Jim Henson's Wealthy Lifestyle

[mupcollector1]

I'm just curious for historical reasons, I remember here and there hearing about how Jim owned houses all over the place. One in NY, one in London, even a ranch in New Mexico. And from reading Jim's Red Book (daily as I do lol, kind of like the morning paper to me ), Jim was always going on lots of fun vacations with his family and even the fellow Muppet performers. I've also heard how him and the Muppeteers would go on water skeeing trips to partying at the Waldorf. I've always found all of that amazing. I was wondering does anyone else have any other stories like that? Also even seeing pictures of him's final apartment in NY, there was lots of artsy furniture and checkered marble floors. Even some Art pieces on Vase tables that kind of remind me of The Dark Crystal in the way. Very Cool

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm not so sure about the houses, but I do know at the height of his career, he had offices/workshops in NYC, London, Toronto, and LA.

As far as parties go, Caroll Spinney has said that Jim always threw the best parties, and never skimped on anything, the parties were always big and extravagent.

 

[mupcollector1]

Plus he had those costume parties and mask ball parties that he through for everyone who worked at Henson Associates at the time. They had something called The Ampibian which was a year book or a publish magazine that was only for people who worked there and they had softball games, family picnic parties and all this fun stuff.

 

[Vincent L]

I guess Jim Henson got a lot of inspiration from the trips.

 

[mupcollector1]

I remember seeing a picture of Jim's old Connecticut house he had until the early 70s and there was decreated bathrooms of interesting tiles and very underwater themed. And I was so amazed how huge that house was, it looked like a suburban mini mansion and Jim was doing commercials and Sesame at the time as well as a few tv shots. WOW! I thought just thought of something. You know the old sayings on how if someone were to win the lottery and because rich, sometimes they change for the worse and become greedy and snobby, and I can name a few celebrities that are kind of like that but I won't here. lol Though Jim Henson as wealthy as I noticed in reason years as we was, Jim was always the same nice, creative genius he's always been because Art was the most important to him. There's so many things I admire about Jim Henson and this is one of them. I've even told my best friend that if I were to become rich and famous, I would still be the same caring person I've always been

I also want to say how much I just LOVE Jim's Red Book on Henson.com, I can't wait to buy the book release in October. There's this story and pictures of Jim going sail-boating with Brian or John and Richard Hunt was tagging along leaning on the sailboat strings. lol I've heard from time to time how Jim would spend time with his employees outside work because it's obvious, that they were Jim's best friends. I don't know of any documents that state that Jim had strong best friends before The Muppets became famous, just some childhood friends but it was his crew, they were best friends. I've even heard that Jim would take them out to dinner and hang out either as a group or just one of them at a time. I don't know if anyone ever seen the Jim Henson Memorial tape, It's starting to show up more and more in tape trades. I fortunately have it on 2 DVDs and still I can't sit down and watch it straight through, it's so sad to watch them all cry and even some of them they could barely speak and would not finish their speeches. But what I wanted to point out was, not just how Jim and his work influences and entertained us fans, but when you watch this tape, it shows just how much Jim meant to these guys, his crew. Even when most of the Muppeteers had their characters singing "If One Person" they could barely do it, they were all very sad, but they made it through. Jim was such a great person, he made gifts for his employees and even bought an expensive watch for Caroll Spinney according to his book. I wish I meet Jim, but unfortunately he was gone when I was 3.

 

[Sequelcast]

The Red Book looks really interesting. It makes me wonder what Jim Henson would do if he were still alive today with all the modern technology available. I've seen some of the memorial tape on YouTube and found it very sad, but well done.

 

[mupcollector1]

I remember I had a dream once, kind of strange but cool. I had a giant business building that's chrome and I walk down a hall and I look into a room and there's Jim Henson on a modern computer using the internet and I say "So Jim, what do you think of the internet?" Jim turns around and says with a smile and quietly "Hmm, it's rather fascinating technology...." And he kept talking about the future possibilities of it but I don't recall what he said in the dream. lol That was shortly after the dream I had where I'm chatting with Brian and Jim (who's middle aged, 70s Jim) walking to me, it's all white and foggy. Then he puts his hand on my shoulder and we take a walk "So, your interested Muppet like puppets like Miss Piggy?" (which is interesting he didn't say Kermit) and I replied yes. Personally I have some sort of belief about about spirits coming into peoples dreams like a sign for the future, but that's just my opinion. Even Steve Whitmire said he had dreams about Jim on how he would watch Steve perform Kermit.

But yeah, I wonder myself how things would be if Jim was around. He would be in mid mid 70s if he were still around today right? I think he'd still be working on new ideas and technology because The Jim Henson Company would have been owned by Disney. Like Brain said in an interview his whole family could see Jim still working in his 90s. Jim really wanted to explore new ways of approaching media. There's even interviews on the internet where Jim in 1982 was already talking not only about cable television but HD widescreen tvs. And in 1990, he was already talking about how handycams would be the next form of media, this is 25 years before youtube. Jim was ahead of his time. AMAZING