Articles on Puppetry: writing about Puppets

June 1994

Virginia Austin Curtis

July 15, 1903 - October 7, 1986

Virginia Curtis was an honored member of Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry. She is best known for her Clippo the Clown and for her creation of Edgar Bergen's Elmer, who became famous as Mortimer Snerd. But Virginia's career was varied and colorful and deserves to be told. She was a dedicated puppeteer who advanced her craft.

A Texan by birth, Virginia inherited her building skills from her mother who was a sculptor and a wood carver. Her father was a minister.

Virginia loved music first growing up. As a young woman, she attended a music school in Chicago where she graduated in 1930.

It was on her way back home to Texas from Chicago that Virginia found her lifelong career. While stopping in Los Angeles to visit friends, she took some local tours and discovered Olvera Street. She loved its fascinating stalls and shops, but what really caught her eye was the puppet theater there. Virginia was drawn immediately to the troupe. They soon asked her to join them in the Olvera Puppeteers, and she went with them on a national tour, doing the women's voices, manipulating puppets and singing for Madame Obligoto.

The company toured all over the United States, doing shows at schools and colleges during the Great Depression. Teachers in the schools where they performed asked for marionettes to use in the schoolroom. This started Virginia thinking. And she created Clippo the Clown.
She made her first Clippos in a workshop back in California, in old China Town near Olvera Street. By 1936, she was selling her puppets to two large department stores in Los Angeles. That's when she met Edgar Bergen.

Bergen had seen Virginia's puppets on display in the local 'Dobe Dollar Book Store. He had a wonderful drawing by Wolo of an old hay seed character he wanted to create. Virginia modeled the head with Bergen watching over her shoulder. She cast the head in wood dough using a 13-piece mold. Bergen sent the head to Chicago where the man who had animated Charlie McCarthy did the same for the hayseed fellow. Bergen was so pleased with Virginia's work that he had her make twelve miniatures of Charlie McCarthy for promotional purposes. Today, these figures are quite valuable.When Bergen later performed in Chicago, he asked Virginia to come to the Midwest and make some more Charlie figures for him. She went and brought Clippo with her.

Virginia took Clippo to the buyer at Marshall Field's, Chicago's largest department store. He was delighted with the clown puppet but when he found out that Virginia could manufacture only three dozen Clippos a week, he said he could sell that many in a day. He suggested that Virginia increase her manufacturing capabilities and sent her to the Effanbee Doll Co., a doll manufacturer in New York.

With mass production lined up, Clippos soon appeared all over the world. When Effanbee learned that Virginia had modeled the small Charlie figures, they arranged for their factory to turn those out as well. Then they asked Virginia to sculpt a W.C. doll for their assembly line. She now had designed three items for the toy company.

Clippo kept her constantly busy. She traveled all over the country to demonstrate her little marionette. It was at Macy's, New York where she made regular appearances that a man one day suggested Virginia should be in show business. She had talent, charm, and was very easy on the eyes. The next day, Virginia walked into the Paramount Theater on Broadway and asked to see the manager. She told him about her act with the clown marionette. When the manager asked where she was playing, she replied, "Nowhere."

The Paramount management sent her off to the suburbs where she played Valley Barn for a month and got some experience. She had also found an agent in the process and went to work on the theater circuit in New York, refining her act called Clippo Capers.
In no time, Virginia was onstage at the Paramount Theater and shortly after, she played the Palace, the epitome of vaudeville even in its wane.

In her touring, she soon met a trumpet player who suggested that she re-do her music. He did it himself and then he married her. His name was George Curtis.

Her act was honed. She entered wearing a long black velvet gown and carried the middle size Clippo who was in a bad mood. She cheered him up by bringing on his pony, Whinny. Then the littlest Clippo peddled in on a kiddy car with Emily Ann riding on back. The two did a dance and exited. Then Virginia returned with a large marionette named Butchy who performed with a smaller marionette. Then the smaller marionette brought on an even smaller marionette and they all danced.

For twenty years, Virginia Curtis played theaters and supper clubs all over the country. During the war years, she entertained in hospitals and camps. Vaudeville was dead, but Virginia's act fit neatly into the big band era. She shared the bill with Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Vaughn Monroe, Danny Kaye, and Jack Carter. The highlight of her career came with a performance at the White House for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Her second favorite moment was an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in its revered Sunday nightspot on CBS.

But in 1964, George Curtis died and a light went out in Virginia's life. It took several years for her to re-invigorate herself and that moment came in 1972. At a national puppet festival, some young puppeteers asked Virginia to teach them how to make puppets. She said she would if she could find a place. A few months later she found a two-story, ninety-year old building in Sierra Madre, California, and made it into a puppet theater, workshop, class room, museum, and home. Children would come to the theater for birthday parties that included shows starring Clippo and his friends. At other times, she would have guest puppeteers like Nancy Mitchell, Donald Ave, Bob Schonzler, the Cederquists, Bruce Schwartz, Preston Hibbard, and others.

