Jim Henson: The Biography (74 page)

Jim’s larger concern, however, was still for his performers. There had been no resolution on whether Jim would be permitted to participate in the selection and training of puppeteers, or whether his performers would be seamlessly transferred over to Disney. “
I don’t think they understood it took Jim years to get a single puppeteer up to speed,” said Joan Cooney. Jim was growing particularly irritated with Katzenberg, who he found condescending toward the puppeteers and contemptuous of the art of puppetry. Even inside the Disney organization, Katzenberg was famously haughty and combative;
Roy Disney—Walt’s nephew and vice chairman of the company—found him rude, arrogant, and dismissive of the concerns of artists. In 1987,
The Wall Street Journal
, with grudging admiration, described Kaztzenberg as “
the most brutal, the stingiest, most compulsive—and possibly the best—deal maker in town.” Such a style may have gotten results, but “
that’s not the way Jim operated,” said Lazer, who spent countless evenings on the phone with Jim, trying to smooth things over after one of Jim’s encounters with the abrasive Katzenberg. “Many times, the deal was off,” said Lazer, “and I brought it back to life again.” Lazer’s advice: talk with Eisner. “Every time he would go see Eisner, it got better,” said Lazer. “Eisner made it better.”

Still, even Jim’s relationship with Eisner could get prickly from time to time. The point of contention was usually the same:
Sesame Street
. Jim had continued to assure Joan Cooney that Disney wouldn’t acquire the
Sesame Street
Muppets in the deal, and had even personally informed Eisner that pursuing such a negotiation would be “
a non-starter.” During one lunch meeting with Cooney and Eisner, however, Jim became visibly annoyed when Eisner even
mentioned
the words
Sesame Street
. “
There you go again,” said Jim curtly. Eisner let the matter drop.

Also rocky was Jim’s relationship with Mary Ann. The two of them had been together almost constantly since Christmas, and in
mid-January they were staying in Jim’s house in Malibu while Jim worked on
Muppet*Vision 3D
. With his regular team of performers all in one place again, Jim threw a party at the house, beaming happily as he moved comfortably among friends—including a number of women, noted Mary Ann, who seemed to know their way around Jim’s kitchen. “
I felt like the writing was on the wall,” said Mary Ann.

Shortly thereafter, Mary Ann returned to New Mexico. Jim didn’t try to follow. “After a few weeks, we decided to let go,” she recalled, “and he said he would give me the space I needed. It was hard but very loving.” Several weeks later, however, Jim went out of his way to bump into her as she left a lunch meeting in Los Angeles, giving her an enormous hug as she waited for a car. If Jim was hoping for reconciliation, he was likely surprised by the cold reception. That evening, Mary Ann angrily called Jim at home, and shouted, “I was five weeks into building my own life again!” There would be no argument, however; Jim simply listened quietly and hung up—then called back the next evening. But her anger was too much for him, and when she finally asked Jim not to call again, he complied. “Later on, I felt badly, because even if you thought you were justified, it was hard to stay mad at Jim,” said Mary Ann. “But he understood.”

While Jim understood, it was painful for him
not
to be in a relationship—especially as he looked around him as his children and co-workers entered into serious relationships or marriages of their own. Lisa, now nearly thirty and a successful film executive, was in a long-term relationship with director Sam Raimi. Cheryl, too, was in a committed relationship, while twenty-six-year-old Brian Henson would soon marry costume designer Ellis Flyte. Frank Oz had been married since 1979 and was raising children, while several Muppet office romances had bloomed into matrimony: besides Brian Froud’s marriage to Wendy Midener, creative director Mike Frith had married performer Kathy Mullen. It made Jim feel lonely and old—and he sometimes wondered aloud if he would ever truly be in love again.

And then there was Jane. Despite their differences, “
they were always very civil except when they weren’t,” reported Brian Henson. Jim trusted her to deliver an honest opinion, and the two of them would go to lunch or dinner regularly, where they would talk about the children and the company. More often now, Jim would lay out
the details of the Disney discussions and ask her opinion. Jane would listen patiently, offering advice only when asked. She understood his frustration with Katzenberg. “Jim didn’t really want to work with somebody who had no respect for what he did,” said Jane. But she also knew Jim wanted the deal to work out. “He could see the possibilities of what could be done if he could be part of that big company.”

