Jim Henson: The Biography: Part 1

It's finally here!

This post was supposed to go up on Monday but here we are, days later. I had family in town and a funeral to attend, but also I don’t think any of you were really asking me to defend myself or my posting schedule!

I’ll just be totally honest with you: when I started reading this book I thought, What have I gotten myself into? We went back generations into Jim Henson’s family tree, and I’m not saying that it wasn’t interesting or useful information to know. I’m just saying that I was reminded of when, as an elementary school student trying to fit in with all of my churchgoing friends, I would try to read the Bible and get stuck in the first bits of Genesis. There’s a lot of begetting, is what I’m saying.

But things picked up fast, and when they did? I was into it. I loved reading about Jim Henson’s all-around pleasant childhood, especially how he was always creative, into television, and into puppetry from a young age.

I probably should have known this already but I didn’t realize that Jim Henson was a Christian Scientist. I also didn’t know what Christian Scientists were, but they are (mostly) against medical care. Jim had severe acne as a teenager and his mom wouldn’t even let him get medication for it, which led to him having scarred cheeks as an adult…hence his trademark beard!

When I had the idea to make Everett St. James, the male love interest of Very Sincerely Yours, a puppeteer/children’s entertainer, I knew I was gonna be fighting an uphill battle in terms of readers’ expectations. But I was inspired by two things. One was how many picture book authors and illustrators were doing Instagram lives during the early days of the pandemic…it was easy for me, in my isolated state, to understand why someone who was isolated in a different way might develop a parasocial relationship with a children’s show host. Like, they’re on your screen all the time. They’re good with kids. They’re creative. And you’re lonely! It just makes sense.

But the other part was Jim Henson. I was working on an entirely different book in 2019, one that was way too much like Waiting for Tom Hanks when I started it but eventually morphed into Just Another Love Song. But when a Jim Henson exhibit came to COSI, I swear to you, a lightbulb went off in my head. I guess I knew on some level before that Jim Henson was good-looking, but being confronted with so many images of him, I couldn’t deny what my heart already knew. The dude was hot. We’re talking romance novel hero material.

And let me tell you, Jim Henson is not beating the hot allegations in this biography. On page 33, we’re already hearing that a former girlfriend referred to him as “a little fast” and a friend laughs about how he spent all their double dates in the backseat with his various dates. And then there’s a part where he goes to Europe and everyone is just like, “Yeah, he was sleeping his way around the continent!”

I just wish the people who are apprehensive about a puppeteer being hot would read this book! Personally, I think that creativity and dedication are very hot qualities, but I don’t know…I think some people who read the cover copy of Very Sincerely Yours thought that Everett was, like, one of the guys from the Wiggles in character? But ultimately I guess this is why we all have to write the books that are in our hearts, you know? No one else was going to write about a hot puppeteer. I had no choice.

But there was one other kernel of an idea that led to Very Sincerely Yours that I haven’t talked about before! Stephen King says that every story he writes needs a cup and a handle. A cup by itself isn’t a story. He needs to wait for the handle to show up.

The cup of Very Sincerely Yours was the Jim Henson angle. I couldn’t stop thinking about a male love interest who was incredibly passionate about his creative job (I think this is the only time I’ve ever started a story with the guy’s personality). But the handle was Jane Henson.

As you know if you read the book, Jane was a student at college with Jim—and she was a few years older. A mature woman! Jim and Jane started working together, and they were creative partners long before they became romantic partners. There were so many pictures of them working together with puppets in the book (and in the COSI exhibit). After Jim came back from his European sexcapades, he decided that they should get married. They were both engaged to other people, but they broke off those engagements. Their proposal story is nuts to me.

