Kermit Love

Jun 30 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

IT WAS perhaps a small burden to carry in an astonishing life, but most people assumed that Kermit, the wise-cracking but sensitive frog, had been named after the chap with a snowy beard, which looked like it should have been hanging on a grotto peg.

In fact, Kermit, the philosophising amphibian, was not the creation of Kermit Love. But the man was present at the hatching of Big Bird, the tri-toed, tie-wearing challenge to ornithology, who lived on Sesame Street’s garbage heap, where he chatted with Aloysius Snuffleupagus, who appeared to have descended from woolly mammoths.

In the real world, Love had been born in Spring Lake, New Jersey, the son of a plasterer. But he was brought up by a grandmother and great-grandmother.

As a little boy, he was enchanted by the world of magic lanterns, Punch and Judy, shadow puppets and all the possibilities of the imagination.

After falling from a horse when he was 12, Love was bed-bound for three years, but he travelled far in his mind and began drawing the characters from his dreams.

By 1935, Love was making theatre puppets and designing costumes for the Mercury Theatre company, New York, founded by Orson Welles.

Perhaps his greatest work was as designer of ballet costumes for a galaxy of choreographers including Twyla Tharp, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine.

But greater fame would come with his work on Sesame Street, the children’s TV programme which began in 1969.

Jim Henson had done some sketches of the character which would become Big Bird. Love gave him “life”, keeping a watchful eye on the loping gait of Henson, as he designed a creature which would eventually stand at 8ft 2ins, towering over Snuffleupagus.

Most assumed that Henson had named his famous frog after Kermit Love, but, apparently, this was not so. Henson had thought of the name before they met.

Love was devoted to Big Bird and would accompany him on promotional tours – the bird travelling at half price on aeroplanes because he was perennially six.

Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch were among more than 20 other creatures given life by Love on Sesame Street.

A gentle man, Love believed his creations, including some on the Muppet Show, were peace-lovers in a violent world.

Kermit Love, father of gentle creatures; born August 7, 1916, died June 21, 2008.