The Pasadena City Schools asked Virginia to hold hand puppet classes for their students. She had heard about making hand puppets out of gourds, so she began to make regular 300-mile round trips to National City where the best gourds grew. She did this on Mondays when the theater was closed. The gourds had to be soaked, scrubbed, and dried and then drilled to take a 5/16" dowel. She picked out gourds shaped like birds, animals and people. Hundred of Brownies, Cub Scouts, Blue Birds, and other groups would pick out a gourd, glue in a dowel, paint on features, glue on hair and sew a costume for their puppet characters. Kids loved Virginia's classes.

She continued to manufacture her Clippos after Effanbee ceased production. Numerous professional puppeteers started their careers with Clippo as children and the little clown is a valued member of many puppet collections. As long as she manufactured them through the 70's., Clippos were sold and demonstrated regularly at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. When Virginia was asked what kept her going, she replied "Fresh squeezed vegetable juice and children, children, children."

She is missed by those who knew her. But though Virginia Curtis is gone from us, no matter how many years pass, her Clippo will always be the seven year old boy clown his mistress made him.

Information for this article was assembled from a film about Virginia by Jack Aiken, "A Place to Pretend."

back to top

December 1994

Department-Store Puppet Shows

Starting around 1938, Robinson's Department Store in downtown Los Angeles made it a yearly fall tradition to open a puppet theater, clearing out their outdoor furniture department.
Wayne Barlow was the mastermind of these shows which started with a long-running "Three Little Pigs." Barlow also ran workshops in the theater. One year he did an elaborate circus, but as he and Bob Baker were such fans of Walt Disney, the Disney animated features, "Snow White" and "Dumbo," formed a high points in the department store's theater.

The puppets for both "Dumbo" and "Snow White" were modeled after the Disney animation designs. Bob Bromley wrote additional material to augment the soundtracks that were transcriptions of the animated films. They actually played the large disks backstage.

Their production of "Snow White" preceded the film's premiere at the Los Angeles' Carthay Circle. Bob thought the "Dumbo" theater was the most beaautiful of all Barlow's efforts. The only part of the elephant's story they could not use in the show was the Pink Elephant sequence. Mrs. Robinson firmly put her foot down on the depiction of inebriation in her store's marionette theater.

The puppeteers filmed a prologue with puppets for both "Snow White" and "Dumbo" down in Robinson's basement. Bob sat next to Walt Disney during the screening of the prologue before the Dumbo puppet show. Walt turned to his brother Roy Disney and asked when their studio filmed it. It looked that good. Roy said they didn't. When Walt marveled to Bob at the lighting effect in the film, Bob confessed that the crew simply turned the lights away from the camera to create the magical fades.

After the Dumbo theater was torn down for the return of the furniture department, Barlow had enough and quit the tradition.

The puppets landed in various hands with Jack Shafton taking the dwarves from "Snow White" and making them into a nightclub act. Sky Highchief also ended up with some of the puppets. Where they are now is a mystery. If they had been kept together, the show might be performing today at Disneyland.

back to top

December 1994

Nancy Mitchell on Ventriloquism

The art of ventriloquism is to fool the audience into thinking that a sound or voice actually made by the ventriloquist is coming from somewhere else. It is an illusion, like a magic trick, that the ventriloquist has mastered through much practice and experimentation. You can learn it too if you are willing to practice - a lot - and preferably in front of a mirror. Do this before trying it out on your friends.

First, you must re-learn to say the alphabet! The regular English alphabet has 26 letters in it. Six of these letters are formed by using the lips, and it is there you will need to learn to pronounce in a different way. Can you guess which ones they are? If you guess B, F, M, P, V, and W, you are exactly right. For these six letters we have substitute sounds that can be made inside the mouth without having to move those lips. So, instead of B, say "dee"; for F use "eth"; M is an "en" sound. P becomes a soft "tee"; V is "thee", and W will be "ooah".

Practice, practice, practice until you can do it without thinking about it. Next, add these letters to words, substituting the word "doy" instead of "boy", and "duddle" for "bubbles"; "thread" for "Fred" and "enouth" for "enough", and so on.

Second, you must experiment with ways of changing your voice so that it sounds different from your natural voice. This is done by tightening your vocal chords as though you were being choked. That is your "vent" voice.Practice this voice enough so that you can change quickly and easily between the "vent" and the natural voices.

Third, you need a simple "mouth" puppet or "dummy" of some kind to be your partners. Give him or her a name and a personality. Then go to the library, bookstore, and if you can, a magic store to look for ventriloquist routines (often found ready-made in books on ventriloquism) or jokes for a "straight man" and a "funny man." Group them together by similar subjects and create you own routines to amaze your friends and family - and have fun!

