Jim Henson: The Biography (62 page)

Jim was still tinkering with the script right up until nearly the last minute, huddling with Elaine May at Downshire Hill only five days before shooting was to begin. Jim was delighted with May’s contributions—he felt she had done a good job “humanizing” the characters—and would leave her changes intact. That made the final screenplay an amalgam of contributions from May, Laura Phillips, Jim, Dennis Lee, Terry Jones, and even executive producer George Lucas—talented chefs all, but a far too crowded kitchen. While the final film would credit the script to Terry Jones, based on a story by Jim and Dennis Lee, Jones “
didn’t feel that it was very much mine. I always felt it fell between two stories, Jim wanted it to be one thing and I wanted it to be about something else.”

There was another writer, however, who would also feel he deserved a writing credit—and without it, was determined to stop the film altogether. When he learned the plot of
Labyrinth
in late 1985, writer Maurice Sendak—a friend of the Hensons for over a decade—had his attorneys fire a warning shot across Jim’s bow, cautioning him that the plot of
Labyrinth
sounded a bit too much like his 1981 book
Outside Over There
, in which a young girl named Ida must rescue her younger sister after she is kidnapped by goblins. Further, Sendak had learned that Jim was calling some of his characters “wild things,” which Sendak thought was a bit too close to
Where
the Wild Things Are
. Sendak’s lawyers advised Jim to cease production on the film, and warned that a longer list of grievances would follow.

Cheryl remembered her father being “
stunned” by Sendak’s accusation. While Jim was likely familiar with the book—Cheryl owned a copy, and Jim had seen Sendak’s original drawings for the book during a visit to the author’s Connecticut home—the idea of poaching Sendak’s work was a ridiculous affront to Jim’s own work ethic; anyone who knew Jim understood that he simply wasn’t wired that way. “
Jim was hurt,” said Lazer. “If things had been reversed, he would say, ‘Oh, go use it.’ … But he didn’t consciously steal anything.” However, there may have been other issues surrounding Sendak’s charges than the prickly writer let on; while Sendak was friendly with Jim, he was closer with Jane—and there were some who thought Sendak’s charges might have been an expression of righteous indignation over Jim’s decision to separate from Jane. Whatever the cause, Jim responded by renaming his
wild things
as
Fireys
in the final film, and would give Sendak a special acknowledgment in the credits. Sendak withdrew his objection, though he would grumble about it for years.

Filming for
Labyrinth
finally began on April 15, 1985—a massive, $25 million project that sprawled across Elstree’s nine soundstages. “
It’s a big one,” Jim told the American Film Institute. “I think it would be very difficult to do any of those major fantasy, in-studio productions for under 20 million.” Executive producer George Lucas was also on hand the first day, and surprised the entire crew by arranging for Darth Vader to stroll onto the set and present Jim with a good luck card.

For the first time, Jim would not be performing a major character in one of his films, allowing him to devote his full attention to directing. Early on, he found that Jennifer Connelly needed some coaxing to interact naturally with puppets.
“In the beginning it was hard because … it’s just strange thinking about the fact that you really are talking to a puppet,” said Connelly. Eventually, the illusion became real to her—just as Jim knew it would. “The puppeteers make them so lifelike,” said Connelly, “and you can really learn to relate to each one of them.” Jim was delighted with her attitude both
on and off camera; he got along with her well, in no small part because she didn’t crave the constant reassurance so many around Jim seemed to need. “I found I could talk very straight to her,” Jim said. “I didn’t have to tiptoe around her feelings or anything like that.”

Bowie, who reported to the set in early June, also had to learn how to act with
Labyrinth
’s elaborate puppets. He found himself especially troubled by scenes with Hoggle, whose mouth opened and closed in front of him, but whose voice came from Brian Henson, sitting just offstage, speaking into a microphone and performing Hoggle’s mouth remotely with a waldo. “
Once I’d overcome the disorientation,” laughed Bowie, “we all got along great!” “
[Bowie] has been wonderful to work with,” Jim wrote privately, “and has added a truly magical spark as Jareth.” Jim also respected Bowie’s songwriting, giving Bowie—as he had Paul Williams—“
a completely free hand” with the songs.

