THE FACE BEHIND THE PUPPET

The subject of whose facial features inspired the look of Scott Tracy was raised in a comment yesterday on the ‘Remembering Shane Rimmer’ post.

Fellow blogger, Kid reckoned Scott did remind him of Shane, himself. Well, I think that’s a fair point, so I thought I’d delve a little further into the subject.

The puppet heads for Thunderbirds were initially sculpted in clay at the Stirling Road puppet workshop lead by Christine Glanville. They were then painted and if the look was accepted, they were used for fibreglass moulds.

For the look of some of the puppets the sculptors took some inspiration from the actors directory, ‘Spotlight’, although rather than just copy the faces, the idea was to just use them as types.

A young Sean Connery was the inspiration for Scott. Sean was a popular choice as his likeness was also used for Captain Paul Travers in the feature film, Thunderbirds are Go. The Scott Tracy puppet head shows aspects of Sean Connery, but I too, can see elements of Shane, or is it just the voice?

Part of the premise for Thunderbirds was the TV western, Bonanza, the puppet head for Jeff Tracy was based on Lorne Green who played Ben, the father to the Cartwrights. 

Jeff was voiced by British dual nationality actor, Peter Dyneley, who I think actually looks remarkably like his puppet too.

Sculpting supervisor and puppeteer, John Brown made Jeff. He also made Virgil and the Hood. I don’t know who Virgil is based on, but I’ll have a wild stab at Yul Brynner for The Hood.

Alan Tracy, voiced by Matt Zimmerman was based on actor Robert Reed, who at the time was appearing as Kenneth Preston in the America courtroom drama, The Defenders. I’m not really familiar with the series or the actor, but looking at his photo I suppose there are vague similarities

Personally I think Alan looks a lot like actor Derren Nesbitt.

These two puppets, along with Tin-Tin were sculptured by lead puppet sculptor, Christine Glanville and her assistant, Wanda Webb.

Mary Turner and her assistant Judith Shutt sculpted Brains, John and Gordon Tracy and Lady Penelope.

After Sylvia Anderson rejected all of Mary’s versions, Mary decided to base Penelope on Sylvia, herself. Sylvia accepted that look, but was initially unaware it was based on her likeness.  

Brains was based on actor, Anthony Perkins. I think it’s fair to say that Brains without his glasses does bear a striking resemblance to Mr Perkins.

John Tracy apparently uses elements from pop singer at the time, Adam Faith and actor Charlton Heston.

At that time AP Films wanted less caricatured features for the puppets, as seen in their previous series, and wanted a more natural look.  This didn’t impress puppet sculptor, John Blundall who felt that the caricatured look gave the puppet its personality.  Much against the wishes of APF, John continued using exaggerated features and created Kyrano, Grandma Tracy and arguably the most well- known Thunderbirds character, Parker.

Miles Malleson

Ronald Shiner on  left

Ben Warriss

For Parker’s inspiration, John thought of a couple of film stars, Ronald Shiner and Miles Malleson, and comedian, Ben Warriss.