Bil Baird (1904–1987) was America’s foremost marionetteA marionette is a puppet controlled from above by strings or... artist for much of the twentieth century, working with his wife and partner Cora across Broadway, television, film and touring theatre.
You have almost certainly seen his work
The Lonely Goatherd sequence in the 1965 film The Sound of Music is Baird’s — he and Cora designed, built, performed and choreographed the entire marionette show inside it. It remains the most widely seen marionette performance ever filmed.
The career
He founded the Baird Marionettes in 1934, performing at the Chicago World’s Fair, and worked continuously for the next five decades — Broadway productions, television series including The Whistling Wizard, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and for roughly a decade his own marionette theatre in Greenwich Village.
He wrote the book
The Art of the Puppet, published in 1965, remains one of the standard works on the form and is still worth finding secondhand.
He trained people you have read about here
Jerry NelsonJerry Nelson (1934–2012) was a Muppet performer and singer... and Faz FazakasFranz "Faz" Fazakas (1918–2013) was the engineer behind Mu... both worked with Baird early in their careers before joining Jim HensonJim Henson (1936–1990) was the puppeteer and filmmaker who... More. A great deal of American puppetry runs through his workshop.
Why marionettes still matter to a foam-and-fleece builder
Baird’s figures walk, dance and carry weight convincingly — the hardest problem in puppetry and one that hand-and-rod construction sidesteps entirely rather than solves. Studying how a marionette is strung and balanced teaches you things about weight and movement that no amount of Muppet-style building will.
He continued performing with his marionettes until his death in 1987.