CATEGORY:
Film & Television
Photo by Victoria Labalme
Creator. Director. Producer. Performer. Writer. Actor. Icon. Superlatives all that describe the one and only Frank Oz.
As a respected director, Frank has helmed more than a dozen films—including co-directing The Dark Crystal (1982) with Jim Henson, The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), Touchstone Pictures’ What About Bob? (1991), In & Out (1997), Bowfinger (1999), The Score (2001), Death at a Funeral (2007), Muppet Guys Talking (2017), and others, as well as the 2021 Hulu presentation of the long-running Off-Broadway hit he also directed, Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself.
A four-time Emmy® winner, Frank is the recipient of The Art Director’s Guild Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award, The Comedy Awards’ Creative Achievement Award, The Saturn Lifetime Achievement Award, two George Foster Peabody Awards, three Gold Records, two Platinum Records, and a host of other accolades and honors.
He originated and performed the characters of Grover, Bert, and Cookie Monster for Sesame Street, along with Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Sam Eagle, and Animal for The Muppet Show, performing in hundreds of television shows and specials with The Muppets—including the memorable Muppet*Vision 3D for Disney Parks.
Frank also originated and performed the character of Yoda for George Lucas’ Star Wars galaxy, first in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and followed by Return of the Jedi (1983), The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), Revenge of the Sith (2005), The Last Jedi (2017), and The Rise of Skywalker (2019).
He’s also acted in several live-action movies, from The Blues Brothers (1980) to Knives Out (2019), and has voiced characters in Disney and Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. (2001), Inside Out (2015), and Inside Out 2 (2024).