(*87*)The Westbeth Artists Housing and Center for the Arts, the place Lee lived, shared the information in a press release. “Ralph Lee, Westbeth Master Puppeteer and founder of the Village Halloween Parade and the Mettawee River Theater Company, among many other accomplishments, passed away on May 12, 2023,” the group wrote. “He was a gentle, beloved figure of immense creative vision in the Westbeth community and the world — which is now a lonelier place without him. Our hearts go to his [wife] Casey and his family.”
(*87*)Born in 1936, Lee started making puppets throughout his childhood in Middlebury, Vermont. He studied theater and dance in Europe and acted on and off-Broadway within the late ’60s and early ’70s. Lee additionally started making masks, props and puppets for numerous productions throughout this time, and in 1974, he organized the inaugural Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. He directed the parade till 1985, rising it from a small group occasion into one among New York’s main points of interest, drawing an estimated 2 million spectators yearly.
(*87*)Lee created masks for a number of of New York’s preeminent theater and dance corporations, together with the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera and the New York Ballet. He additionally turned the creative director of the Mettawee River Theatre Company in 1976, helming dozens of productions in upstate New York and New England every year. Yet Lee is probably finest recognized for the Land Shark, which debuted on Saturday Night Live within the fall of 1975 as a response to the Jaws-induced shark hysteria taking the nation by storm.
Watch the Land Shark on ‘Saturday Night Live’ Season 1
(*87*)Hastily assembled from home goods like foam, fabric and rubber laminate, the Land Shark made its televised debut within the “Jaws II” sketch on Nov. 8, 1975. Voiced by Chevy Chase, the so-called “cleverest of all sharks” would masquerade as a repairman or door-to-door salesman, knocking on victims’ doorways and attacking them after they let their guard down. Chase portrayed the Land Shark a handful of occasions in SNL‘s first three seasons and sometimes reprised the function in later years.
(*87*)The Land Shark was a far cry from Lee’s typical, fastidiously crafted puppets, however as a permanent cultural icon, it achieved his objective. “The sculptor in me wants to be immortalized in his work,” Lee advised The New York Times in 1998. “I think I always had the urge to build things for eternity.”
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