Mary Turner

Mary Turner is a British puppet builder and performer whose only work with the Creature Shop was on Labyrinth as part of the goblin ensemble. I don't know why she has not worked in other Creature Shop projects. Turner must have been unfamiliar with regular puppets as more familiar with what she has done outside of the Creature Shop. Gerry Anderson's "Supermarionation" puppet series is Mary's best known work. "Supermarionation" is the method of electronic marionettes which open and close in time with pre-recorded dialogue from someone else. Turner designed and built the title character on Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Marina on Stingray, and Lady Penelope/Gordon Tracy for the Thunderbirds. For The Secret Service, she used photographs of the real-life person as a reference to produce the Stanley Urwin puppet. When the puppet unit closed in 1969, Mary did freelance work at numerous television stations, including BBC. I don't know what kind of freelance work she has done during the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's (not counting Labyrinth). Turner could have worked on various Creature Shop projects such as The Dark Crystal, The Witches, Buddy, and The Storyteller. Sure she got to work with several Muppet performers when working on Labyrinth, but that was only once. She could have got to known the performers like Karen Prell, Anthony Asbury, or Frank Oz. Mary could have also shown them "Supermarionation" and even give an demonstration of how they work. I have read that in 2013, Turner has received a lifetime achievement award for the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild. That award must mean that she has also worked in a lot of theatre in her freelance job or maybe made a lot of models. I sure hope that someday she'll show the Muppet performers how she did "Supermarionation" and maybe one of the puppeteers would try it too like she did. Mary Turner, I think it's really cool how you made marionettes electronic, but I'll bet it's hard to make them move. It might not have been easy but it was worth making all of those characters for all of those past shows involving them. I hope you'll keep that lifetime achievement award and remember all the marionettes you've created over the years. Maybe someday, show it to the Muppet performers and they'll be very impressed or show it to Olga Felgemacher, a marionette performer. You're a technical genius Mary!