If Katzenberg was giving Jim headaches, he was nothing compared with Roald Dahl, who was positively fuming over
The Witches
, finally released in the middle of February 1990. Things had been quiet over the past few months while the film went into postproduction and final editing; but Dahl had finally seen the completed movie with an audience, and was
“appalled” at what he considered “the vulgarity, the bad taste and the actual terror displayed in certain parts of the film.” Dahl fired off an angry letter to Duncan Kenworthy (since “Jim … does not seem to answer any of my letters” he complained) and demanded that his name, and the name of the book, be removed from the credits of the final film. If Jim refused to comply with this request, warned Dahl, “then I shall obviously have to do my best with press conferences, etc. to ensure that children don’t go and see the film.” Kenworthy refused to rise to the bait, merely responding that he was “
saddened” to receive Dahl’s letter, and noting that the film had played well in test screenings. He assured Dahl that he would pass his letter on to Jim.

Jim responded to Dahl a week later, suitably apologetic, but tactfully ignoring Dahl’s threat. “
I’m sorry that we didn’t stay in closer touch with you through the process of making the film,” wrote Jim. “We certainly had our problems, and perhaps you could have helped us through some of the rocky patches to a final product that you would be happier with.” Nonetheless, Jim liked the final film, and would stand by it. “It’s such a delightful book that you’ve given us to work with,” he told Dahl diplomatically. “I hope you will forgive us for falling short of your expectations.” Though he would never be happy with the film, Dahl grudgingly withdrew his threat.

J
im was spending more and more time at the Disney facilities in Orlando now, tending to his corner of the park, examining walkaround
Muppet costumes, and recording voice tracks to be used inside of Disney World’s elaborate transportation system. As much as he enjoyed the Grand Floridian, he wanted a home of his own in the area, and had recently put in the paperwork to purchase a house overlooking Lake Down in the town of Windermere, an affluent suburb thirty minutes north of Walt Disney World. Jim had so enjoyed decorating his Steamboat Road home in Connecticut with Connie Beale that he hired her to help with his new home as well, flying her to Orlando regularly to shop for furniture and fabrics.

Negotiations with Disney dragged on through the spring, with no end in sight, though there had already been one casualty: Bernie Brillstein. Disney lawyers were insisting that Disney have the exclusive authority to sell and distribute Jim’s projects—and that meant Brillstein could no longer serve as Jim’s representative. Jim had flown to California to discuss the matter with Brillstein personally, breaking the news to the agent at his home. Brillstein understood. “
Everyone who knows the Disney Company knows that they think they’re smarter than anyone who was ever born,” said Brillstein. But what Jim did next stunned him.

Brillstein’s name was at the very top of The List—the first name Jim had written down when assessing who had been vital to his success, and with little wonder: Brillstein had been watching out for Jim—and vice versa—for thirty years. “We’ve had a great, great time,” Jim told Brillstein. “I wanted to tell you myself, because I love you and you deserve it.” Jim handed Brillstein a check for $7 million—he promised another $3 million when the deal went through—and offered to pay the agent $500,000 annually in perpetuity to serve as his personal advisor. Brillstein was speechless. “Jesus Christ,” he finally croaked as he took the check. “Our bond was the unspoken certainty that we belonged together,” said Brillstein later.

Through it all, Jim continued working on
Muppet*Vision 3D
, as well as a live stage show for Disney-MGM called
Here Come the Muppets
and the television special
The Muppets at Walt Disney World
. There were some inside the organization who wondered why Jim would keep doing work for Disney without a formal agreement in place. Duncan Kenworthy thought it was typical not only of Jim’s work ethic, but Jim’s faith in Eisner.
“Jim didn’t say, ‘We’re not going
to do anything until the Disney deal is signed,’ ” recalled Kenworthy. “He said, ‘Hey guys, this is about relationships.’ Besides, he couldn’t sit on his hands for eight months. He just pitched in.”