Nancy Mitchel runs the Minikin Puppet Production out of Sierra Madre, California.
What's a Puppet - Ventriloquist Figure
back to top

November 1993

HARRY BURNETT

Three young men at Yale, put their heads together and came up with the idea of doing puppet shows for extra money. Harry, Burnett, with his partners, Forman Brown and Richard "Roddy" Brandon, decided a good name for their troupe would be the Yale Puppeteers.

They came to Southern California in 1929, and in 1930, they opened an exceptional theater called "Teatro Torita" on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. The theater and the Yale Puppeteers were a hit. Glamorous stars, important people, everybody loved the shows.
The savvy showmen collected a mailing list of names that became useful when they returned from a sojourn in New York and in 1941, premiered their Turnabout Theater on La Cienega Boulevard.

Harry's marionettes, many of them caricatures of celebrities, opened the show and after the turnabout of the trolley car seats during intermission, Harry himself appeared onstage with other top comic talent. Harry got big laughs on the Turnabout stage and created an indelible, poor-soul character.Burnett's teaming with Forman was a perfect combination of writing and performance.

Television and the changing social life of the area closed the theater in 1956. Harry was active in the Los Angeles Guild of puppetry. He would have members over to his house on Gower Avenue in Hollywood for workshops on puppet making. We had some of our best meetings at the Turnabout house in Hollywood. Harry passed away at the age of 92 on May 27, 1993 in Hollywood. We will miss him.

June 1995

MORE ON THE YALE PUPPETEERS

Alan Cook tells the tale. When the Turn About Theater closed in the early Œ50s, the Yale Puppeteers decided to move to Europe forever. They held a puppet sale at a gas station on La Cienega with some of their puppets selling for $3.00 each. Apparently, once in Europe, the talented trio witnessed the value of the dollar dipping and found Europe too expensive for life retirement. They returned to these shores.

Alan says he consequently saw a Burnett puppet a few years ago in a thrift store in Burbank. The price tag said $100 and the store owner thought he had a nineteenth century marionette made in England. Alan corrected him. Harry Burnett visited the store and autographed his creation. Another puppeteer, Alan thinks it was John Brunner, bought the figure.

back to top

August 1998

Velma Dawson made the most famous marionette in the world! HOWDY DOODY

The artist who built Howdy Doody, Velma Dawson, was in town for Howdy's two-day filming in Jim Carrey's movie, "Man in the Moon." (Howdy puppet by Rene Zendejas). Dawson, an elegant, striking woman of a certain age, has an inner light that shines through. Maybe it is a result from doing what she loves, spending her days creating art. Time has not dimmed her humor or perspicacity. Velma Dawson is a jewel.

For years, the publicity that NBC sent out about Howdy had many errors, including misspelling Dawson's name. Much of that erroneous material has been repeated, even in published books.
Frank Paris had the original puppet show. It was broadcast from NBC's Radio City headquarters in New York. Frank needed a voice for his character Elmer. That's how Bob Smith came on the show. Smith already had a NBC talk show for family and kids on the air. As Buffalo Bob Smith did Elmer's voice.

The show got better and more popular. When NBC asked for dolls and merchandising, Paris wanted a part of the money. It was his show and his puppets. NBC balked at sharing a piece of the show with Paris. (Ultimately Howdy made about $3 billion dollars in merchandising.) Paris had an advisor, a close friend, who insisted he walk from the show. Frank left NBC stranded. He took his puppets with him. His exit made Bob Smith the top gun on the show.

NBC needed a Howdy Doody . The director of NBC, Norm Blackburn, was a caricaturist. He did a few sketches that he sent to Mel Allen, an artist who had worked for Disney. The original sketches for Howdy came from Mel Allen. In the interim, the character of Howdy spoke from a box and, at one point, told the kids he was getting plastic surgery to run for office. Norm Blackburn had come from Hollywood. He remembered seeing a marionette performance of Velma Dawson's in Toluca Lake. He contacted Dawson. She was the only puppeteer he knew. She had a puppet studio in her Hollywood home near the Wilshire District.

NBC was desperate for the puppet. They rushed Velma. Howdy was made in nine days, a process that Velma wished had taken months. Velma knew Frank Paris in Hollywood. They worked puppets in a picture together. Velma made Howdy for $300, a fact that Frank Paris later turned into a joke. Frank Paris sued NBC for $250,000, a huge sum in those days. After he got his money, he said he made more money off Howdy Doody than Velma Dawson did. Velma acknowledges that was true. She adds, "Good thing I was good. It could have been a lousy puppet."

Velma developed into a good puppeteer the usual way: hard work, perseverance and talent. She got into puppetry after seeing the fabled team of Walton and O'Rourke perform in their Olveras Street Theater. She could not believe how wonderful their show was. Nor how magical puppets could be. She tried to buy some puppets but found scarcely one for sale. She looked for puppet-making books and found only one by Tony Sarg. She said that Sarg's puppets were very crude. He sculpted them out of plastic wood without molds. They looked very lumpy up close.