While Bowie winkingly described Jareth as
“a spoiled child, vain and temperamental, kind of like a rock ’n’ roll star,” Jim found Bowie himself to be anything but spoiled or temperamental. “[He’s] a very normal well-grounded straightforward person,” said Jim. John Henson, who visited the set with a friend, was starstruck by Bowie, who greeted the twenty-year-old while still dressed as Jareth. When Bowie, finally out of makeup, sought John out at the end of the day, prowling the Elstree lobby in a bright red jacket, John was so awed by the sight of the musician that he and his friend ducked out of the studio without being seen. “
Supposedly, David Bowie went around looking for us for about an hour after,” said John sheepishly. “But we were gone!”

For his part, Bowie was impressed by Jim, who seemed constantly in motion, yet oddly unaffected by his own crazy schedule. “
Jim is undoubtedly the most unflappable guy I’ve ever encountered in any profession,” said Bowie admiringly. “I just can’t believe his capacity for work. For instance, he would finish shooting for the week on
Labyrinth
in London, catch an airplane to New York, work … over the weekend, then catch a plane back to London Sunday night and be at the studios early on Monday morning.… He’s desperately work-conscious but he seems to love it all. His calm spirit made the whole film a pleasure to work on, not just for me, but for the entire cast and crew.”

Live actors aside, Jim was, as always, interested in doing new or unexpected things with puppetry. While the animatronic creatures were impressive in themselves, Jim had two more memorable sequences in mind, one that would involve the largest and heaviest mechanical puppet he’d ever created, and another that relied on nothing more complicated than the gloved hands of his performers.

“
Late in the story, what we wanted was for our hero to come up against some huge obstacle,” Jim explained. The result was a creature Jim called Humongous, a fifteen-foot-tall, armored warrior that stepped from the ornate carvings on a door.
Labyrinth
’s special effects team—led by George Gibbs, who had done mechanical effects for George Lucas—constructed an enormous puppet with a mechanical skeleton that used hydraulics to slowly walk and raise its arms. The gigantic figure could be operated remotely by a single performer wearing a robotic sleeve that controlled the skeleton’s arms, and using levers and switches to pivot and bow the figure at the waist. Despite its lumbering appearance,
“this was the most complicated thing we’d ever built,” Jim enthused, requiring computers to translate the motions of the operator for the hydraulics raising and lowering the mechanical arms of the skeleton. “To just stand there and have this large thing walk towards you is one of the most awesome sights in the world,” said Jim.

Equally as impressive, though far simpler, was a sequence Terry Jones had written in which Sarah falls down a Shaft of Hands—a narrow chute lined with gnarled hands that grab at her as she falls past. “I suddenly had this idea of
oooh!
all these hands … and they all grab her … [and it] sounds pretty spooky,” said Jones. “And then I thought it would be very nice if the hands started talking to her.” Jones thought this might involve performing the hands in a Señor Wences–like manner, with each hand making a mouth by curving the thumb against the closed fingers. But Jim had something better, and creepier, in mind.

As Jim saw it, multiple puppeteers could use their hands to form faces, with one performer making eyes, another making a fist for a nose, while another formed a mouth with one or both hands. Standing on-set, Jim ran a group of performers through possible hand motions, relying largely on Brian Henson and Kevin Clash, a dynamic young puppeteer borrowed from
Sesame Street
, to help make
the faces and choreograph the performance. The result was both spooky and funny. “
It’s certainly one of the most bizarre and unusual sequences I’ve ever used in a movie,” said Jim. Jones, too, was delighted. “
When you’ve had an idea which you thought was a pretty good idea, and then you see it done and it is so much better than you ever imagined.… It was one of those magic moments, I think, when I actually saw it.”

Brian Henson, who shared his father’s love of technology and ambitious puppetry, loved every moment of it, whether he was making mouths of his hands in the Shaft of Hands, puppeteering one of the countless background goblins at Jareth’s castle (“real crazy!” laughed Brian), or leading his team through a performance on Hoggle. But it was also hard work, the hours were long, and Brian was coming to more fully appreciate the work ethic that made his father … well, Jim Henson.