It wasn’t just Disney getting work out of him; Jim was still actively pursuing and promoting projects for Henson Associates and the Creature Shop, most of which he would own as part of his production company once the agreement was complete. In early March, Jim began meeting with Henson Associates staff about a second series of
Storyteller
episodes based on Greek myths, and put the final touches on a family special called
Living with Dinosaurs
, about an asthmatic boy with a talking stuffed dinosaur, that had been intended as an installment of
The Jim Henson Hour
. By the end of the month, he was out promoting
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
, which opened strongly on March 30 and earned rave reviews for the Creature Shop’s expressive turtle costumes.

Jim was spending so much time at his California production company, in fact, that he had decided to purchase the Malibu house he had been renting for the past year. He now had homes in Malibu, Florida, New York, Connecticut, and London—“
one home per child,” he joked. The place in Malibu was particularly good for Jim—tucked up on the bluffs near Nicholas Canyon Beach, far removed from the bustle of Burbank, with no other homes around, it seemed, at times, to be in the middle of nowhere. He had recently taken up yoga, and in the mornings he would set up his yoga mat on the rear deck and go through his sun salutation poses as he looked out over the Pacific Ocean. “
It just made him so happy,” said Cheryl. Other times, he would simply sit quietly as he watched the ocean stretch out toward the horizon—“
just a few minutes in meditation and prayer each morning,” he said. “I find that this really helps me to start the day with a good frame of reference. As part of my prayers, I thank whoever is helping me—I’m sure somebody or something is—I express gratitude for all my blessings and I try to forgive the people that I’m feeling negative toward. I try hard not to judge anyone, and I try to bless everyone who is part of my life, particularly anyone with whom I am having any problems.”

That spring, Jim made the short flight from Burbank up to Sacramento, then drove up the coastline to visit Jerry Juhl at his home a
hundred miles north of San Francisco. The two walked and talked among the giant redwoods for a while, then returned to Juhl’s home office to discuss
The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made
, which Jim was still determined to make once the Disney deal was complete. It was a project the two of them loved to talk about—and Jim would spread the storyboards out on the floor of Juhl’s office where, in no time, the two of them would be giggling uncontrollably as they tossed around one idea after another. “
I thought he was more relaxed and happier, sort of more content with what was happening than I’d seen him in a long time,” said Juhl. “Really happy.”

Lazer thought so, too. In April, he briefly joined Jim down at Disney-MGM, where Jim excitedly described a new attraction he wanted to build: a fully operational television studio in which park visitors could watch the Muppet performers at work on whatever production happened to be under way at the time. As he showed Lazer around the rest of the Muppet area—making big sweeping motions with his hands as he pointed out where the Great Muppet Ride would be or where he wanted to set up the Great Gonzo’s Pandemonium Pizza Parlor—Lazer thought that “
Jim was never happier in his life.… Anything he wanted to do, he could do,” said Lazer. “I never saw this friend of mine so happy.”

By the end of April, then, Jim was determined to get the Disney deal done. There was still the major issue of the status of the Muppet performers to resolve—
the big question was whether Disney would buy out any performers it
didn’t
put on its own payroll—but Jim was getting tired of the haggling. “
Disney focused on
everything
,” said one Henson insider. “You’d have to call Michael Eisner and say, ‘This is where it’s gone with your zealous robots.’ Every single issue was pushed as a deal point by Disney. As opposed to focusing on the big points, they focused on everything.” It was a war of attrition, and no detail was too minute. Even the small service elevator at One Seventeen had drawn fire from the Disney lawyers, who pounded away at Jim’s legal team for weeks, arguing over elevator permits and inspection records. Henson Associates attorney Peter Schube still grimaced at the negotiations even twenty years later. “
[Henson Associates] was extremely solid,” said Schube. “We had been well served by the very best outside lawyers, particularly in the
field of copyright and trademark, for as long as there had been a company. But we were a closely held, nonpublic company, operating out of a brownstone. There’s always something that can be ginned up if an army of Disney lawyers is charged with finding things.” As one Muppet writer put it, “
Disney is a corporate entity and Jim and the Muppets have a very fuzzy, Grateful Dead kind of sensibility.” It was that underlying difference in corporate personalities, said Schube, “
that drew the process out, and created frustration on both sides. They had a way of doing things that were meaningful to them. Jim had a goal that was meaningful to him—but Disney’s way of doing things sort of pushed that goal further and further out.”