Her first puppet built from the Sarg book "was pathetic." Her fascination with the craft took her to art school where she learned to sculpt. Then she happened upon a puppet show in Robinson's Department Store in downtown Los Angeles. It was Wayne Barlow's production of Disney's Dumbo. "I was thunderstruck," Velma recalls. Although it was a very commercial production, the puppets and manipulation were exquisite. She went backstage and asked if the Barlows sold any of their puppets. The husband and wife team replied, "No, but we'll teach you." Both were excellent artisans. (Rene Zendejas adds that Mrs. Barlow was a superb air brush artist.)

The second puppet Velma built under the Barlows' eyes also "was bad." She admits, "When you're learning, everything is bad." However, Velma eventually learned to sculpt beautifully and even mastered the difficult art of putting personality into her pieces. She continued making puppets.

Velma eventually had a puppet theater in her own home that sat 10. Meanwhile her friendships within the field expanded. She did some shows with Bob Baker. Rene game along and worked the gramophone although, as Velma tells it, "He broke the record." She continued the friendships, working with Bob Baker in his studio whenever she was in town just to keep her hand in puppetry. Rene was a in high school when Velma made Howdy. He always came over to hang out and see what was happening.

Velma didn't have a television set, so after she shipped the Howdy Doody off to New York, she "forgot about the whole thing." She saw the show later and "thought it was awful, pathetic. The manipulation was atrocious." The original puppeteer on the Howdy Doody show was not very skilled.

Meanwhile, Velma helped pioneer puppetry in television locally with her own show. It was a fifteen-minute broadcast every day at 5:00 p.m. on KTTV Los Angeles. Two months into the run, Velma, who did everything on the broadcast herself, found that she was running out of new puppets and material. She was a bit relieved when she got a call from NBC in New York. Howdy's inept puppeteer had broken the marionette's head and Velma was needed for repairs. She told her TV audience that she was ending her program and heading to New York, "to fix Howdy Doody."

In a story that has never been printed, Velma says that while working on Howdy in New York, it got late in the day. She decided to work on the marionette in her hotel room a few blocks from NBC. Velma put Howdy in a suitcase and started out. On her way, she was accosted by a young man (she says "a bum") who seemed seriously out-of whack. He insisted on carrying the case for her. It was a tug of war, with Velma holding on tightly as she headed for the hotel. When she reached the door, she yelled for help. What if that man had grabbed the suitcase and disappeared with it?

It was on this visit that Velma insisted that NBC hire a puppeteer who could manipulate a marionette. She said the way Howdy jiggled and walked on his knees was awful. She didn't want the job; she had a home and husband in Hollywood. Two years later, in 1952, NBC hired Rufus Rose and Howdy began to act better.

Velma made a second version of the famous marionette at NBC's request although she told them that it would not be the same Howdy. (All puppeteers will understand that!) Velma was right. That puppet became the Inspector on the show. As for the other puppets like Flubadub, uncredited New York puppeteers built them.

An interesting aspect to Velma was her marriage. Velma married John Dawson, a prominent amateur golfer, in the early '40s. Her husband found it remarkable that a resort like Palm Springs had no 18-hole golf course. He got into golf development and is credited with making Palm Springs the golf capital of the world. John Dawson bought an old, failing dude ranch in Rancho Mirage, a place called the Thunderbird that was losing $35,000 a year and up for sale. It became Palm Springs first golf club. (That's when the desert town was four-hour drive from L.A.) The last country club Dawson created before his death was the Marrakesh in the '70s. By then the Dawsons had divorced after 32 years of marriage.

Ve lma admits to four careers, so far, in her life. She started as a dancer. That got her into the entertainment business or "show biz" as Velma calls it. Then she became an actress, a career she gave up on marriage. Puppeteering, her third career, led to her fourth career in art. She loved to sculpt and got into ceramics. At one time, she sold figurines for $150 (pricey in those days). She gave that up after ten years. It demanded so much of her time fussing over kilns. Then she turned to painting. Velma added a fifth career, interior decorating. Interior decorating was the most profitable for her. Her wealthy clients included many celebrities. Velma Dawson decorated every country club her husband John built.

An early member of the Puppeteers of America and the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry, Velma thought the local puppet guild "pathetic" on first encounter. She and others like Baker and Rene were "pioneers of puppetry." It took television to make their art and craft the big-time commercial enterprise that it is today.

Live puppetry offers a creative refuge for anyone who has ever loved it. "Once you do puppets, they're always with you," Velma admits. She still entertains with her marionettes. "I gave a show two months ago in City Hall in Palm Desert for 50 people." Her favorite puppet is a saucy madam who works the crowd. She loves to ad lib.

Velma has sold most of her other puppets including full shows at national puppet conventions. She is down to fifteen.

