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Read the prologue of Street Gang (Continued...)

As a single man, Henson had his pick of staggeringly beautiful companions. Daryl Hannah, who had flown in from California for the service on a private jet and now wept softly in a pew, had been one of them. Henson went through a Hollywood stage in his late forties and early fifties, shedding his bohemian wardrobe for goods from Rodeo Drive. His beard was neatly trimmed and his hair styled for an appearance he'd made with Kermit on the late-night Arsenio Hall Show, just two days before he died. Complaining of a sore throat in the greenroom that day, he was uncharacteristically flat and slow on the uptake during the interview segment. Henson used the occasion to plug an upcoming special shot at Disney World in Orlando and to introduce Clifford, a new Muppet musician working with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the house band from The Muppet Show. African American puppeteer Kevin Clash gave voice and performance to Clifford, he of the fuchsia dreadlocks, sunglasses, and vocal delivery that was distinctly urban contemporary. Clash was sensational, bantering with the black comic as the audience howled.

Henson seemed to enjoy it as much as anyone, and he looked relieved to have Clash carry the load. It was Henson's final televised interview.

Chris Cerf lost a dear friend and comic collaborator in Henson. Walking into the memorial, he was numb with grief, but being surrounded by his CTW colleagues was a comfort. Only months earlier, "Sesame Street" composer-arranger extraordinaire Joe Raposo had been laid to rest, dead at age fifty-one from complications of lymphoma.

Cerf composed tunes for "Sesame Street" as well, half-silly, half-sophisticated parody numbers. As the son of Bennett Cerf, the witty cofounder of Random House, Chris had used his book-world DNA to create the first paperback library of "Sesame Street" books. He was also sly and unpredictable, which made him a perfect fit for Henson's extended family of mirth makers. Cerf provided many good times in Sesame's freewheeling formative days, when an elaborate prank would reduce Henson to a puddle.

Cooney knew that everything about "Sesame Street" had been unalterably turned upside town the minute Jim Henson was declared dead at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 16.

In his final hour, he twice went into cardiac arrest, as the raging infection shut down his organs and left him struggling for air, surrounded by strangers. The cause of his death was Group A streptococcal pneumonia, an infection that probably started with that sore throat he complained about in Los Angeles the night of the Arsenio taping. A timely course of penicillin would have saved him, but he chose not to seek medical help until it was too late. Henson, whose mother was a practicing Christian Scientist, had considered calling a faith healer, but, after hours of feverish decline, he finally acceded to be taken to the hospital. Around 4 a.m., Henson's publicist Arthur Novell received a phone call in San Francisco. "Oh Arthur, I'm not feeling well," Henson rasped. Sensing danger, Novell arranged for a Manhattan car service to pick up Henson at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. Henson, whose organs were failing, walked to the lobby and got into the limo. Precious minutes were lost as the driver pulled up to a door at New York Hospital that was three-quarters of a block away from the emergency entrance. More time was lost when Henson sent the driver on his way, insisting he could walk to the ER. There was no arguing with him. For all his exceptional attributes, Henson was a willful, unyielding man who almost always got his way. This served him well in business, where he could wear people down.

Jim Henson was a genius, and not only for reinventing puppetry for the television age and for inspiring a raft of characters that make you smile just thinking about them. Henson was a genius businessman, as well. His only flaws might have been an inability to stay within budget for his feature-length films and his unwillingness to fire people when prudence would have suggested he should do so. He always found someone else to take that responsibility.

"Puppetry," he once said, "is a way of hiding." At six foot three and perpetually bearded to cover acne scars, Henson was defined by bemusing and often baffling contradictions. He was shy by nature, yet his creations were explosively silly and spontaneous. Often reticent and contemplative, at times he eagerly played the Pied Piper, organizing one of New York's most outrageous annual costume parties. He spoke of simple pleasures but had a taste for European casinos, costal vacation homes, and four-star dining. He lived large but, as a proto-environmentalist, talked of protecting a small planet's shrinking resources. He embraced and celebrated life exuberantly and spread acres of joy but suffered through at least one major depression after his fantasy film, The Dark Crystal, bombed at the box office and was dismissed by critics.

Henson was deeply unhappy and fatigued in the months leading up to his death. Many believed he sensed that he would not live to see grandchildren, pointing to a plan he had drawn up five years earlier for the public memorial service as evidence that he believed the end was near. It was included in letters left behind for each of his children, in which Henson indicated a burning curiosity about the afterlife and an eagerness to reconnect with the dead, and assured the children that he would be waiting for them "on the other side." He also asked his survivors to bring everyone together for a few songs and stories, insisting that guests avoid wearing funeral black. As a son of the South and a jazz fancier, he requested that a New Orleans-style band play "When the Saints Go Marching In." He requested that the proceedings be entertaining and light, hoping that friends and colleagues would provide laughter in large doses and silliness worthy of the Muppets.

Henson wrote the letter three years before he began working—without a contract—for The Walt Disney Company. Doing so, some believe, was the beginning of the end.

Disney CEO Michael D. Eisner waited for the proceedings to begin alongside Frank Wells, his No. 2 at the company. In the late 1980's, Eisner had been clever enough to see that Disney's cast of classic characters aimed at the very young, such as Mickey Mouse and Goofy, were being slowly supplanted in children's hearts by fresher, hipper icons. Eisner and Wells had pledged a huge pile of Disney dollars—a sum estimated to be between $100 million and $150 million—to purchase Henson's production company and library of film and television properties. The price included ownership of the boisterous, satirical, and sometime sardonic puppet ensemble that had made The Muppet Show a worldwide sensation, but it did not—and would not—include the Muppets Henson had specifically created for "Sesame Street."

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