System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Jim Henson, Muppeteer
September 24, 1936 - May 16, 1990
Jim Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi on September 24, 1936. Henson was a devoted fan of puppeteers and ventriloquists; his idols included Edgar Bergen, Burr Tillstrom and Bil and Cora Baird. While attending high school in Maryland (where his meteorologist father had been relocated), Henson was hired for the staff of the Washington D.C. kiddie show Sam and His Friends.
By the time he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, the lanky, goateed Henson was in charge of the TV show's puppets, with his future wife Jane Nebel as his assistant. It was during the Washington years that Henson hit upon the concept of the Muppet: part marionette, part puppet. These muppets were first broadcast when Henson was 18; and Kermit the Frog, whom Henson fashioned out of his mom's overcoat in 1959, was introduced the following year. Several years later, the popular children's program, "Sesame Street" was created.
Henson then created, The Muppet Show, which became one of the biggest non-network hits in TV history, as well as a great international success. Capitalizing on the popularity of "star" muppets Kermit and Miss Piggy, Henson and his staff concocted the 1979 all-star feature film The Muppet Movie. With 1981's The Great Muppet Caper, Henson made his feature-film directorial debut; he would later direct Labyrinth (1985), and with Frank Oz co-directed The Dark Crystal (1982). These successes were followed by Muppet Babies (1984) and Fraggle Rock. During the late 1980s, Henson expanded his activities to designing "creatures" for other producer's projects, notably the 1990 movie blockbuster Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
In May of 1990, Henson was poised to sell his Muppet empire to Disney Studios. Suddenly stricken with streptococcus pneumonia, Jim Henson checked himself into New York Hospital, where he died a few days later at the age of 53. The Muppet operation was taken over by Jim Henson's son Brian.
