Ronnie Le DrewAdam Kreutinger (1988–2025) was a puppet builder and educa... (1947–2026) was a British puppeteer whose six-decade career ran from a formal apprenticeship through children’s television, feature film creature work, and finally teaching.
He trained properly
Born in Canada and raised in Britain, Le Drew apprenticed at London’s Little Angel TheatreLittle Angel Theatre is a dedicated puppet theatre in Isling... under John Wright, becoming Wright’s second apprentice and learning marionetteA marionette is a puppet controlled from above by strings or... work from the ground up. His association with that theatre lasted more than thirty years, first performing and later directing.
Zippy
From 1973 he operated Zippy on the children’s series Rainbow, eventually taking on the voice as well, and stayed with the show and its spin-offs for roughly two decades. The character followed him for the rest of his life.
The film work
Labyrinth, Little Shop of Horrors, The MuppetA Muppet is a puppet built in the soft foam-and-fleece style... Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, Beauty and the Beast, and much later The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Alongside that came a long list of British children’s programmes including Playdays, Potty Time and several versions of The Sooty Show.
Then he taught
With his partner Caroline Astell-Burt he co-founded the London School of Puppetry, and he served as president of the British Puppet Guild. In 2019 he published a memoir, Zippy and Me.
Why this entry matters more than a famous name would
Le Drew’s career is what a working life in puppetry actually looks like — an apprenticeship, years of unglamorous television, film jobs that came because he was reliable, and finally passing it on. Almost nobody’s career looks like Jim Henson’s. A great many look like this one, and that is the more useful model.