The only complaint of his five children seems to be that because Henson was so busy, he was unable to spend enough time with them. They often accompanied him while he worked, and he once even took his eldest daughter along when he held a meeting with the head of a movie studio. That child, Lisa, is now a powerful producer in Hollywood; Henson's elder son Brian runs the Jim Henson Co.; and another daughter, Cheryl, also works there. However gentle, Henson was not a complete naif. He liked expensive cars — Rolls-Royces, Porsches — and after he and Jane separated in 1986 (they remained close and never divorced), he dated a succession of women.

In the '70s and '80s, Henson produced innumerable films and TV shows with and without the Muppets. Some were dark, like his adaptations of folktales and myths in the ingenious TV series Jim Henson's The Storyteller. Then in 1990, at age 53, Henson suddenly died after contracting an extremely aggressive form of pneumonia. He remains a powerful presence, though, on account of Sesame Street and the Henson Co., whose next venture will be a global family-entertainment network called the Kermit Channel. Because the works we encounter as children are so potent, Henson may influence the next century as much as this one, as his viewers grow up carrying his vision within them.

James Collins is TIME's TV critic. His household includes two Kermits and an Elmo

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Nov. 23, 1970

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