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Obituaries

Kermit Love | Costume designer, 91

Kermit Love, 91, the costume designer who helped puppeteer Jim Henson create Big Bird and other Sesame Street characters, has died. Mr. Love died a week ago of congestive heart failure in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., near his home in Stanfordville, his longtime partner, Christopher Lyall, told the New York Times. Mr. Love was also a designer for some of ballet's most prominent choreographers, including Twyla Tharp, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine. He also designed costumes and puppets for film and advertising, including the Snuggle bear from the fabric-softener commercials. Sesame Street , public television's groundbreaking effort to use TV to teach preschoolers, premiered in 1969. Henson drafted the original sketches of Big Bird, and Mr. Love then built the 8-foot, yellow-feathered costume. - AP

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Kermit Love, 91, the costume designer who helped puppeteer Jim Henson create Big Bird and other

Sesame Street

characters, has died.

Mr. Love died a week ago of congestive heart failure in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., near his home in Stanfordville, his longtime partner, Christopher Lyall, told the New York Times.

Mr. Love was also a designer for some of ballet's most prominent choreographers, including Twyla Tharp, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine. He also designed costumes and puppets for film and advertising, including the Snuggle bear from the fabric-softener commercials.

Sesame Street

, public television's groundbreaking effort to use TV to teach preschoolers, premiered in 1969. Henson drafted the original sketches of Big Bird, and Mr. Love then built the 8-foot, yellow-feathered costume.

- AP

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