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James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, artist, cartoonist, inventor, screenwriter, actor, film director, and producer. Born in Greenville, Mississippi, and raised in Leland, Mississippi, and Hyattsville, Maryland,〔 he began developing puppets while attending high school. While he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park, he created ''Sam and Friends'', a five-minute sketch-comedy puppet show that appeared on television. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in home economics, he produced coffee advertisements and developed some experimental films. Feeling the need for more creative output, Henson founded Muppets Inc. in 1958 (which would later become the Jim Henson Company). He remains best known as the creator of the Muppets. Henson became famous in the 1970s when he joined the children's educational television program ''Sesame Street'', and there helped develop characters for the series. He also appeared in the sketch comedy show ''Saturday Night Live''. In 1976, after scrapping plans for a Broadway show, he produced ''The Muppet Show''. He won fame for his creations, particularly Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, and Ernie, and he was involved with ''Sesame Street'' for over 20 years. He also had frequent roles in Muppets films such as ''The Muppet Movie'', ''The Great Muppet Caper'' and ''The Muppets Take Manhattan'', and created advanced puppets for projects like ''Fraggle Rock'', ''The Dark Crystal'', and ''Labyrinth''. During the later years of his life, he also founded the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He won two Emmy Awards for his work on ''The Storyteller'' and ''The Jim Henson Hour''. On May 16, 1990, Henson died suddenly from streptococcal toxic shock syndrome at the age of 53. In the weeks after his death, he was celebrated in a wave of tributes. He was posthumously inducted into Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and as a Disney Legend in 2011. ==Early life== Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi, the younger of two boys. His parents were Betty Marcella (née Brown) (1904-1992) and Paul Ransom Henson (1904-1994), an agronomist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He was raised as a Christian Scientist and spent his early childhood in Leland, Mississippi, before moving with his family to Hyattsville, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., in the late 1940s. He later remembered the arrival of the family's first television as "the biggest event of his adolescence," having been heavily influenced by radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and the early television puppets of Burr Tillstrom (on ''Kukla, Fran, and Ollie'') and Bil and Cora Baird.〔 He remained a Christian Scientist at least into his twenties when he would teach Sunday School but fifteen years before he died he wrote to a Christian Science church to inform them he was no longer a practicing member.〔(Phoenix New Times ) 〕 In 1954, while attending Northwestern High School, he began working for WTOP-TV (now WUSA-TV), creating puppets for a Saturday morning children's show called ''The Junior Morning Show''. After graduating from high school, Henson enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park, as a studio arts major, thinking he might become a commercial artist.〔Finch (1993). p. 9.〕 A puppetry class offered in the applied arts department introduced him to the craft and textiles courses in the College of Home Economics, and he graduated in 1960 with a BS in home economics. As a freshman, he had been asked to create ''Sam and Friends'', a five-minute puppet show for WRC-TV. The characters on ''Sam and Friends'' were forerunners of Muppets, and the show included a prototype of Henson's most famous character: Kermit the Frog.〔Finch (1993). p. 102.〕 Henson would remain at WRC for seven years from 1954 to 1961. 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.〕 In the show, he began experimenting with techniques that would change the way puppetry had been used on television, including using the frame defined by the camera shot to allow the puppeteer to work from off-camera. Believing that television puppets needed to have "life and sensitivity," Henson began making characters from flexible, fabric-covered foam rubber, allowing them to express a wider array of emotions at a time when many puppets were made of carved wood.〔 A marionette's arms are manipulated by strings, but Henson used rods to move his Muppets' arms, allowing greater control of expression. Additionally, Henson wanted the Muppet characters to "speak" more creatively than was possible for previous puppets—which had seemed to have random mouth movements—so he used precise mouth movements to match the dialogue. When Henson began work on ''Sam and Friends'', he asked fellow University of Maryland sophomore Jane Nebel to assist him. The show was a financial success, but after graduating from college, Henson began to have doubts about going into a career as a puppeteer. He wandered off to Europe for several months, where he was inspired by European puppeteers who look on their work as an art form. Upon Henson's return to the United States, he and Jane began dating. They were married in 1959 and had five children, Lisa (b. 1960), Cheryl (b. 1961), Brian (b. 1963), John (b. 1965, d. 2014),〔 and Heather (b. 1970). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jim Henson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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