were really interested in nonlinear storytelling,” recalled Lisa. “The concept was you make a movie on a laser disc, and then a computer program would drive it to play different bits of the disc depending on what choice was made … but it wasn’t possible to do it on a commercial filmmaking level.” It would take another decade before the technology could catch up with Jim’s idea. “Really, where it all ended up was in video games,” said Lisa, “but we didn’t know that at the time.”

  Jim would shelve the interactive movie concept, but work on The Crystal continued—and the more time Jim spent building his world in his head, the more he was convinced that the $13 million Grade had offered to finance the film wasn’t going to be enough. Grade was scheduled to attend the Cannes Film Festival in mid-May—and had generously offered to pay for Jim and Lazer to spend a few days at the festival as well—and it was here that Lazer planned t
o make an appeal directly to Grade to up their budget. “Lord Grade’s office chartered a flight to take Jim and me to France,” recalled Lazer. “Two fabulous suites awaited us, a detailed itinerary, as well as a major dinner reservation … Jim was showered with praise and adoration.”

  Very quickly, however, both Jim and Lazer came to see the dingy crust beneath Cannes’ glossy veneer, and Lazer began to lose his nerve about approaching Grade. “I thought it [Cannes] was trashy,” said Lazer, “everyone hawking, selling their wares.” That first evening, they ran into Liza Minnelli, who invited them back to a yacht party—“[she] was crazy over Jim,” said Lazer. That, too, was another letdown—“people drinking and slobbering,” shuddered Lazer—and he and Jim ducked out after midnight to walk along the docks on the way back to their hotel. Jim walked slowly and quietly, and Lazer worried that Jim was disappointed with their Cannes experience. Then he realized Jim wasn’t even paying attention to their surroundings; he was watching the moon on the water. “[It] seemed to do a shimmer dance on the water just for him,” said Lazer. None of the glamour—or grunge—of Cannes seemed to impress or depress him at all. Instead, said Lazer, “he was mesmerized by the beauty, the serenity and the nurturing power of Nature.” With a new perspective, a reinvigorated Lazer strolled over to Grade’s suite the next morning and persuaded the mogul to increase his investment in The Crystal from $13 million to $25 million. “That’s the money that really saved the film,” said Oz.