Editing Jim Henson (section)

==Early life==
James Maury Henson was born on September 24, 1936, in [[Greenville, Mississippi]], the younger of two children of Betty Marcella ([[née]] Brown, 1904–1972) and Paul Ransom Henson (1904–1994), an [[agronomist]] for the United States Department of Agriculture.<ref name="sippi">{{cite web |last=Padgett |first=John B. |date=February 17, 1999 |title=Jim Henson |url=http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/henson_jim/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070829001157/http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/henson_jim/index.html |archive-date=August 29, 2007 |access-date=June 19, 2007 |work=The Mississippi Writers Page |publisher=[[University of Mississippi]] Department of English}}</ref> Henson's older brother, Paul Ransom Henson Jr. (1932–1956), died in a car crash on April 15, 1956. He was raised as a [[Christian Science|Christian Scientist]] and spent his early childhood in nearby [[Leland, Mississippi]], before moving with his family to [[University Park, Maryland]], near [[Washington, D.C.]], in the late 1940s and later to [[Bethesda, Maryland|Bethesda]], Maryland.<ref name="People Weekly Article">{{cite news |first1=Susan |last1=Schindehette |first2=J. D. |last2=Podolsky |title=Legacy of a Gentle Genius |date=June 18, 1990 |magazine=People |pages=88–96 |access-date=February 24, 2012 |url=http://www.muppetcentral.com/articles/tributes/henson/hensonarticle5.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120221231138/http://www.muppetcentral.com/articles/tributes/henson/hensonarticle5.shtml |archive-date=February 21, 2012 |via=Muppet Central}}</ref> He remembered the arrival of the family's first television as "the biggest event of his adolescence",<ref name="nyobit">{{cite news |last=Blau |first=Eleanor |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/17/obituaries/jim-henson-puppeteer-dies-the-muppets-creator-was-53.html |title=Jim Henson, Puppeteer, Dies; The Muppets' Creator Was 53 |work=The New York Times |date=May 17, 1990 |access-date=May 1, 2007 |archive-date=June 29, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230629221555/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/17/obituaries/jim-henson-puppeteer-dies-the-muppets-creator-was-53.html |url-status=live }}</ref> being heavily influenced by radio ventriloquist [[Edgar Bergen]] and the early television puppets of [[Burr Tillstrom]] on ''[[Kukla, Fran and Ollie]]'' and [[Bil Baird|Bil and Cora Baird]].<ref name="nyobit"/> He remained a Christian Scientist at least into his twenties, when he taught Sunday school, but he wrote to a Christian Science church in the early 1970s to inform them that he was no longer a practicing member.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7ElPAAAAIBAJ&pg=4502,372385 |title=Henson rumor is groundless |newspaper=Toledo Blade |page=E4 |date=July 1, 1990 |access-date=April 23, 2014 |via=[[Google News Archive]] |archive-date=May 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505145408/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7ElPAAAAIBAJ&pg=4502%2C372385 |url-status=live }}</ref>