Nick Maley recalls, “A lot of fans think Frank Oz and Jim Henson built Yoda at the Muppets. Whilst Jim was rarely directly involved in Yoda at all, Frank had verbal input into how the animatronic puppet heads that Stuart Freeborn was designing should be adapted to not restrict his performance. Stuart originally planned an articulated jaw under Yoda’s skin but Frank vetoed that as he didn’t want anything restricting the mouth. The eye and eyelid mechanism’s had to fit around Frank’s hand too and he wanted access to the eyebrows manually. Frank & Jim chose Wendy Midner, one of their muppet designers, to join our team and Yoda’s body was fabricated almost entirely by her to techniques Frank was familiar with.

Frank’s greatest contribution was in how sensitively he guided the other puppeteers to create Yoda’s personality. The script included the reversed grammar we all know. But Frank gave our animatronic creation heart. Over the years I’ve designed quite a few puppets that were a lot more complex than Yoda. But none were brought to life so well, or won the affection of so many. That was Frank’s doing.

I could go on all day about what a nice guy Frank was and how he never complained about being subterranean in "a slimy mud hole" (and you had to be there to know how true that line really was).  Let me just say he had plenty to complain about... and showed us all what it means to be a professional.”

After Star Wars... Frank stepped out from under his puppets and began making cameo appearances in movies such as THE BLUES BROTHERS and  AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and made his feature film directorial debut with Jim Henson on The DARK CRYSTAL. His subsequent directing credits include THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, WHAT ABOUT BOB?, HOUSESITTER, THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD, and more.

For Episode I he returned to operate a new animatronic Yoda built by Nick Dudman’s team and to provide Yoda’s voice.

For more info you should read the Wikipedia page on FRANK and check his credits on the Internet Movie Database.

TRIVIA: It is a little known fact that despite gaining fame on SESEME STREET in the USA, Frank was born in ENGLAND.