Kermit Love

Kermit Ernest Hollingshead Love was born on August 7, 1916, in Spring Lake, New Jersey, to Ernest and Alice Love. Following his mother's death when he was three years old, he was raised by his grandmother and great-grandmother. He died on June 21, 2008, in Poughkeepsie, New York, of congestive heart failure and pneumonia, survived by his partner of 50 years, Christopher Lyall. During his life, Love worked as a puppet maker, puppeteer, costume designer, and actor, with his most enduring contributions made in children's television.

Love's theatrical career began in 1935, when he worked as a marionette maker for a federal Works Progress Administration theater in Newark, New Jersey. He went on to serve as a costume designer for Broadway and other stage productions during the 1930s, including work with Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre troupe. In 1937, he appeared on Broadway in a bit part as a student in the musical Naughty Naught '00. His costume design work extended into the 1940s and encompassed several significant productions: the Agnes de Mille ballet Rodeo in 1942, the Kurt Weill musical One Touch of Venus in 1943, Merce Cunningham's The Wind Remains in 1943, and Jerome Robbins's ballet Fancy Free in 1944. For George Balanchine's Don Quixote in 1965, Love designed a 28-foot marionette giant, among other items.

Love's association with Jim Henson began in the early 1960s through puppeteer Don Sahlin, who encouraged the two to meet. Their first collaboration was the La Choy Dragon, created to advertise a chow mein brand, a project that served as a precursor to the Big Bird character. Love's background in full-body puppetry and his skill at tailoring costumes to allow freedom of movement for performers made him a central figure in the construction of Sesame Street's most recognizable characters. He built Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird, the latter based on a drawing by Henson, though Sahlin had carved the first head. Love described designing Big Bird to shed feathers subtly during normal movement, comparing the effect to a tree shedding leaves in autumn, a quality he believed made the character appear more natural to young viewers. He also co-designed Cookie Monster and designed Mr. Snuffleupagus. Love accompanied the Big Bird costume — which he preferred to call a puppet — on overseas appearances. Despite a longstanding popular rumor, Love was not the namesake of Kermit the Frog; that character was created and named in 1955, before Henson and Love met.

On Sesame Street itself, Love served as one of the key supervisors alongside Caroly Wilcox. He portrayed Willy the hot dog vendor on the series, puppeteered on the special Julie on Sesame Street, and appeared in background scenes as Willy in the feature film Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, on which he also served as special Muppet consultant. He contributed to the giant character Thig for the special The Great Santa Claus Switch and co-designed many Sesame Street puppets for early international productions of the series. Love also worked on The Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie. Caroll Spinney, in his memoir The Wit and Wisdom of Big Bird, wrote affectionately of Love's importance to Sesame Street while also noting an occasional cantankerous side.

Beyond his Henson-related work, Love built puppets for the non-Henson children's series The Great Space Coaster. He also served as a mentor to puppeteer Kevin Clash after Clash's parents contacted him, introducing Clash to Jim Henson and helping him secure work on The Great Space Coaster and Captain Kangaroo. Love built the Snuggle Bear puppet used in Snuggle fabric softener advertisements and appeared as Santa Claus on the cover of New York magazine in December 1982, 1984, and 1985. In 1993, he directed the Whirligig pilot for PBS at The Studios at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas. In 2001, he designed Aza, the bird-like mascot for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Going into semi-retirement during the 1990s, Love continued building full-body puppets for the Joffrey Ballet's productions of The Nutcracker, including the mice characters and a 16-foot Mother Ginger puppet, an association that continued through 2004. Love resided in Stanfordville, New York, and, though American, often spoke with an English or sometimes French accent.