Sesame Street puppeteer Caroll Spinney
dies at 85 Caroll Spinney Sesame Street
puppeteer behind Big Bird and Oscar dies
at 85 actor retired from show last year
after hand picking successors to play
both characters puppeteer Caroll Spinney
who brought Big Bird and Oscar the
Grouch to life on the iconic children's
television show Sesame Street for half a
century died on Sunday at the age of 85
Spinney died at home in Connecticut
after living for some time with the
movement disorder dystonia which causes
uncontrollable muscle contractions
according to a statement from Sesame
Workshop the nonprofit organization that
produces the show the actor retired from
the show last year having hand-picked
successors to play both Big Bird and
Oscar two very different characters he
helped create delighting millions of
children those characters won a towering
Yellowbird the other a grumpy Green
Monster in a trash can existed in what
many considered a magical world created
by puppet master Jim Henson and
including pals Bert and Ernie
the lovable Cookie Monster and the goofy
Kermit the Frog spinny once told the New
York Times he had modeled Oscar the
Grouch on a cross between a
magnificently rude restaurant waiter and
a ranting New York cab driver in 1973 a
year after then US President Richard
Nixon made his dramatic trip to China
spinny flew to Beijing for a performance
dressed as big bird he said he only paid
half price for the plane ticket because
the character was only six years old
when Henson died in 1990 big birds sang
Kermit's sweetly melancholy tune it's
not easy being green at a memorial
service Carol was an artistic genius
whose kind and loving view of the world
helped shape and define Sesame Street
from its earliest days in 1969 through
five decades Sesame Workshop said in a
state
his enormous talent and outsized heart
were perfectly suited to playing the
larger-than-life yellow bird who brought
joy to generations of children and
countless fans of all ages around the
world and his lovably cantankerous
grouch gave us all permission to be
cranky once in a while
poignant Lee Spinneys death came as the
show marked its 50th birthday and as it
is lighted with one of America's top
cultural awards the Kennedy Center
Honors at a gala Sunday in Washington
Spinney himself won multiple Daytime
Emmys for his work as well as a Lifetime
Achievement Award he also earned a
Grammy Award for best children's
recording at the time of his retirement
he was quoted as saying that his big
bird alter-ego had opened my mind and
nurtured my soul he hand-picked his
successors in the two major roles after
mentoring them for more than two decades
a shy child Spinney embraced puppetry
and reportedly owned 70 puppets by the
age of 12 he met Henson at a puppeteers
festival in 1962 and bumped into him
again in 1969 months later he joined
Sesame Street Spinneys life was the
subject of the 2014 documentary I am Big
Bird
the Caroll Spinney story Big Bird the
instantly recognizable giant yellow bird
with a huge beak is more than 2.5 meters
tall Spinney who is 5 feet 10 had to use
his hands and wires to manipulate the
towering puppet guided by a TV monitor
in the costume in 2000 he was named a
living legend by the US Library of
Congress and he has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
Henson's family said in a statement that
Spinney managed to perfectly convey the
humor and heart in our father's
creations Big Bird was childlike without
being childish and Oscar the Grouch
reflected universal feelings we all
share no matter our age that he could do
this work so brilliantly responsibly and
with such infectious love and joy as his
gift to us all the statement set
