Caroll Spinney

Caroll Spinney was an American puppeteer and cartoonist.

He is best known for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, two seminal characters on the acclaimed Children's Television Workshop/PBS children’s program Sesame Street, from its inception in 1969 until 2018.

Spinney attended the Art Institute of Boston, but his studies were interrupted by a stint in the Air Force. Serving in Las Vegas, he had his first professional puppet show in 1955, playing “Rascal Rabbit” on television. After being discharged, he returned to Boston, where he played clown and puppet characters on The Judy and Goggle Show, and the Boston broadcast of Bozo’s Big Top.

He encountered Muppets creator Jim Henson at a puppeteers festival in Salt Lake City in 1969, and joined Sesame Street a few months later.

Spinney made appearances as Big Bird and Oscar on The Flip Wilson Show, The Dick Cavett Show, What’s My Line?, The Hollywood Squares, The Today Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Ellen, as well as numerous televised awards shows.

Spinney has received six Daytime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a Library of Congress Living Legend Award in 2000 and a Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2006.

Spinney died December 8, 2019, in Woodstock, Connecticut. He was 85.