Velma found that many did not give her credit for making the original Howdy. Even the Puppeteers of America insisted that the Roses made Howdy Doody. When Velma objected, the national puppetry organization asked her to prove her claim. Velma sent the paperwork that established her role. Buffalo Bob never acknowledged Velma's contribution to the Howdy Doody show until a few years before his death. He sent Dawson an autographed picture of himself and Howdy. He wrote under Howdy "Hi, Mom." Many say that Buffalo Bob disliked puppeteers. Velma says that Smith once told her somewhat resentfully "I spent my career making that puppet famous."

Fans still seek out Velma and adore her. She gets taken to dinner by successful, forty-something gentlemen who fly to Rancho Mirage just to meet Howdy's famous mom. Velma takes it all in stride. "All I did" she says, "was make a stupid puppet."

back to top

August 1998

"Buffalo Bob" Smith died at the age of 80 of cancer. He was on the air with the redheaded marionette from 1947 to 1960. Born Robert Schmidt, he eventually adopted the name of his birth city, Buffalo, N.Y.

A musician, Smith worked as a pianist and master of ceremonies in vaudeville shows with Kate Smith before winding up on NBC radio in New York. As Buffalo Bob, he started each of his 2,543 Howdy Doody shows with "Say, kids, what time is it?" He presided over a happy cast of Doodyville citizens that included puppets and actors. At the same time, he sold Ovaltine and Wonderbread. Fifteen million preschoolers watched him around the country in the formative years of television. The show demonstrated the power of medium to teach.

Bob Smith attempted a syndicated reconstruction of the Howdy Doody show in 1976, but it failed. He toured college campuses and made special TV appearances after that.

back to top

December 1998

Puppet Odyssey, China to Australia
by Phillip Huber

The Huber Marionettes were off on yet another cruise, this one aboard the beautiful five-star ship, Crystal Harmony.

I felt some trepidation because I and my equipment had to fly into Beijing, China, and driven 3 hours overland to the port of Tianjin to meet the ship. All the usual requests had been communicated to the cruise offices: arrange a transport vehicle large enough for 6 trunks of equipment, contact the port agent to assist clearing customs.

Upon arrival, I was met only by a transport driver who, seeing my trunks, announced that they would not fit in his compact passenger car. It turned out to be a moot point. In customs, after extensive interrogation, I was told the equipment was being confiscated. The following 18 hours were spent phoning home & talking with the ship's agent in Beijing. The equipment was released after much negotiations, paperwork shuffling & paying of fines. We (15 marionettes, stage, props & I) arrived at the ship just 2 hours before sailing time.

One might think that this in-auspicious beginning would dampen my enjoyment of the cruise...it did not! I loved our first port, Shanghai, a surprisingly modern city, friendly people, incredible shopping. My purchased treasures include two moderately old rod puppets from a street vendor, a coffee-table book on Chinese puppetry from the Shanghai Museum, and a beautiful silk tie (only 5 dollars!).

Onward to the port of Fukuoka, Japan. Having, in years past completed 4 tours of Japan for the Foundation of Modern Puppetry, I feel very much "at home" in this gracious country. I was designated tour guide for two other ship entertainers as we navigated the subways & toured all the ancient temples we could cram into a single afternoon.

In the next port, Nagasaki, I chose to tour the homes of early Portuguese traders & merchants that helped to open Japan to the world. As the ship was pulling out of the scenic Nagasaki harbor, the captain announced to all passengers that our present course toward the island of Taiwan would send us head-on into Typhoon Jeb, also heading to Taiwan but from the opposite direction. The captain made the wise decision to skip our Taiwan stop & sail further north in a direct line to Hong Kong, where we could now spend an extra day of shopping.

However, the captain's careful maneuvering did not mean that we would completely escape the typhoon's effects. On the night of my second scheduled performance, the weather prediction was driving rain, 60-70 knot wind & 40 ft. waves. As performance time approached, the ship was in constant smooth rolls but no pitching... I decided to proceed. The cruise director made a special announcement about my professionalism (could be read foolhardiness) & assigned an extra stage crew member to stand through-out the show behind my stage, steady it & possibly catch me if there were a sudden jolt. This Filipino stage hand was probably 5 ft. 2 in. tall, weighing about 110 pounds. Had either me or the stage fallen in his direction, his only salvation would have been to run like hell! Fortunately, the weather held & so did my nerve. The show was completed with hardly a miss-step (to the great relief of the Filipino techie).

