Baird, Bil and Cora

born Aug. 15, 1904, Grand Island, Neb., U.S.

died March 18, 1987, New York, N.Y.

born Jan. 26, 1912, New York City

died Dec. 6, 1967, New York City

U.S. puppeteers.

Bil Baird (originally William Britton Baird) worked under the puppeteer Tony Sarg for five years then produced his own puppet shows from the mid 1930s. He and Cora Eisenberg married in 1937 and began to create original puppets, scenery, and music for their shows. They produced a series of television shows in the 1950s and opened their own marionette theatre in New York in 1966. Bil wrote The Art of the Puppet (1965) and trained puppeteers such as Jim Henson.

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▪ American puppeteers

original names  William Britton Baird  and  Cora Eisenberg 

Respectively,

 

born Aug. 15, 1904, Grand Island, Neb., U.S.

died March 18, 1987, New York City

born Jan. 26, 1912, New York City

died Dec. 6, 1967, New York City

      puppeteers who led the 20th-century revival of puppet theatre in the United States.

      Bil Baird began building and using puppets as a child. After graduating from the State University of Iowa in 1926, he studied stage design at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and then worked for five years under the noted American puppeteer Tony Sarg. He traveled on the road giving puppet performances and in the mid-1930s began producing his own independent puppet shows. He married Cora Eisenberg, who had acted under the name of Cora Burlar, in 1937. In the following years, they made their own puppets, built scenery, wrote scripts, and composed the music for their puppet shows.

      From the 1940s on the Bairds achieved nationwide attention with their work. Their hand- or wire-operated puppets appeared in several full-length Broadway theatricals and musicals and on the Bairds' own television shows in the early 1950s. The Bairds opened their own marionette theatre, the Bil Baird Theatre, in New York City in 1966.

      A few of their creations became classic puppet figures: Bubbles La Rue, the marionette striptease dancer; the singing frogs; Snarky Parker, the master of ceremonies; and Heathcliff, the talking horse. Bil Baird trained a generation of younger puppeteers, including the creator of the Muppets, Jim Henson (Henson, Jim), and many of Henson's associates. He was also the author of The Art of the Puppet (1965), a classic exposition of the field.

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