Jerry Nelson

Jerry L. Nelson (10 July 1934 – 23 August 2012) was an American puppeteer, best known for his work with The Muppets. Renowned for his wide range of characters and singing abilities, he performed Muppet characters on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and various Muppet movies and specials.

Career

On Sesame Street, Nelson's longest-running character was Count von Count, the counting vampire who took delight in counting anything he could. Nelson did the voice and puppetry for the Count from 1972 until 2012, and continued to provide the Count's voice until his death. His other Muppet roles on that program were The Amazing Mumford, Herry Monster, Biff the Construction worker, Mr. Johnson, Simon Soundman, Mr. Chatterly, Frazzle, the cowboy Forgetful Jones, rock star Little Jerry, and Sherlock Hemlock.

Nelson was the first puppeteer to perform Mr. Snuffle-upagus, keeping the role from 1971 to 1978. Most sources (including Sesame Street Unpaved and Sesame Street: A Celebration – 40 Years of Life on the Street) state that back problems caused by the physical stress of the performance forced him to bow out, but in a 2009 interview Jerry Nelson gave a different explanation for giving up the role: "I was not loath to give that character up. But the reasons for giving it up were because at that time we were doing The Muppet Show and he was a real part of the show, and they needed his presence. So they asked if I'd mind giving it up."

Jerry Nelson (astronomer)

Jerry Earl Nelson (born January 15, 1944) is an American astronomer known for his pioneering work designing segmented mirror telescopes, which led to him receiving the 2010 Kavli Prize for Astrophysics.

He is the principal designer and project scientist for the Keck telescopes.

Education

As a high school student in 1960, Nelson got an early start in astronomy when he attended the Summer Science Program where he studied under astronomers Paul Routly and George Abell. Growing up in Kagel Canyon outside of Los Angeles, he was the first child from his town to go to college.

He got his B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1965 and his Ph.D. in elementary particle physics from University of California, Berkeley in 1972. While at Caltech, he helped to design and build a 1.5-meter telescope.

Career

In 1977, when Nelson worked in the Physics Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he was appointed to a five-person committee to design a 10-meter telescope, twice the diameter of the best telescope of the time. He concluded that only a segmented design would be sensible to overcome structural difficulties. His design had 36 hexagonal mirror segments, each six feet in diameter and just three inches thick. This led to the creation of the revolutionary twin 10-meter Keck telescopes.