Henson was the real father of five children: Brian and older sisters Lisa, 35, president of Columbia Pictures, and Cheryl, 34, now a vice president of Henson Productions and liaison between the company and Children's Television Workshop, which produces Sesame Street; John, 30, a sculptor and puppeteer; and Heather, 25, a Muppetmaker. Together, they found themselves forced to make decisions even as they grieved. Their first was to appoint Brian the next head of Henson Productions.
Brian, then just 26, faced an immediate crisis. A year and a half earlier, his father had met with Disney to discuss a video deal. When Disney president Michael Eisner suggested that Disney buy the company for a reported $150 million, Henson was enthusiastic. "The idea was that all of the managing of the assets would be handled by somebody else, and people would be free to be creative," says Lisa.
In January 1990, a core group of Henson's colleagues had moved out to L.A. from the company's New York and London headquarters to set up a new office. While negotiations moved forward, they began to clean up the company's assets in order to hand them over to Disney, which meant dissolving lucrative licensing deals. Alex Rockwell and Martin Baker, now executive VPs of creative affairs and production, respectively, were among those put in place to help run the company under Disney. In June 1990, the family was to meet in New York with its lawyers and sign the final papers. On May 16, Henson died.
"If you had asked a year earlier," says Kenworthy, "everyone would have said, 'The company will fold without Jim.'" But as Jim's coworkers converged on New York for the funeral, Kenworthy recalls, "we started to ask, 'Why did we work so hard?' What kept us going was putting together the memorial service. We all put together this show, and it was a great show."
Steve Whitmire, who shares Jim Henson's soft-spoken Southern sensibility, was crowned the next Kermit, a poignant honor. "I remember when I took Kermit out of the box, it smelled like Jim," he says. "It was such a reminder that I put it away, and didn't touch it for about four weeks." David Lazer, Henson's right hand on the corporate side for 24 years, says simply, "Everyone was close to Jim, and we were desperate."
To give Brian time to regroup (he was living in London), Lazer became acting president and Brian's mentor. All the children had grown up in the company, but only Brian had extensive production experience, puppeteering for Henson Productions since age 17 (he freelanced for a year before returning to the company in 1985). "Brian was the natural successor," says Baker. "I'm sure Jim had dreams of Brian running the company, even though it had never been talked about."
"I didn't know how much I could do the job," Brian says in a quiet, nasal voice that is vaguely Kermitesque. "And I don't know how much I actually did do the job. Everyone really stayed tight around me."
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