It was a relatively uneventful night, with all breakables placed on the cabin floors for protection. Suddenly at 8:30 am, a large wave struck the ship & sent it on a 35 degree roll. In the ship's gift shops, clothes racks followed the domino principle; display cases toppled onto the ( previously floored) crystal & porcelain nick-nacks. Half the chairs at my breakfast table were thrown backwards spilling their occupants into a carpet bobsled ride, well-oiled with the flying glasses of water & orange juice. No one was hurt...only their dignity. Alas, passengers would be Lladro & Waterford deprived for the remaining cruise days. But never fear, the sun broke through on gorgeous weather & we could all look forward to two & one half days of feverish shopping in the retail Mecca, Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was the end of the Asia Cruise & the beginning of the Southeast Asia-Australia Cruise. Most of the 900 passengers would be debarking & a new group boarding. It is always an amazing process to watch the ship's staff & crew do a complete passenger turn-over in just four hours, a symphony of efficiency. Staterooms are cleaned top to bottom, fresh cut flowers, fruit bowls replaced, clean terrycloth robes put in closets & bath articles & minibar restocked. In fact, the superb, attentive service, throughout a cruise, is enough to cause a passenger or entertainer to lose touch with reality. Cruise ships are an adult "themepark" at sea.

On long cruises, I will often ask the stewardess for permission to make my own bed in the morning, just so I won't have such a difficult adjustment returning home. No...ITS TRUE. Then there is the FOOD. Everything you have heard about five-star ship cuisine is fat...I mean fact. (Freudian soup). The average passenger will gain a pound a day. But, my performance costume is very unforgiving. I walk laps on deck, never take elevators, & try to skip at least one meal every day. "When the puppet stage is creaking, you better stop eating!"

The ship's social atmosphere changes drastically with each cruise. Some passengers are born complainers, while others are out to have the time of their lives. National, regional, economic & social mixes create an infinitely changing brew. And, don't get me started on the "show-going etiquette" of cruise passengers. Suffice it to say, there are a few hard & fast rules. Those people so anxious to get front row seats in the showroom, are, inevitably,the same people who fall asleep during the show...head lolled back, mouth wide open. Who can blame them....big meal, a few drinks, gently rocking ship. "Front seaters" are also the ones who leave for the bathroom most frequently & call or wave to late arriving friends during a particularly quiet moment in the performance. It is true that too many passengers have a laissez faire attitude toward shows & wander in or out at their leisure. The comedian may have difficulty making it to the punch line before another wave of audience rolls in or rolls out.

In spite of this, once they get to know you, cruise audiences can be some of the warmest, & most supportive audiences anywhere. These same people will drive many miles to see you performing in a "land based" venue. I have many treasured friendships that have evolved from my 13 years of shipboard performing. The next cruise was 19 days long with only 6 ports. That means lots of days at sea. I love sea days, beautiful vistas and unhurried daily schedules. We had plenty of these, interspersed with the wonderful ports of Singapore and Bali, then around Australia, stopping at Fremantle\Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne & Sidney.

Singapore is a beautiful, bustling city. Dispite harsh laws against spitting, gum chewing, & jay-walking, it is not antiseptic. The elegant old Raffles hotel is a grand reminder of it's early sophistication.

Bali, an island like no other, has picturesque terraced rice fields dotted with temples & rising to cloud covered peaks. It's very unique arts & culture are evident everywhere.
Australia, one of my favorite country/continents, has ultra-friendly people and very civilized cities. In Perth, I was given a private tour of His Majesty's Theater (a 1908 restored variety & opera house) just because I walked into the lobby to ask about their show schedule.

In Fremantle, I stumbled upon The Spare Parts Puppet Theater. An office worker kindly showed me around the lobby museum & gave me a poster to take home. The company members were unavailable for socializing because they had just started an intensive technical rehearsal for a new show. Adelaide's theater museum had a few very crude Punch & Judy figures.

A Melbourne antiquarian book store will stay forever in my memory. I walked in with my usual inquiry. "Do you have any books on puppets, marionettes, or Punch & Judy?" The Proprietress' response was music to this fanatical puppetry bibliophile. "Why yes. We just purchased a rather large collection of books on that topic." I combed through about 60 books, and my puppet library is now 11 books richer because of that happy coincidence Sidney would be my port of disembarkation and what a dramatic port it is!. The opera house sets the standard & tone.

My 31-day contract was at an end. Before I close, I would be remiss not to acknowledge my fellow entertainers on these cruises: Broadway performers, Byron Nease & Dale Kristien, comedian, Michael Goddard, classical pianist, Garin Bader, comedy magic team, Rory & Catherine Johnston, Australian hand-balancer, James Lamont. The entertainers always bond together like family and this family was composed of some very special & talented individuals.

Twice during this cruise, entertainers performed their shows with only 20 minutes notice, to fill in for a sick cast member. They perform during rough seas ( even the hand-balancer), & they were always flexible with the limited rehearsal time. It is these co-workers & friends that really made this cruise FIVE-STAR.

back to top

December 1999

Almost Being John Malkovich

When I read Alan Cook's review of the film, "Being John Malkovich," in the Orange County newsletter, it brought back memories of last summer when my partner and I were the puppeteers on the film.

I was already having a wonderful experience on the set of the brief series "Super Adventure Team" for MTV when an open call for a marionette operator came. At the time I was dickering with signing with an agent who represented many local film and TV puppeteers. She urged me to go.

