Jim Henson: The Biography (79 page)

As longtime collaborator and
Sesame Street
head writer Jon Stone put it, “
Jim didn’t think in terms of boundaries at all, the way all the rest of us do. There are always these fences we build around ourselves and our ideas. Jim seemed to have no fences.”

His energy and enthusiasm—his sheer joy in his work—were boundless as well. “
I often tell people … ‘if you think it’s fun to watch these things,’ ” said Muppet designer Bonnie Erickson, “ ‘you should have been there
making
them.’ ” Jim’s excitement, said Minghella, was “
so overpowering, you could just tell he was a man who had not lost an ounce of enthusiasm for anything he was doing.” Frank Oz thought it was more than just enthusiasm; he called Jim “
an extraordinary appreciator”:

Perhaps more than anything, however, it was that sense of purpose, that basic decency, that made Jim and his life and work so remarkable—and makes it just as remarkable today. “
Underneath the zaniness, or perhaps standing next to it, there was a sense of decency that the characters had about the world and to each other,” said Jerry Juhl. “That’s one of the real legacies that Jim left. I think it’s one of the reasons he’s so loved today, because he could be a pop culture figure doing mass entertainment, and he could explore the edges of crazy, goofy comedy. But at the core, there was always a sense of social values and decency.” As creative consultant Alex

Rockwell remembered, “
He often started from the position of, ‘Let’s do something that’s going to make the world a better place.’ … The work was always about fun and creativity and inventiveness, but he really cared in a genuine way that it also had a value system.”

Always, then, the work had to matter—because to Jim, the
world
mattered. “
I know that it’s easier to portray a world that’s filled with cynicism and anger, where problems are solved with violence,” Jim once said. “What’s a whole lot tougher is to offer alternatives, to present other ways conflicts can be resolved, and to show that you can have a positive impact on your world. To do that, you have to put yourself out on a limb, take chances, and run the risk of being called a do-gooder.”

Jim was always willing to take that risk, thought Richard Hunt. “
He wasn’t a saint, but he was as close as human beings get to it.” That had made Jim’s passing so much harder—and yet, said Hunt, “part of me feels … that Jim had done his work on earth.… He had done an amazing amount of work. He’d given an amazing amount of himself, and in turn to each person who was affected by him.”

In her New York apartment, Cheryl Henson still keeps a small photograph of her father, taken during his years in London while working on
Labyrinth
. In the photo, Jim is walking away from the camera, clutching a walking stick as he strides up a path toward Hampstead Heath—perhaps headed out to one of the Bunny Picnics he so adored. With a blanket tucked casually under one arm, he is relaxed and carefree, looking happily up the hill in front of him with no intention of looking back. “
That’s how I think of my dad after he died,” said Cheryl. “It was time for him to go. He’s going off on his own.”

“
We all have jobs,” said Richard Hunt, “and he’d done his. He’d done it well.” What Jim Henson did so well was always more than just Muppets. It was more than Fraggles or Gelflings or goblin kings. Like Jim himself, what Jim did was wonderfully complex, though not complicated—and elegant in its simplicity. “
When I was young,” wrote Jim, “my ambition was to be one of the people who makes a difference in this world. My hope still is to leave this world a little bit better for my being here.”

And he did.

“Jimmy Henson” as an elementary school student in Leland, Mississippi, in 1946
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“I was a Mississippi Tom Sawyer,” Jim said
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Betty and Paul Henson, Sr., with sons Jim (center) and Paul Jr., circa 1940
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All in a day’s play: a young Jim—swaddled in a makeshift turban and robe—attempts to snake-charm a garden hose
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Jim credited family gatherings at the dinner table—like this one in 1956—with shaping his sense of humor. “There was so much laughter,” he recalled, “because everyone was always telling jokes and saying funny things.” From left: Jim’s aunts Attie and Bobby, Uncle Jinx (with back to camera), Jim’s grandmother “Dear,” Paul Sr., unidentified, Jim, and Betty Henson
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Jim was nineteen when his brother, Paul Henson, Jr., a navy ensign (shown at right in 1953), was killed in an automobile accident at age twenty-three. The effect on Jim, recalled Frank Oz, was profound. “He realized that he just didn’t have an infinite amount of time to do all the things he wanted to do.”

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The birthplace of the Muppets: Jim in front of the Henson home on Beechwood Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, in 1956
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Jim’s sketches of Kermit and Sam, 1960
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