Frank Oz

The other half of Jim Henson's Muppets, Frank Oz is perhaps the most recognisable puppet performer who ever lived. After giving the world Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear, British born Oz performed Stuart Freeborn's Yoda in 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return of The Jedi'. He provided both the movement and voice while friend Henson provided the puppet's rigging.

It was around this time that he also began a relationship with then it director John Landis in a cameo role for 'An American Werewolf In London' (famous for Rick Baker's revolutionary werewolf transformation, and also the first film to win an Oscar in the Academy Award's newly created make-up category). It quickly became a Landis tradition for filmmakers to make on-screen in-joke appearances in his films and the most regular cameo appearance would be from Frank Oz.

It also began Oz's relationship with Landis' cinematographer Robert Paynter BSC, an important member of the Salkind Superman movie team. As Landis' then A-list filmmaking style and off-beat humour was massively popular, it seemed natural for director Richard Lester to jump on the bandwagon and have a Frank Oz cameo in his own comedic 'Superman III', and as Robert Paynter was also Lester's Superman director of photography, Oz came aboard.

Although only shown in the extended television version of the film, Oz's cameo scene as a brain surgeon, about to operate during an evening blackout, is so very much Landis that it comes across as overt plagiarism. Additionally, Oz supervised puppet sequences filmed for the movie, albeit left on the cutting room floor.

During 'Superman III' both Frank Oz and Robert Paynter returned to cameo and photograph Landis' 'Trading Places', Paynter photographed Landis' landmark 'Michael Jackson's Thriller' (for which Rick Baker provided the ghoulish make-ups) and then Oz undertook his solo directing debut, 'Muppets Take Manhattan', photographed by Paynter in Queens, New York.

The duo then both made cameos in Landis' 'Spies Like us' (photographed again by Paynter), and then came the film that landed Oz in the A-list of film directors, the last great film musical, 'Little Shop of Horrors'. Of equal importance to this article, the film is also one of the greatest animatronic behemoths of all time. Photographed in the definitive cult musical style by Robert Paynter, the film starred Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene who were both undeniably upstaged by Lyle Conway's mind-blowing, animatronic Audrey 2 plant. The creature grows from a cute Venus fly-trap bud to a twelve foot tall, singing and dancing, man-eating "Mean Green Mother" voiced by Levi Stubbs. To date it is perhaps history's most amazing feat of on-screen puppetry.
The film also became famous for it's rarely seen alternate ending, in which both protagonists are devoured by Audrey 2, who then performs Godzilla-esque destruction of Manhattan Island to the musical number, "Don't Feed the Plants!" Despite it's replacement by an upbeat ending (the original ending received a negative response from a test screening at Orange County- the same ground that would decide a similar fate for 'Superman IV: The Quest For Peace' some months later), the film secured Frank Oz a position in the A-list league of Hollywood directors.

Frank Oz's other directorial credits include 'Dirty rotten Scoundrels', 'What about Bob?', 'Housesitter', 'In and Out', Bowfinger' and most recently he teamed with 'Superman' star Marlon Brando on 'The Score'.

Rodger Shaw>>>