Jim Henson: The Biography

by Brian Jay Jones

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For the first time ever—a comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most innovative creative artists: the incomparable, irreplaceable Jim Henson

He was a gentle dreamer whose genial bearded visage was recognized around the world, but most people got to know him only through the iconic characters born of his fertile imagination: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Big Bird. The Muppets made Jim Henson a household name, but they were just part of his remarkable story.

This extraordinary biography—written with the generous cooperation of the Henson family—covers the full arc of Henson’s all-too-brief life: from his childhood in Leland, Mississippi, through the years of burgeoning fame in America, to the decade of international celebrity that preceded his untimely death at age fifty-three. Drawing on hundreds of hours of new interviews with Henson's family, friends, and closest collaborators, as well as unprecedented access to private family and company archives, Brian Jay Jones explores the creation of the Muppets, Henson’s contributions to Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live, and his nearly ten-year campaign to bring The Muppet Show to television. Jones provides the imaginative context for Henson’s non-Muppet projects, including the richly imagined worlds of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth—as well as fascinating misfires like Henson’s dream of opening an inflatable psychedelic nightclub.

An uncommonly intimate portrait, Jim Henson captures all the facets of this American original: the master craftsman who revolutionized the presentation of puppets on television, the savvy businessman whose dealmaking prowess won him a reputation as “the new Walt Disney,” and the creative team leader whose collaborative ethos earned him the undying loyalty of everyone who worked for him. Here also is insight into Henson’s intensely private personal life: his Christian Science upbringing, his love of fast cars and expensive art, and his weakness for women. Though an optimist by nature, Henson was haunted by the notion that he would not have time to do all the things he wanted to do in life—a fear that his heartbreaking final hours would prove all too well founded.

An up-close look at the charmed life of a legend, Jim Henson gives the full measure to a man whose joyful genius transcended age, language, geography, and culture—and continues to beguile audiences worldwide.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE

“Jim Henson vibrantly delves into the magnificent man and his Muppet methods: It’s an absolute must-read!”—Neil Patrick Harris

“An exhaustive work that is never exhausting, a credit both to Jones’s brisk style and to Henson’s exceptional life.”—The New York Times

“[A] sweeping portrait that is a mix of humor, mirth and poignancy.”—Washington Independent Review of Books

“A meticulously researched tome chock-full of gems about the Muppets and the most thorough portrait of their creator ever crafted.”—Associated Press

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345526120
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/10/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	608
Sales rank:	102,395
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Brian Jay Jones is an award-winning biographer and vice president of Biographers International Organization. Jones is a devoted member of the Jim Henson generation, having been two years old when Sesame Street premiered in 1969 and nine when The Muppet Show debuted in 1976. A former policy analyst and advisor in the U.S. Senate, Jones abandoned politics for the pen in 2008, with the publication of his award-winning biography, Washington Irving. He lives with his wife and dog in Virginia. His favorite Muppet is Rowlf (thanks for asking).

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Chapter One
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Table of Contents

Prologue Blue Sky 1973 xi

Chapter 1 The Delta 1936-1949 3

Chapter 2 A Means to an End 1949-1955 23

Chapter 3 Sam and Friends 1955-1957 45

Chapter 4 Muppets, Inc. 1957-1962 67

Chapter 5 A Crazy Little Band 1962-1969 95

Chapter 6 Sesame Street 1969-1970 137

Chapter 7 Big Ideas 1970-1973 173

Chapter 8 The Mucking Puppets 1973-1975 203

Chapter 9 Muppetmania 1975-1977 231

Chapter 10 Life's Like A Movie 1977-1979 271

Chapter 11 The World in His Head 1979-1982 303

Chapter 12 Twists and Turns 1982-1986 350

Chapter 13 Storyteller 1986-1987 392

Chapter 14 A Kind of Craziness1987-1989 412

Chapter 15 So Much on a Handshake 1989-1990 432

Chapter 16 Just One Person 1990 462

Epilogue Legacy 485

Acknowledgments 491

Notes 497

Selected Bibliography 555

Index 559

Interviews

Brian Jay Jones on

Jim Henson: The Biography

Biographers have the unique responsibility—and privilege—of living with their subjects for the years they're doing their research and writing. Frankly, I couldn't have asked for better company over the last five years. Jim Henson has been part of my life—and probably part of yours—for nearly as long as I can remember. I was two when Sesame Street premiered in 1969, and nine when The Muppet Show debuted in 1976. That practically makes me Muppets Generation 1.0. Why would I choose to write about Jim Henson, then? Heck, why wouldn't I?

