Toby Philpott
Toby Philpott is an English puppeteer best known for his work in motion picture animatronics during the 1980s in such films as The Dark Crystal and Return of the Jedi. Born into a family of entertainers, Philpott dropped out of school and traveled the world during the 1960s, squatting in various locations and surviving off money he earned from his work as a street performer, which included juggling, fire eating, magic shows, clowning and acrobatics. He began his film career after Jim Henson personally selected Philpott to work on the 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal, in which he worked side-by-side with Henson.
The next year, Philpott was approached to serve as one of the puppeteers controlling Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. Philpott controlled the left arm, head, tongue and body of the giant Hutt puppet. Philpott would lend his puppetry skills to other such movies as The Company of Wolves, Labyrinth, Little Shop of Horrors and Who Framed Roger Rabbit before leaving the film industry. Reflecting upon his movie career, Philpott describes himself as a "street juggler that got lucky".
Biography
Early life
Toby Philpott was born 14 February 1946 in London, England into a family of performers and teachers. His father, A. R. Philpott, also known as "Pantopuck the Puppet Man," was a well-known puppeteer who would go on to become a writer and teacher on the subject of puppets. Toby's mother, Sheila Moriarty, was a singer and actress who taught voice lessons and Shakespearian verse speaking. At an early age, Toby Philpott discovered an interest in the performing arts and a particular love for magic. He also developed an interest in puppetry in part by reading a diary his father kept about using puppets throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s. Nevertheless, his parents did not encourage him to pursue a career in show business.In the 1960s, Philpott became swept up in the youth movement that rose with the end of the British Empire. Philpott had a rebellious attitude when it came to such matters as money and capitalism. Philpott dropped out of school and began to travel the world, living what he would later describe as a "Bohemian" and "gypsy" lifestyle. By his late teens, he was splitting his time between archaeological jobs and various odd jobs at fairgrounds; he began the latter working an octopus ride for one season at a fair in Yorkshire. By 1967, at age 21, he was living mostly on other people's floors and sofas in Notting Hill Gate in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; with no permanent residence, Philpott survived by juggling for meals and money on the streets.
Discovering the performing arts
Throughout the late-1960s, he worked counter jobs at several nightclubs in Soho, including Bunjies and Les Cousins, where he met many musicians and other performers and formed what he described as some of "my most treasured memories." He also continued working in occasional archeological digs, including mining activities in 1968 in the wells of Sandal Castle, a historic ruin in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. In 1970, he lived in Paris, France, where he sold jewellery in the streets and squatted in an atelier on the Rue d'Alésia with a woman named Nelly Gareau. He spent two years visiting various locations in the United States of America and Mexico with Gareau.Philpott returned to London in 1972 and gate-crashed a Le Grand Magic Circus show on New Year's Eve at the famed Roundhouse arts venue. Philpott was invited onto the stage during the show, and his childhood interest for the performing arts was reignited. Philpott tried to join Le Grand Magic Circus in Paris and participated in one show, but was not picked up for continued employment. He returned to the United Kingdom determined to perform for a living and, while juggling outside London's Oval House Theatre, was discovered by John and Crissie Trigger, who ran a traveling entertainment company called The Raree Show.
Traveling street performer
Philpott spent the next several years traveling and performing in both Raree and solo gigs, in such places as Liverpool, Sweden, Germany, Mexico and the United States. His acts included juggling, magic, fire eating, acrobatics, unicycling, fireworks, clowning, and slapstick comedy in such venues as schools, theatres, Medieval festivals, street markets and children's television. He also ran theatre workshops for children and learned how to play various musical instruments and apply stage make-up.Philpott spent the mid-1970s living in the London shed of Australian Chris Löfvén and Lyne Helms, who at the time were working on the 1976 film Oz: A Rock 'n' Roll Road Movie. He continued traveling all over Europe as a street performer, where he used hand-made props and performed self-invented tricks. He performed in opening acts at such venues as the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden. Philpott also performed in various fringe theatre groups, including the Red Buddha Theatre with Japanese musician Stomu Yamashta, and Incubus with Richard LeParmentier, who would go on to play Admiral Motti in A New Hope. He also learned stage management and other "techie stuff" at the Melkweg music venue and cultural center in Amsterdam. Philpott said he particularly enjoyed seeing "how things were done."
