Frank Oz |
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Frank Oz Biography |
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Frank Oz (born May 25, 1944) is a British-born American film director, actor and puppeteer.
Oz was born Richard Frank Oznowicz in Hereford, England, the son of Frances and Isidore Oznowicz, both of whom were puppeteers. His parents were refugees from the Holocaust who moved to England after fighting the Nazis with the Dutch Brigades. Oz`s Dutch/Polish father was Jewish and his Flemish mother was a lapsed Catholic. Oz moved to California, United States with his parents when he was five years old. He attended Oakland City College. Oz is known for his work as a puppeteer (including voices), performing with Jim Henson`s Muppets. His characters have included Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam the Eagle on The Muppet Show, and Grover, Cookie Monster and Bert on Sesame Street, among many others. The Muppet character Fozzie Bear is actually not named after Frank Oz, as is widely believed. Fozzie is named after Muppet builder Faz Fazakas, who invented the device which enabled Fozzie to wiggle his ears. In addition to performing a variety of characters, Oz has been one of the primary collaborators responsible for the development of the Muppets over the last 30 years. Oz has performed as a Muppeteer in over 75 movies, video releases, and TV specials, as well as countless other public appearances, episodes of Sesame Street, and other Jim Henson series. His puppetry work spans from 1963 to the present day. He also worked with the puppets on the movie Labyrinth, starring David Bowie. Oz is also well known as the performer of Jedi Master Yoda from George Lucas` Star Wars series. Oz performed the voice and puppet for Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, and provided the voice of the CGI Yoda in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The conversion to CGI was met with some criticism among fans but Oz himself said that was "exactly what [Lucas] should have done." Oz had a great deal of creative input on the character, and was himself responsible for creating the character`s trademark style of reversed grammar. George Lucas was so impressed by Oz`s performance as Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back that he spent thousands of dollars on an advertising campaign to try to get him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. As an actor, Oz appeared in 1980 as a corrections officer in The Blues Brothers movie, directed by John Landis. He also appeared in later Landis movies An American Werewolf in London, Spies Like Us, Trading Places and Innocent Blood. In 1998, Oz portrayed a warden in Blues Brothers 2000. And while it wasn`t for Landis, in 2001 he had a minor part in the Pixar film Monsters, Inc. as Randall`s scare assistant Fungus. Other cameos have included playing a surgeon in scenes cut from the theatrical release of Superman III, The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan and several other Jim Henson-related films that didn`t involve just his puppeteering. Oz began his behind-the-camera work when he co-directed the fantasy film The Dark Crystal with long-time collaborator Jim Henson. The film featured the most advanced puppets ever created for a movie. Oz further employed those skills in directing 1986`s Little Shop Of Horrors. The musical film starred Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene, as well as Steve Martin, Bill Murray, John Candy, Christopher Guest, and a 15-foot-tall talking plant (voiced by Levi Stubbs) which at times required up to 40 pupp Biography Credit: en.wikipedia.org |
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Trivia |
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Trivia and QuotesQuotes In order to be a star performer you have to have someone to play against. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. The biggest problems with movies are expectations. [About the fame of Miss Piggy]: I wouldn`t like to be that famous, I value my privacy. Mind you, Miss Piggy enjoys every moment of it. If it were not for me, she would spend all her time in the limelight. Always two there are, a master and an apprentice. I`d like to read a book sometime. I`ve never read a book before. That`d be an adventure. I understand they have pages and everything. Yeah, I`ve got to do that sometime. If you look at a lot of the pieces on "The Muppet Show" (1976) that came from Jim, there was a tremendous sweetness about them, and that`s unique to Jim. Jim was never wimpy. He had a strength to his sweetness... that was great. Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is. [On "The Muppet Show" (1976) head writer, Jerry Juhl]: He was the person responsible really for the heart of the Muppets. He just knew the characters better than anybody else. He was brilliant because he could be funny but not nasty. He always saw the affection between the characters. Nobody else could do that kind of writing... He was THE Muppet writer. The more work I do, the more important it is to work with people I like - who are very talented. [On Jim Henson]: He envisioned a world where bears could tell jokes, chickens could sing, pigs could be stars and they all could ride bicycles.Trivia Collaborated five times with composer Miles Goodman. Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob?, Housesitter and Indian in the Cupboard. However Goodman's score to Indian in the Cupboard became unused and replaced by a score composed by Randy Edelman. Uncle of Michelle Oznowicz and Jenny Oznowicz. Attended Jim Henson's funeral. One of his first performing duties for "The Muppet Show" (1976) was performing Rowlf's right hand on "The Jimmy Dean Show" (1963). Has directed two of his Star Wars cast mates in otherwise unrelated films: Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine/Darth Sidious) appeared in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) and Terence Stamp (Supreme Chancellor Valorum) appeared in Bowfinger (1999). His mother was Flemish and his father Dutch. Though Yoda only appears in two episodes of the original Star Wars trilogy, Oz managed to make three movies with Carrie Fisher by appearing with her in The Blues Brothers (1980), the same year that Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) was released. Then, in addition to working with Leia's on-screen mother, Natalie Portman in all three prequels, he also directed Carrie Fisher's real-life mother, Debbie Reynolds, in In & Out (1997). The middle 3 letters of his car's license plate are "PYK", for Piggy, Yoda and Kermit. It is believed to be a coincidence, because it is a standard DMV-issued license plate, not a vanity plate. Was replaced by John Lithgow in the radio adaptations of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Lithgow also appeared in the Broadway musical based on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988). The Muppet Show (1976) character "Fozzie Bear" is actually not named after Frank Oz, as is widely believed. "Fozzie Bear" is named after "The Muppet Show" (1976) builder Faz Fazakas. Often works with Steve Martin (The Muppet Movie (1979), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), HouseSitter (1992), Bowfinger (1999)). Has appeared in many of director John Landis's films as a good luck charm of sorts. He didn't appear in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and Landis had plenty of bad luck during that film. In Trading Places (1983) he plays a cop taking an inventory of Dan Aykroyd's personal items, ironically reprising his role from The Blues Brothers (1980), where he took an inventory of the other Blues Brother's personal items, John Belushi, as Belushi was being freed from jail. 1961: Met Jim Henson in Asilomar, California. Is a recipient of the prestigious Connor Award, given by the brothers of the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity based out of Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also an honourary brother of the fraternity. | ||
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