Jane Henson

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Jane Henson bigraphy, stories - American puppeteer

Jane Henson : biography

June 16, 1934 – April 2, 2013

Jane Henson (née Nebel; June 16, 1934 – April 2, 2013) was an American puppeteer and the wife of puppeteer Jim Henson.

Early life

Born Jane Ann Nebel and raised in St. Albans, Queens, she met Henson while both were freshmen at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Illness and death

On March 20, 2013, her daughter Cheryl revealed that her mother had cancer and was paralyzed; she asked fans to keep Jane in their prayers. Jane Henson died on April 2, 2013 at the family home in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was 78.

Personal life

Jane and Jim Henson separated in 1986 although they remained close until his death in 1990. In 1992, she established to preserve and perpetuate the work of her late husband. She served on the boards of the Jim Henson Foundation and the American Center for Children’s Television., WVU News.

Career

Jane Nebel and Jim Henson worked together on the live 1950s television show Sam and Friends, where Jane collaborated with Jim in performing Muppets and devising several of the show’s technical innovations, including the use of television monitors to watch their performances in real time. When, in the late 1950s, Jim took a year off from Sam and Friends to travel in Europe, Jane ran the show, with the help of a UMD classmate.

"Among the first of his assignments at WRC was Afternoon, a magazine show aimed at housewives. This marked his first collaboration with Jane Nebel – the woman who later became his wife"Finch, Jim Henson – The Works (1993). p. 15. They did not begin dating until Jim returned from Europe where he traveled for several months, to be inspired by European puppeteers who look on their work as an art form. They were married in 1959 and had five children.

Their first child, Lisa, was born the next year, followed by four others: Cheryl (b. 1961), Brian (b. 1962), John (b. 1965) and Heather (b. 1970). When she quit full-time Muppeteering in the early 1960s to raise their children, Jim hired Jerry Juhl and Frank Oz to replace her.Plume, Kenneth. , IGN FilmForce, 2000-02-10. Retrieved on 2007-05-06. She helped the newly-hired Frank Oz learn how to lip sync, and continued to perform non-speaking muppets on Sesame Street from time to time through at least the eighties. She was also responsible for the hiring of puppeteer Steve Whitmire in 1978, after he gave her an impromptu audition in an Atlanta, Georgia airport restaurant.