For one thing, it was never about money. After several long and grueling days of filming, Brian—who was now working as a paid performer—raised the issue of overtime. “
I never leave the studio before around 10:30
P.M.
,” Brian pointed out to his father, “[and] I never put in for overtime.” Jim considered for a moment, then smiled wryly. “When you’re in your twenties, don’t ever put in for overtime and don’t ever ask for a raise,” he told Brian warmly. “Just do the best work you can do. Impress the heck out of people.” Brian understood immediately. “He wanted to see me develop my experience and become really excellent and not get greedy,” said Brian. “That way, I’d know that I’d earned whatever I had.”

J
im wrapped shooting on
Labyrinth
on September 6, marking the moment with a small party at Downshire Hill (the final wrap party, which he had hosted on-set a week earlier, had drawn over a thousand attendees). Across the street at 1B, Connie Peterson was preparing to close down the Creature Shop—but Jim was determined not to let the workshop lie fallow between projects again.
“Rather than laying everyone off, Jim wanted to start a permanent workshop, where research and development could be continued,” said Duncan Kenworthy. At Jim’s direction, Kenworthy rounded up
Labyrinth
’s
core group of designers, builders, and craftsmen—a close-knit group of about ten—and installed them as the Creature Shop’s first permanent staff. This wasn’t Jim being sentimental, but practical. “By keeping a group of people together, we are staying closer to what we’ve always done with the Muppets, where we had our own builders,” Jim explained. “That way, you can make it better every time and build on your past work.”

As for finding the right person to run the Creature Shop, Jim’s decision-making process epitomized his management style. “He had tried to approach the problem from an engineering and creative perspective, although without much success,” remembered Brian Henson. Then Kenworthy suggested John Stephenson, who had been a designer for
Labyrinth
—but Stephenson was also a good friend of Kenworthy’s, and Kenworthy worried “it would have almost been nepotism to have offered him the job.” Jim stroked his beard thoughtfully. “We should all be so lucky as we go through life working only with friends,” he said. Stephenson was hired immediately.

When it came to working with friends, Jim, too, considered himself lucky. In early October, he rented a yacht to spend a week cruising the waters just off the south of France with a group of colleagues, including Bernie Brillstein, who was loudly and joyously celebrating twenty-five years of working with Jim. “
He was the first one to take me on a yacht,” said Brillstein. “That was Jim! He was something.” A yacht trip, in fact, was typical of the kind of vacation Jim loved. “
He was a modest guy in some ways,” said Heather Henson. “In other ways, he was
completely
over the top.”

“
He was very conservative, but there was this whole other side of him,” agreed Brillstein. “He just loved to laugh. He got the joke. He always got the joke.” Lately, in fact, Jim had become a much more engaged practical joker, actively taking up the mantle since the death of Don Sahlin, and showing a knack for somewhat prurient pranks. “
My dad was
naughty
,” laughed Brian Henson. “He had a wicked sense of humor and he loved to do naughty things … and he certainly had that
glint
in his eyes.”

A favorite target was Duncan Kenworthy, whose very proper British chain Jim delighted in yanking. One Saturday morning, Jim asked Kenworthy to join him for
a meeting with a Swedish filmmaker
who hoped to hire the Creature Shop to construct realistic-looking animals for a foreign film called
Animal Farm
—though as the pitch unfolded, and the director described a story of a nubile young girl who spent her summer tending to animals on a farm in the country, it was clear the filmmaker was
not
planning to film the George Orwell novel. Kenworthy was ready to dismiss the project outright, but noticed Jim listening with real interest. “Why not just use real animals?” Jim asked earnestly. The foreign filmmaker shrugged. “The sex scenes will be more difficult to do with real animals,” he explained. A horrified Kenworthy nearly erupted in outrage at the idea of building creatures for an X-rated film, but Jim merely kept nodding and hmmming. “It sounds like an art film,” said Jim to Kenworthy, “and I think it could be interesting. Besides, don’t we need the money for the Creature Shop?” Kenworthy blanched. “It all sounds tawdry to me,” he finally spluttered—and Jim exploded into his high-pitched giggle, unable to contain himself any longer. Laughter erupted from just outside the room, where Muppet performers had been hidden just out of sight, witness to—and videotaping—the entire elaborate prank.