My partner and I decided to take the Dwiggins-patterned male marionette that we had carved a few years back. We figured that hand-carved wooden, human marionette was what the producers were looking for. And the Dwiggins model, with the appropriate weight plugs embedded into the body, seemed a sure thing. And it was. At the audition where many of the puppeteers were the usual audition-mavens, many of whom had not a clue about string puppets, we won the job.

I got to read the script and loved it.

I then learned the details to our hiring. Phillip Huber had been approached originally. The producers apparently found Phillip's price too high and moved on. That was worrisome because I know how excellent Phillip is and had no doubt that his bid was reasonable for the work to be done in the short time allowed.

The meetings with the producers and the directors then followed. I actually had to take time from my work on" Super Adventure Team" to go with my new agent to the production offices of "Being John Malkovich." My partner, Steve Sherman, went as well. We learned that Tony Urbano was also being considered for the job, That was fine with me. Tony and I wanted to work together on the film. However, Tony had walked away from the construction end of the job because the producers had unreasonable expectations on how cheap they could make the puppets and still have them move beautifully. We made our bid with the condition that Tony Urbano teach actor John Cusack how to operate marionettes. That is a story in itself. In all writings on this film, Tony's name is never mentioned. But tutor John Cusack he did.

Our bid was accepted and our Puppet Studio was ready to start work. Of course, time was running out as the shoot was only weeks away. The producers continually stressed how excellent these look-alike marionettes needed to be. Great marionettes cannot be built quickly. Right before we were to start construction, the producers came back and asked us to cut our price. For us, cutting the price after winning the bid for the job was unacceptable so the Puppet Studio regrettably bowed out of the film.

The producers then scrambled. They had already seen Rene, Bob Baker (after seeing his theater show, the producers foolishly said his puppets were for small children only - another clue to their lack of experience in puppetry.) In their desperation, the producers contacted the Mike Oznowicz who recommended Kamela Portuges and Lee Armstrong (Images in Motion)in Northern California. After every professional puppeteer in Southern California, it seemed, had passed on the project for insufficient funds, Images in Motion entered with the lowest bid. Since their experience is mainly in hand and rod puppet, they brought the very talented Luman Coad into the project. When I heard that the main day of shooting for Luman happened during the hottest summer day in LA on a sweltering, downtown street while his beloved wife Arlyn lay ill in a local hotel, my heart went out to him. The movie business can be a tough place.

Our initial feelings about the creative team (the producers and director) were that they had the wrong approach to the puppetry. This was vindicated when the material they shot had with Luman had to be scuttled from the film. It was then the producers went back to Phillip Huber, paid his price (although now considerably reduced as Phillip had to work with the Images in Motion marionettes.) The result is what is on the screen today.

Sure, I regret not working on the film. I love to work with puppets anywhere and anytime. However, Phillip did a remarkable,, first-rate job and saved the film_s connection to our very real world of puppeteers.

Ultimately, the film is not the quintessential puppet film for me: the puppet master did not get the opportunity to make his own puppets. That would have made the piece a stellar puppetry vehicle that Phillip no doubt could have accomplished. In any case, it is good to see marionettes on the big screen. That the actor/ puppeteer was portrayed as a poor sad sack perpetuates a hackneyed cliche that we all must continually fight.

back to top

February 1998

There Go the Men in Black

I must admit, being in the number one summer movie does wonders for one's self-esteem. Relatives who used to give ol_ fisheye are suddenly beaming "Here's a movie star." Of course, all puppeteers know that it's the puppets, excuse me, creatures, who are the real stars. In this case, they're the creations of Rick Baker. He has won several Academy Awards for his makeup and creature effects, all of them deserved.

When Tony Urbano's partner, Tim Blaney, called me to audition in spring 1996, I felt my usual trepidation. I hate auditions. To me, they're like visiting a doctor. Who really wants to go? But sometimes you just have to and, in the end, you're usually glad you did. In this case, the auditions were held in Rick Baker's Burbank shop.

I learned on arriving that it was for a Sony/Columbia science fiction feature based on a comic book, “Men in Black.” It would shoot the summer of '96. Typical of auditions, nearly one hundred people who list puppeteer on their resume attempted to move a sample animatronic puppet (radio and cable control) while a video camera captured the battle for posterity. When I later learned I had made it into the final group of eight principal puppeteers, I nearly cried. This dog still has some tricks! Among the other eight were guild members, Paul Berg, Alan Trautman and Thom Fountain Tony was our supervisor.

Working with Tony is fun. He's knows his stuff and does not suffer fools gladly. In fact, his selection of puppeteers was so honed that only one performer in the second wave of puppeteers (I'll write about second wave later) got dropped during the shooting.

We started with the opening scene when the illegal alien explodes into Mikey the real alien. Most of the creature work was shot on stages on the Sony lot (once the mighty MGM) in Culver City, CA. The eight principals had our jobs broken down into body parts, working eyes, tentacles, mouth, etc on Mikey. We scattered behind the camera in the flora that made the stage interior look like roadside desert. Some of us stood with radio controls. Others sat on wooden boxes with their cable controls screwed firmly tight.

