Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 17, 1990 TAG: 9005170179
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Henson died in New York Hospital in Manhattan. He had been taken to the emergency room less than 24 hours earlier, suffering from "acute respiratory distress and symptoms of pneumonia," hospital spokesmen said.
They described the cause of death as "a massive bacterial infection, more specifically known as streptococcus pneumonia."
Arthur Novell, spokesman for Jim Henson Productions, said Henson did not seek treatment until it was too late. An autopsy indicated that the infection had been raging through Henson's body for at least three days.
"Tragically, the acute infection had already progressed to such an extent that he had multi-organ failure: kidney failure, inability of the blood to clot, heart failure and shock," the hospital stated. "At this stage, antibiotics could not reverse the process."
Henson, who said he became a puppeteer by accident, last year sold many of his more than 200 Muppet characters and his New York-based Henson Associates Inc. to Walt Disney Co. for an estimated $150 million to $200 million. The sale included a 15-year contract for the creative services of Henson, who said he had once wanted to be a Disney animator.
"Michael Eisner, Frank Wells and all who work at the Walt Disney Co. are profoundly shocked and saddened by the untimely death of Jim Henson," Disney executives said in a statement.
Henson's Muppet credits included "Sesame Street," introduced for preschoolers by Children's Television Workshop on educational stations in 1969 and now seen in more than 80 countries; "The Muppet Show," which ran from 1976 to 1981, won three Emmys and became the world's most widely watched television program with 235 million viewers in more than 100 countries; "Fraggle Rock" and "The Ghost of Faffner Hall" series for cable; three movies, "The Muppet Movie" in 1979, "The Great Muppet Caper" in 1981 and "The Muppets Take Manhattan" in 1984, and the Saturday morning animated program "Jim Henson's Muppet Babies." The show is in its sixth season, having won four Emmys and healthy ratings.
This year his costuming helped create new box-office magic with the film "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
Although he preferred to stay behind the camera with one arm operating Kermit's head and mouth and the other the Muppet's right arm, the bearded, graying Henson last fall appeared as himself on "The Jim Henson Hour."
James Maury Henson was born Sept. 24, 1936, in Greenville, Miss., where his father, Paul, was an agronomist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The family soon moved to Hyattsville, Md., a suburb of Washington, where Henson grew up /
and, with only casual interest, joined a high school puppet club.
How he moved from puppets as a hobby to Muppets - the word he coined for his combining of marionettes and puppets - as a career also occurred without design.
"It was the early 1950s and I was between high school and college and needed a job," he said. "There was this job available for a puppeteer on a local NBC station in Washington. I figured it would be a pretty good job, so I applied for it and got it."
He kept the job while he studied acting, staging and scenic design at the University of Maryland.
During his freshman year, two events occurred that further shaped Henson's life: He acquired his own five-minute local television show, "Sam and Friends," which led into "The Tonight Show." The show continued for eight years and in 1958 won a local Emmy, which finally persuaded Henson to make his career manipulating sock-and-rag dolls.
Until then, he once explained, "it didn't seem to be the sort of thing a grown man works at for a living."
Second, during his freshman year, he met art student Jane Nebel, who became his puppeteering partner on the show and, in 1959, his wife. She continued to work Muppets as they raised their five children.
Henson created Kermit the Frog, whom he described as "a normal person in the middle of a bunch of crazies," for that local show.
by CNB