Kermit Love

Kermit Love was a puppet designer/builder and actor who had a long association as a designer/builder with the Muppets, most notably on Sesame Street (where he also acted as Willy). He met Jim Henson through an urge by puppet builder Don Sahlin. Kermit once had a theater background within the ballet Fancy Free and the show Don Quixote where he made a marionette giant. Love put his theater work to the test by designing and building Big Bird in the beginning and Mr. Snuffleupagus in later seasons. He also worked with the Muppets as seen on The Great Santa Claus Switch, The Muppet Show, and The Muppet Movie, but Sesame Street was his domain, with Caroly Wilcox. He even puppeteered for the Julie on Sesame Street special back in 1974, filmed where The Muppet Show was taped. Outside of his work with the Muppets, Kermit Love remained busy as a freelancer with his own studio Great Jones Studio. His company designed and built puppets for several projects such as The Great Space Coaster, Gerbert, Whirligig, and Snuggle Bear for the Snuggle commericials. Some of the puppeteers that have performed his studio's puppets include Nikki Tilroe, Andy Holmes, Francis Kane, and more. I've read that Kermit remained active in his semi-retirement on The Nutcracker, where he built full-body puppets from the 1990s-2000s. People believed Kermit the Frog was named after Love, but despite them having similar names, the former was not named after the latter. In 2008, he passed away at 91, which was very sad for the people on Sesame Street. If he never came to Sesame Street, there wouldn't be any full-body puppets and Big Bird would have never existed. Kermit Love, you're the main reason Big Bird is still around today, even though he's now different looking from your creation. You've done wonderful with the Muppets and you weren't bad at doing puppetry for that one Julie Andrews special. Although you're gone, you'll never be forgotten by anyone. Keep watching from heaven Kermit. Rest in peace Love!