For the most part, the bulk of the research for this biography was conducted the old-fashioned way: sitting in an archive—in this case, The Jim Henson Company archives in Long Island City, New York—and turning over documents one at a time. I read through Jim's private diaries, examined handwritten notes—sometimes just scraps of paper with ideas for a character name or a slapdash drawing of a new Muppet—pored through business papers and receipts, and poked through innumerable TV scripts and film proposals, many of which never made it any further than Jim's carefully typed notes. For the first time, you'll read about many of these projects, and learn how hard Jim worked to bring programs like The Muppet Show to television.

I also had the pleasure of interviewing all five Henson children and his widow, Jane—who passed away earlier this year—as well as countless colleagues, friends, and collaborators. We spoke in living rooms in London, workshops in New York, and film studios in Burbank. We talked over breakfast in hotels and brunches in diners. And when we couldn't meet in person, we talked on telephones and Skype, or wrote each other e-mails. Almost to a person, everyone was open, honest, and thoughtful about Jim and his work—and, as you can probably imagine, many were also very, very funny.

Finally, of course, there was the pure enjoyment of going back through Jim's work, watching Muppets and Fraggles and Skeksis and Storytellers with a keener appreciation of how Jim wove his life into his art, and his art through his life. Any time you can watch episodes of The Muppet Show, or old footage of Jim blowing up his Muppets on The Ed Sullivan Show and call it work, you know you've officially got one of the best jobs anywhere.

It took five years to get here—and now, at last, it's your turn to live with Jim Henson. I think you'll find he's pretty much exactly as you want him to be: genuinely kind, dazzlingly inspirational, immensely talented and—as Frank Oz said—"delightfully imperfect." Not bad for a kid from the swamps of Mississippi.

"It's a good life," Jim once wrote. "Enjoy it." And I hope you'll enjoy Jim Henson.

Editorial Reviews

Jim Henson vibrantly delves into the magnificent man and his Muppet methods: It’s an absolute must-read!”—Neil Patrick Harris
 
“An exhaustive work that is never exhausting, a credit both to Jones’s brisk style and to Henson’s exceptional life . . . Brian Jay Jones tells the story of how Henson turned a quaint art form into an entertainment empire.”—The New York Times
 
“[A] sweeping portrait that is a mix of humor, mirth and poignancy.”—Washington Independent Review of Books
 
“Superlative . . . Jones draws upon new interviews with family and friends, reams of archival material, and Henson’s own journals to provide a nuanced study of a preternaturally gifted, relentlessly driven artist.”—Los Angeles Review of Books
 
“A meticulously researched tome chock-full of gems about the Muppets and the most thorough portrait of their creator ever crafted.”—Associated Press
 
“Jim was one of my closest friends. And yet I found out things about him in Jim Henson that were new to me. Brian Jay Jones has captured the layers of Jim’s genius and humanity, as well as the flaws that made Jim, like all of us, so delightfully imperfect. I thank Brian for giving Jim life again. This book has captured the spirit of Jim Henson.”—Frank Oz

“Illuminating . . . As Jones expertly shows, Henson remained throughout his life an artist who was continuously in motion, conceiving, pitching, and managing multiple projects at once.”—The Atlantic
 
“Consistently surprises . . . Highly readable and never long-winded (even at nearly 600 pages), Jim Henson joyously documents its subject’s knack for combining old-fashioned puppetry with the world’s newest entertainment medium to forge a kind of furry, felt-covered vaudeville.”—The Wall Street Journal

