Visual History with Frank Oz

Born in Herefordshire, England and raised in Oakland, California, Frank Oz was born into a family of puppeteers. As a teen, he worked as an apprentice puppeteer at Children’s Fairland with the Vagabond Puppets. Never intending to pursue it as a fulltime career, Oz quit and focused his energies on journalism. His career path once again changed at 19 when Jim Henson remembered Oz’s performance at a Puppeteers of America conference two years prior and asked him to join him in New York for six months to work on the Muppets. Nineteen years and countless performances later, Henson asked Oz to co-direct what would be Oz’s directorial debut, The Dark Crystal (1982).

Since then, Oz has directed features such as The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), What About Bob? (1991), Housesitter (1991), The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), In & Out (1997), Bowfinger (1999), The Score (2001), The Stepford Wives (2004), and Death at a Funeral (2007), among others.

Oz has been a Guild member since 1983.