An indication that this was a first-class motion picture were the hors d'oeuvres trays passed around the set during filming. Craft service made sure that great snacks and meals were ALWAYS available at ALL times. Holding a radio control box while listening to director Barry Sonnenfeld AND munching stuffed manicotti shell (served with napkins) has its absurdity, but I won't complain.

Our funniest scene followed in the coffee room of MIB headquarters. The worm guys were the surprise hit of the movie. It took us about a week of rehearsals to get ready for the half day shoot. The puppets were operated by hidden rods and cable that went through the set. The puppeteers sat behind the wall, wired with headsets so we could talk to Tony who remained with the camera, puppets and actors on the inside. (This was a huge hallway set that it was not easy to traverse.)

The puppeteers who provided voices ended up with special credits. Since I was the guy smoking a cigarette, I didn't get a voice (oh well, the pay was the same). The smoking was a difficult trick that my partner on this character, Carl Johnson, and I had to master. With only a small, fuzzy black-and-white monitor to guide us, we maneuvered a small peg into a small hole getting this guy's mouth on that butt. But, we got the hang of it. I even added a cigarette flick which I was thrilled to see edited in close-up.

The big scenes in headquarters followed and went for several weeks during summer. The logistics were staggering with all the creatures and extras on a huge set that was jaw-dropping in its size and scale. And computer graphic aliens got calculated into the shots which added to the chore. The second tier puppeteers joined us here. A Screen Actors rule lets crowd scenes of puppeteers come in at a reduced day rate (like skilled extras but with benefits and residuals). There were close to 30 puppeteers on these scenes.

Most of us worked the two squid guys who operated the control panel under the main screen in headquarters. I was the eyeball of the one at the right side of the giant screen. Again, we all had headsets to hear Tony upstairs on the floor. And plenty of monitors. Because of the engineering, the puppeteers on the squids were in a basement-like room under the set. (It was like some freakazoid puppet organ we were playing.)

The producers chose to make this our rest room between scenes that I think they regretted later. It was quite a party during those long waits. They only averaged two shots per day so we had to hang out most of the time. Eventually, our basement had makeshift hammock and beds for napping (oh, those early calls), card tables where games of 21 were LOUDLY held in Todd Mattox's Casino, folding chairs scattered into different groupings, old newspapers, scribbled crossword puzzles and food product in various stages of consumption.This is where I renewed many friendships with other puppeteers and stuffed myself on ice cream, doughnuts and NOTE: watch cholesterol.

The next major puppet scene in the film was the alien dying in the head. We shot that long after the picture wrapped. Four of us flew up to ILM in Marin County. SAG rules makes producers give us first class tickets so it was too bad for me that the flight only lasted 45 minutes. I actually think the dying scene is my favorite because how often am I going to get the chance to die on screen (on purpose). The actual puppet and human head shell stood about six feet tall. Tony Urbano got to drop the supervisor hat and be a puppeteer for this part of the film which was fun. He and I partnered on the arm, wrist, hand and fingers. We worked that baby like it was attached to Camille. Rick Baker said later he was amazed what we got out of the it. Nobody could get the arm to work well in the shop and there was no time to redo it.

The producers filmed the baby sequence in New York. Some squid puppeteers flew out on their own expense to be in that scene. Others were hired in New York and unhappily went uncredited. That was a great scene too. The added CGI and Will Smith on bluescreen made it memorable.

No wonder Rick Baker has won all those Oscars. He is a terrific talent, unassuming, charming, and totally in control of his creations. Nothing happens on a set with Rick Baker's puppets that Rick does not personally supervise.

For the final alien, Rick built two versions, a cable controlled and a radio controlled puppet. Both puppets were close to 16 feet tall and worked well. We spent many hours rehearsing them under Tony's direction. We even filmed with our two stars, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones (Both men were great. They complimented us on our work and said the Edgar Bug puppet scared the hell out of them).

Rick Baker's creation of the Edgar Bug never made it into the final film. The producers kept changing their minds on how he should look. By the time Rick finished his million-dollar bugs, the producers had changed the concept. And the effects producer had pushed for computer-all-the-way on Edgar Bug from the beginning. I think the puppet would have had a greater impact combined with CGI.

The last shot of the wormguys as they leave MIB headquarters, when the smoking guy stamps out his cigarette, is pure computer graphics. I could not tell the difference from the puppets. But at least I felt secure that the performance of the puppeteers in the original scene brought the wormguys to the front of the cast. It made their second appearance funny. Puppets have a place at the table.

All of this may seem a little late for a movie that has been quickly surpassed by Titanic. But MIB is coming to TV soon. They've already passed through video. I write this by special request and look forward to working with everyone again. God willing.

back to top