Died at 89
male
James Maury Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, actor, animator, creative producer, and director who achieved worldwide notability as the creator of the Muppets. Henson was also well known for creating Fraggle Rock (1983–1987) and as the director of The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986), as well as creating the puppets for Sesame Street (1969). Born in Greenville, Mississippi, and raised in both Leland, Mississippi, and University Park, Maryland, Henson began developing puppets in high school. He created Sam and Friends (1955–1961), a short-form comedy television program on WRC-TV, while he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park, in collaboration with fellow student Jane Nebel. Henson and Nebel co-founded Muppets, Inc. – now The Jim Henson Company – in 1958, and married less than a year later in 1959. Henson graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in home economics. In 1969, Henson joined the children's television program Sesame Street (1969–present) where he helped to develop Muppet characters for the series. He and his creative team also appeared on the first season of the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975–present). He produced the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show (1976–1981) during this period. Henson revolutionized the way puppetry is captured and presented in video media, and he won fame for his characters – particularly Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, and the characters on Sesame Street. During the later years of his life, he founded the Jim Henson Foundation and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He won the Emmy Award twice for his involvement in The Storyteller (1987–1988) and The Jim Henson Hour (1989). Henson died in New York City from toxic shock syndrome caused by Streptococcus pyogenes. At the time of his death, he was in negotiations to sell his company to The Walt Disney Company, but talks fell through after his death. He was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and was named a Disney Legend in 2011. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jim Henson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Jim Henson
Animatronic designer
for Animatronic designer in Walking with dinosaurs (2013) Early version
Suggested by janethzavala
June 1988, BBC Earth entered a deal with Evergreen Films, based in the United States, to produce a film featuring dinosaurs. By the following November, BBC Earth entered a deal with Reliance Big Entertainment to finance the production of three films, including Walking with Dinosaurs. The deal had initially attached Pierre de Lespinois of Evergreen Films and Neil Nightingale to co-direct the film. In 1988, the project began development in Evergreen live-action division in which De lespinois and nightigale had originally planned to use stop motion animation techniques such as puppets, scale models, 3d and 2d animation, Animatronics and miniatures.The film's original main protagonist was a Stegosaurus named Kun and the main antagonist was originally a Spinosaurus named Grokna, with a small bird and company named Fordest as a supporting character. The film was originally going to be much darker and violent in tone, in a style akin to a nature documentary. After Kun defeats Grokna in a final fight, the film would end with the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which would ultimately result in the deaths of the main dinosaur characters. In 1990, producer/director Thomas G. Smith became the writer Then Barry cook ocuped the director chair