“This is a biography that earns the label definitive.”—The Dallas Morning News

“An insightful look at the gentle artist.”—Parade
 
“Compulsively readable . . . evocative . . . Much has been written about Henson—during his life and after—but nothing with the same sense of authority and access as Jim Henson: The Biography.”—The A.V. Club
 
“There are so many enjoyable aspects to this book that it’s hard to know where to start. . . . Jim Henson: The Biography is a fantastic story of a brilliant life cut short, but it can also be read as a blueprint for following your bliss.”—BookPage

“Jim Henson: The Biography feels comprehensive without bogging down; it will keep readers turning pages and enjoying every scene from Henson’s life.”—Shelf Awareness

“Sure to be savored for its exhaustive look at the late Muppet-master.”—Variety

“Masterful . . . Jones continually shows that Henson left the world a better place, which serves as the book's theme. . . . [Jim Henson] can be enjoyed by readers of more than one generation.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The story of the innovative puppeteer’s life that Muppets completists have been waiting for . . . The section on Henson’s death and funeral is one of the best parts of the book—moving and elegiac. I dare you not to cry.”—Hollywood Reporter

“[Brian Jay Jones’s] lucid style, wide-angle perspective, and deep immersion in Henson’s exuberantly innovative approach to puppets, television, and film make for a thoroughly compelling read. . . . With verve and insight, Jones illuminates the full scope of Henson’s genius, phenomenal productivity, complex private life, zeal to do good, and astronomical influence.”—Booklist (starred review)
 
“Brings to light a spirit of love, warmth, wit, and so much more.”—Library Journal

“The book’s most engrossing passages explore the extraordinary technical demands of creating naturalistic puppet spectacles in the age before computer graphics: ‘performing’ a Muppet was an intricate, almost contortionistic dance of two puppeteers crammed into a single sleeve. . . . A fascinating making-of documentary.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“I loved it. Brian Jay Jones vividly portrays Jim’s journey, and also the intersecting journeys of his colleagues and friends. In spite of the fact that Jim and I worked together closely for many years, there were compartments of Jim’s life that I hadn’t known about before. I was completely involved and couldn’t put the book down. A tremendous job.”—Dave Goelz, Muppet performer (Gonzo, Boober Fraggle, Bunsen Honeydew)

“This is not only a superb biography for the Jim Henson and Muppet fans but also a sensitively written portrayal of a great and unique human being that will fascinate any and all readers.”—Fran Brill, actress, Sesame Street performer
 
“Brian Jay Jones, in this marvelous tale of struggle and triumph, tells us how and why Jim Henson and his Muppets have rightly assumed their places in the pantheon of American creative geniuses alongside Walt Disney and Mickey, and Dr. Seuss and the Cat in the Hat.”—Paul Reid, co-author of The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill—Defender of the Realm
 
“Every Muppet fan has wondered who was behind the wide-mouthed, bug-eyed, furry creatures. Before now all we had was a credit line: Jim Henson. Now, with Brian Jay Jones’s riveting Jim Henson, we have a nuanced portrait of the puppeteer—part genius inspired by his Mississippi Delta roots and his Christian Science faith, part flawed human with tastes too rich in everything from his art and cars to his women—that brings new understanding of and empathy for an icon of American popular culture.”—Larry Tye, author of Satchel and Superman

From the Publisher

…Brian Jay Jones tells the story of how Henson turned a quaint art form into an entertainment empire…Jones had excellent access, and took full advantage of it, interviewing Henson's relatives…as well as his many collaborators, from fellow puppeteer Frank Oz…to George Lucas…He dwelled in the vast Muppet archive and pored over Henson's diary. The result is an exhaustive work that is never exhausting, a credit both to Jones's brisk style and to Henson's exceptional life.

