Even as a kid, I was a credit junkie, so I remember seeing Kermit Love's name in the credit roll for Sesame Street. Then again, his name was Kermit, so it kind of stood out.
Back then, I had no idea what Love, who died this week at the age of 91, did on the show. Now, thanks to his obit in The New York Times, I know: He designed Big Bird. And Snuffleupagus. And Oscar and Cookie Monster. (But not, oddly enough, Kermit The Frog.)
For that alone, Love's place in the annals of American culture should be assured, but it gets better. Fascinated by puppets since childhood, he got sidetracked by a lengthy career designing costumes and settings for theater and dance, starting out working with Orson Welles.
And it still gets better: He designed Rodeo for Agnes DeMille and Aaron Copland, Fancy Free for Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, One Touch Of Venus for DeMille and Kurt Weill, and collaborated with George Balanchine for forty years.
In my world, anyone who hung with Kurt Weill, Jerome Robbins and Jim Henson is eligible for sainthood. Kermit Love toiled in semi-anonymity, but he worked with some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, and served them well.
