Costume designer Kermit Love died of congestive heart failure on 21 June 2008. Born Kermit Ernest Hollingshead Love in Spring Lake, New Jersey, in August 1916, he did much of his work for the ballet. He collaborated with the likes of George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Robert Joffrey, Jerome Robbins, and Twyla Tharp, but he’ll be best remembered for “Big Bird” and “Snuffleupagus”.
Sesame Street‘s creator Jim Henson originally sketched Big Bird, and then Love built the costume, all 8 feet 2 inches of it. He added feathers, with some designed to fall off, to make the bird “cuter.” Carroll Spinney, who has played Big Bird since his debut in 1969, controls the mouth with his hand, and the eyes with a lever on his finger. A tv monitor inside the costume allows him to see the set. Love also played Willy the Hot Dog Man in several episodes of the show.
He also designed costumes for The Great Space Coaster (1981) and The Muppet Movie (1979).
The New York Times reports that Love was “first fascinated with Punch-and-Judy puppets at [age] 7. ‘But what inspired me even more was shadow play,’ he told New York magazine in 1985. ‘I can remember rigging a lantern and casting shadows on the wall.’ Thrown by a horse at 12, he suffered serious damage to both legs. Bedridden for three years, he listened to radio dramas and drew pictures of what he imagined the characters looked like.
“Love began making puppets for a federal Works Progress Administration theater in 1935 and soon after was designing costumes for Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater. Then he began working with Barbara Karinska, the costumer for the New York City Ballet.”
Love is survived by his partner of 50 years, Christopher Lyall.