The New York Times Book Review - John Swansburg

The Sesame Street auteur who made the Muppets into a global entertainment and merchandising juggernaut seems almost as winsome as his cute, furry creations in this adulatory biography. Jones (Washington Irving: An American Original) styles Henson as a polite and soft-spoken but charismatic figure whose “faith in his fellow man was unbounded,” and whose defining characteristics were “staggering” generosity and an unerring instinct for “playing nice.” The worst sins the author can dredge up are affordable penchants for fast cars and gambling and some affairs after Henson separated from his wife. Jones makes a meatier, though overstated, case for Henson as a genius—he soft pedals the fact that Henson’s non-Muppet projects usually bombed—who revolutionized puppetry with televisual mise-en-scène; flexible, expressive, close-up-ready faces; and edgy humor that often climaxed in explosions or Muppet cannibalism. The book’s most engrossing passages explore the extraordinary technical demands of creating naturalistic puppet spectacles in the age before computer graphics: “performing” a Muppet was an intricate, almost contortionistic dance of two puppeteers crammed into a single sleeve, and one swampy movie scene required Henson to manipulate a banjo-playing Kermit the Frog while sealed in a diving bell. Jones presents a rather bland show-biz saga, but with a fascinating making-of documentary woven in. Photos. Agent: Jonathan Lyons, Lyons Literary. (Sept. 24)

Publishers Weekly

09/15/2013
Jones chronicles Jim Henson's life, starting with a look at how Henson's teenage fascination with the television industry in the early 1950s propelled him into an enduring journey through the art of puppetry, and on a larger scale, a venue to share his love, imagination, and humor with the world. In 1955, he created local TV segments with his wife, Jane Nebal, which showcased their unique puppets and comedic sense that was partial to things being eaten or blown up. The first of Henson's many television commercials, in which several of the Muppet characters were developed, ran in 1957. Attending Puppeteers of America conventions, Henson and Nebal met future collaborators including Frank Oz, who would go on to become half of what many consider to be one of the great comedic duos: Bert and Ernie. All the while, Henson created and ran a company built on teamwork, laughter, and abundant creativity. His life was a steady stream of projects including Sesame Street, the first season of Saturday Night Live, The Muppet Show, and The Muppet Movie. VERDICT Jones's (Washington Irving) biography, which draws on interviews with Henson's family, friends, and colleagues as well as company and family archives, brings to light a spirit of love, warmth, wit, and so much more. It makes an enjoyable companion to Karen Falk's Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal. [See Prepub Alert, 4/1/13; see Q&A with the author on p. 72.]—Lani Smith, Ohone Coll. Lib., Fremont, CA

Library Journal

Biographer Jones (Washington Irving: An American Original, 2007) relies on strict chronology to tell the life of Muppets creator Jim Henson (1936–1990). With the cooperation of the Henson family, the author portrays his subject as not only innovative, but also mostly upbeat and pleasant to work with. Since the Muppets are mostly feel-good creations and Henson was mostly a feel-good guy, the biographical narrative sometimes lacks tension. That is a minor shortcoming, however. Jones is masterful at explaining how Henson grew up to become a daring puppeteer and scriptwriter, how he managed to attract so much remarkable talent to his side, and how his stressful business relationship with the Disney Company might have aggravated the bacterial infection that weakened the normally healthy Henson, who died at age 53 while trying to negotiate the planned Disney purchase of the franchise. (Note: While there was speculation at the time of his death that the Disney negotiations had a detrimental effect on Henson's health, there is no medical proof that this was the case.) Jones does not ignore Henson's separation from his wife/creative partner, nor his extramarital affair with a much younger woman, but the downside of Henson's personality is not Jones' primary focus. In an era of pathography, this biography stands out as positive. The writing is clear throughout, and the chronological approach allows Jones to clearly demonstrate cause and effect. Forced to become a businessman to manage what became an unexpectedly large empire, Henson often struggled with the portion of his days that felt noncreative. Jones continually shows that Henson left the world a better place, which serves as the book's theme. The author ably shows many reasons why Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and many other Henson creations are recognizable more than two decades after his death. A solid biography that can be enjoyed by readers of more than one generation.

Kirkus Reviews

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