There has hardly been a TV puppet programme – from The Muppet Show to Spitting Image – that local East Sheen puppeteer and actress, Louise Gold, hasn’t been involved in over the last 40 years. She talked to Pippa Duncan about life below and above stage
Actress, Louise Gold, was only 20 years old when her agent asked to her audition for the second season of Jim Henson’s sketch comedy The Muppet Show – a small programme that was gaining popularity with each episode. It, of course, went on to become a worldwide phenomenon.
‘It is one of those flukes of life. Jim and his team were all six foot tall, so they were looking for a tall girl to train up. Whatever my quirk of personality, they went “yes, we can work with her” because you’re being very close physically, for many hours, so it had to be someone they felt they could be in a cramped space with.’
At that time in the 1970s, there was no other show doing what the Muppet team were doing. It was expensive to produce and networks in the US all turned it down. It was only when Lew Grade agreed to co-produce it for ATV that it got the go-head, eventually running for 120 episodes over five seasons and filmed at Elstree Studios. Gold was the only Brit on the team of Americans.
The reason they needed a tall actress was that all the sets, with the small space beneath where the puppeteers would work, were built to accommodate Henson’s tall frame. ‘If Henson had been short, I would never have got the job!’. The set covered the heads of the puppeteers, but the camera also had to be positioned so that they weren’t seen. The guest stars would be on ‘risers’ so that they were even higher. The puppeteers worked in their box, standing for sometimes four hours, although they could hold up their puppet for a few minutes at a time, due to the weight. They would shoot an episode over a week: ‘My shoulders have suffered a lot. You can only hold your arm up for a certain amount of time on a take before you die. The longest would be for musical numbers because they’re maybe three minutes long and that’s a long time. It’s very tough physically.’
Gold is still in awe of Jim Henson, more than 30 years after he died in 1990: ‘He created a family on set. He was the most wonderful person to work with because he really led from the front because he was a puppeteer and he knew how hard it was. He loved talented people and he valued everybody’s skill. He had these amazing people designing the puppets, building the puppets, writing the scripts.’ Having made his name on Sesame Street, he was known for being generous in passing on his knowledge and making sure every member of the team felt valued.
Gold played many characters over the years in the show, but her main puppet was Annie Sue Pig, with her signature yellow curls. She was specially designed for Gold and was seen by Miss Piggy as a rival for the affections of Kermit the Frog and even the audience, once karate chopping Kermit when she caught him giving Annie Sue a peck on the cheek. (‘There’s only room for one Miss Piggy. And that’s moi.’) As well as playing other characters, she would sometimes share a character, being one arm of Fozzie Bear, for instance, with another puppeteer.
She met many of the great guest stars who appeared on the show, including Bob Hope, Liza Minnelli, John Cleese and George Burns, who all loved being there: ‘Whoever they were, they still played to the puppets. The puppets become so alive that even though there’s a bald man standing underneath Miss Piggy, they are still playing love scenes to this pig because what the puppeteer has created is so animated, so alive.’
Early in her career Gold resented being hidden, wanting to be seen as the actress she was – ‘I would wear make-up and high heels below stage’ – but her acting skills and her own character helped to bring to life each of her puppets. ‘I look back at Annie Sue Pig and she was young, terribly enthusiastic, a little bit obnoxious and determined to be a star and, of course, that was me. But at the time you don’t realise it.’
She moved on to helping create Spitting Image in the early 1980s, casting the characters, doing the auditions and training the puppeteers. She was also the voice of the Queen and Margaret Thatcher – ‘before they got a man to play her’.
While she enjoyed being in both, she preferred putting her own take on each character in the Muppets, whereas Spitting Image was impersonating real people.
She went on to work on numerous other programmes using puppets, including Roland Rat, The Furchester Hotel and more recently, Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, playing All-Maudra, having been in the epic original 1982 film, too.
And she came to love her twin career as a puppeteer as well as an actress/singer, being in top musicals such as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mamma Mia and numerous TV shows, from Coronation Street to Holby City, as well as performing in her own cabaret show.
‘I think I am one of the most lucky people I know. I can now value both acting and puppeteering. I’ve been you, knowl. One of th eladding puppeteers in all these incredible shows and have done the West End stuff and TV. I just feel so, so lucky.’
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