Start of animatronics career
The death of Toby Philpott's father in 1978 moved Philpott to get away from solo performing and enter a more collaborative medium. Philpott's first foray into motion pictures was when he and other students in a mime class were selected to play neanderthals in the 1981 film, Quest for Fire. He was dropped from the film when the project changed producers, but the experience opened Philpott to the possibility of entering into a new entertainment medium. That year his mime teacher and movement coach, Desmond Jones, informed him about an audition advertisement for acrobats, mimes and dancers for The Dark Crystal, a 1982 fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, the puppeteer behind Yoda in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back. The Dark Crystal included groundbreaking animatronics, the use of electronics and robotics in mechanized puppets to make them appear alive. The ad called for a variety of performer types because it was unknown what kind of physical abilities and stamina would be necessary for this relatively new artform.Philpott saw the film as a chance to apply his performing arts skills into a "new and exciting field" and, since the audition involved a workshop, he felt he could learn something from the experience even if he did not get a job. He answered the call and was selected from about 200 letter applications. Philpott participated in the initial audition workshop, which provided instruction on basic puppetry skills and improvisation techniques, and was among the 50 who were called back for additional workshops, where the pool of finalists was narrowed down to 20. Philpott described the final round of workshops as extremely competitive, but he was among the final 10 chosen to work on the film. Henson, who Philpott described as "the nicest millionaire I ever met," had a hands-on role in the selection process. Philpott was supposed to be among four that would start work immediately, but after suffering back problems due to the amount of running in the workshops, Philpott had to remain with the second team of six who worked on the film during the spring of 1982. Prior to filming, Philpott received lessons in lip-synch and was provided assorted types of puppets to experiment with.
''The Dark Crystal''
Development work took place at Jim Henson's Creature Shop, which at the time was located in a former-post office across the street from Henson's house on Downshire Hill in Hampstead, London. Toby Philpott began training in bodywork and puppeteering, and worked with the early incarnations of the character puppets, which began to become fine-tuned around the specific puppeteers. Each of the main puppet performers were allocated into crews to work the eyes, eyebrows and arms of specific puppets. Jim Henson personally chose Philpott and fellow puppeteer Robbie Barnett to work in his support crew, which Philpott attributed to a combination of talent and temperament, since each crew would be working very close together. Philpott often played the right arm of the characters Henson animated.Filming took place at Elstree Studios. Although most of the puppet crews were able to do additional rehearsals while Henson worked the other various aspects of film production, Philpott and Barnett were often given just a quick walk-through before the actual performance due to Henson's busy work schedule. The teams concentrated their efforts through the puppet to create a coherent set of gestures and an individual performance and personality, which involved a great deal of experimentation, discussion and feedback through video playback among the team. Philpott said whenever he made a mistake due to lack of expressiveness or timing in his gestures, Henson remained very patient and never raised his voice or became angry.
The main character Philpott played in The Dark Crystal was urTih the Alchemist, one of the urRu; Philpott later described him as the favorite character he ever puppeteered. But he also played various other characters and races in the film, including the Garthim, Pod People and other swamp creatures. Philpott said the puppet designs alone gave the creatures a great deal of characters, which helped him prepare for the roles. He found an inner peace and deep patience while wearing the tall, luminescent Mystic suits; similarly, the suits for the hulking crustacean-like Garthims made Philpott and the other actors feel "wired up and raring to go." Philpott and the other puppeteers depended on direct, honest feedback from each other and the filmmakers, since it was difficult to know the impression they made while wearing the suits.
Philpott's most disappointing moment during The Dark Crystal came during the first day of shooting, when he played a mystic who was featured in the foreground of a scene in the Mystic Valley. The costume's jaw had recently been readjusted and its mouth was stuck hanging open in an unflattering way, but none of the crew notified Philpott and he was unhappy with how it came out in the movie. Nevertheless, Philpott said the puppeteers and filmmakers were a "very happy and engaged crew" and because the techniques and methods were so new during The Dark Crystal, he enjoyed a level of hands-on involvement that would not be matched in his future movies.