Please Rewind Talent Wall

Frank Oz

Frank Oz has spent much of his career making the mechanics of performance disappear. Whether operating a puppet, supplying a voice, stepping briefly in front of the camera or directing an ensemble, he has a sharp instinct for character—and for the timing that turns a gesture or pause into comedy. Born Frank Richard Oznowicz in Hereford on May 25, 1944, Oz came from a family of puppeteers. After early work with the Vagabond Puppets at Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, he joined Jim Henson in New York at 19. Their long collaboration helped shape the Muppets, with Oz performing characters including Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal and Sam Eagle, as well as Sesame Street regulars Cookie Monster, Bert and Grover. His exchanges with Henson gave those characters much of their rhythm: affectionate, argumentative and precisely timed. That same combination of technique and personality defines Oz’s work as Yoda. He performed the puppet and supplied the voice in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and Please Rewind movie Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. He later voiced the computer-generated Yoda in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, then returned to puppet performance for The Last Jedi. Yoda may speak in unusual patterns, but Oz’s performance finds the character’s humor, patience and steel beneath the syntax. Oz also built a substantial career behind the camera. After co-directing The Dark Crystal with Henson, he directed The Muppets Take Manhattan and moved into live-action filmmaking with Little Shop of Horrors. His later films include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob?, In & Out, Bowfinger, The Score and Death at a Funeral. The range is broader than his reputation for comedy might suggest, though his feel for clashing personalities runs through much of the work. His on-screen appearances are generally small but well placed, from roles in John Landis films such as The Blues Brothers and Trading Places to a lawyer in Knives Out. Across all these forms, Oz’s career is held together by a performer’s understanding of movement, voice and the value of getting the beat exactly right.