Henson Cousin, a Doctor, Saw No Pneumonia

Puppeteer Jim Henson talked to his cousin, a doctor, but seemed to have only a cold and did not have an actual medical exam during a visit to North Carolina the weekend before he died, his mother says.

The 53-year-old Henson, the creator of the Muppets, died of complications from pneumonia in New York on Wednesday, three days after returning from a Mother’s Day trip to Ahoskie. A memorial service was set for Monday. Henson had requested that no one wear black.

Dr. David M. Gelmont, director of intensive care at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in New York, had said that Henson saw a doctor over the weekend in North Carolina but that there was no sign of pneumonia.

The doctor was Henson’s cousin. But Henson’s mother, Barbara Henson, said the cousin did not examine her son. She declined to give his name.

“Jim saw his cousin in the car, if you call that seeing a doctor,” Barbara Henson said.

“He does not treat our family,” she said. “He did not examine Jim. He merely picked him up at a motel and brought him to my house for lunch.”

She said the media “are trying to make a problem, and there isn’t one.”

A memorial service was scheduled for noon Monday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, said Susan Berry, a spokeswoman for Jim Henson Productions.