David Barrington Holt, a former creative supervisor at the Henson Creature Shop, who worked on features such as George Of The Jungle, Indian In The Cupboard, Dr. Dolittle, Stuart Little and Cats and Dogs and the TV series Dinosaurs, died on March 13 of complications from cancer.
Born in England in June of 1945, Barrington-Holt worked in numerous careers including restoration of English country homes, making of museum-quality models and miniatures, production management, fashion, and psychotherapy.
He received his B.A. in industrial design with honors from London’s University of the Arts in 1963. Over the next 20 years he built a reputation as a designer, photographer, modelmaker, and restorer of mechanical antiquities. In 1984 he founded Hero Models, which supplied models, miniatures, and hero effects for the TV, film, and commercial industries; one such project including re-creating the fly-past of the spacecraft Giotto and Halley’s comet for the film Children of the Dust.
Barrington-Holt owned and operated his own clothing boutique in London during the ’60s; at the time he worked alongside noted fashionista Thea Porter. In the late ‘’80s, he returned to school to become certified as a psychological therapist and ran a successful practice until he was scouted by the Jim Henson Company.
In 1986, he began a 23-year collaboration with the Jim Henson Company, first in the U.K. as deputy supervisor of the Creature Shop before moving up to creative supervisor. In 1993, he moved to Los Angeles to establish and operate the Henson company’s first west-coast Creature Shop to produce Disney’s television show Dinosaurs. He had creative oversight of shop operations including puppetry; animatronics; effects for feature films, television, and commercials; performers; administrative matters; and R&D, with developments in the field of real-time 3D CG animation.
He was instrumental in development of the ground-breaking Henson Performance Control System, which allowed a single performer to operate complex, computer-driven puppets in the same manner as though they were physical. With Henson, his credits included George of the Jungle, The Phantom, Indian In The Cupboard, Dr. Dolittle, Jack Frost, Scooby-Doo, Snow Dogs, Stuart Little Ii, Cats And Dogs, and The Country Bears. He also worked as a mechanical designer on The Bear (1988), The StoryTeller (1989), The Jim Henson Hour (1990) and The Witches (1990).
After leaving the Henson Company, Barrington-Holt spent three years consulting for Walt Disney Imagineering R&D, where he assisted in the technical transfer of innovative animatronic characters into public exhibits. He also worked and consulted for the Chiodo Brothers, Insudung Media, 11:11 Creative and Reisman Models.
Barrington-Holt David was deeply conversant in computer technology and its applications for design, creation and production, but he was, at heart, a maker and a true Renaissance man. He is survived by his wife and son.