“Their courtship was part of Jim’s life plan, the next logical step after forming Muppets, Inc. toward becoming Jim Henson. Jim and Jane’s relationship was based on passion—passion for art, for performance, and for each other—but it was more a business proposal than a marriage proposal. ‘It was like, Do I have a choice in this?’ Jane recalled, laughing at first about their unusual courtship—but then grew more reflective about their complex thirty-year relationship. ‘Every marriage comes with an agreement, and our agreement was that we would support his work,’ she said firmly. ‘So, in many ways, the work came first. That wasn’t necessarily a good agreement. This isn’t against Jim—I just think that the general agreement of the whole marraige and family thing was that the work was primary. Where that came from I’m not really sure. I guess it’s because Jim and I were working when we got married, but that wasn’t always a good agreement…and it really was not supposed to be questioned.”

At the COSI exhibit, Jane was present in most pictures until she wasn’t. There was a short explanation that she quit working with the Muppets and began staying home with their children, and that was it. I found this lack of explanation fascinating. Like, where was she? I’m not saying that this is bad, or that she didn’t want to do this…but I am saying that I wanted to hear more from her! At the time, I kept thinking of the Garfunkel & Oates song “50/50.”

You weren’t subconsciously conditioned

To give up your dreams for me

Or that loved and ambitious

Were mutually exclusive things to be

It probably didn’t cross your mind

That your mom had goals too

That had nothing to do with getting married

And nothing to do with having you

Can we stop pretending

That it isn’t kind of sad

That your mom never pursued anything

With the same intensity as your dad

And right now you’re thinking

Not my mom, that was her decision

Okay, sure, but all our moms?

That’s what they all envisioned?

I was thinking about writing a book about a couple where the man’s work desires overtake the woman’s, but ultimately I realized that wasn’t even remotely something that sounded fun or interesting to write about (so I ended up writing about a man who was too passionate about a work and a woman who’d spent her entire life not being passionate about anything). But it’s still a topic I find fascinating! What was it like to be married to this creative powerhouse whom everyone describes as a genius when you also had your own creative ambitions?

I was hoping I’d learn more about Jane in this book, but so far I haven’t. Much like the COSI exhibit, her decision to stay at home with their kids and stop performing is announced without much fanfare: after she became pregnant with their second child, Jim and Jane “decided the time was right to make a difficult but crucial decision: following the birth of their next child, Jane would retire from performing. For now, she would remain an active performer for as long as she could—and would always stay involved with the company even as she devoted herself nearly full-time to the children.”

That’s all we get! I want to know so much more. Of course, I’m only 1/3 of the way through the book, so perhaps more information is coming. It sounds like they had a good and loving relationship even after they separated (is that a spoiler for real life?) and he sounds like an engaged, fun dad. None of my questions are any kind of dig at him. I just want to know more! I realize that the book is called Jim Henson, but I’m still curious.

There’s so much interesting stuff in this chunk of the book:

-I loved reading about Frank Oz and how he came to work with Jim.

-We get the beginnings of Sesame Street, which was perilously close to being called something (anything!) else!

-It made me feel genuinely inspired to read about just how into making stuff Jim was. He was writing, he was painting, he was making films. And also he was doing so much stuff with his kids! One of my favorites was the dollhouse he made himself that was a replica of their home. What a great environment for a kid to grow up in, and I wish I could be even half that creative.

-This letter!

-Jim’s brother, Paul, died at only 23 years old, when Jim was just 19. This wasn’t something I knew and I found his attitude and response to his brother’s death so moving. “He felt like he maybe didn’t have enough time,” Frank Oz said. “He realized that he just didn’t have an infinite amount of time to do all the things he wanted to do.”

-I also loved this quote from Jim: “I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out for the best. I know I drive some people crazy with what seems to be ridiculous optimism, but it has always worked out for me.” You can see this attitude so clearly in all his work.

-It’s always a good time to rewatch Time Piece. Now that I’m thinking about it, I can really see the Jim Henson Fan to David Lynch Fan pipeline.

What parts of the book stuck out to you? Let me know, and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to talk about Part 2! I hope we learn more about Jane. See you soon. xo