Jer­ry Nel­son, the pup­peteer and voice of Sesame Street's Count von Count, has died aged 78. For more than 40 years, Nel­son worked on nu­mer­ous projects fea­tur­ing Jim Hen­son's Mup­pets, in­clud­ing the TV se­ries Frag­gle Rock. Nel­son, who suf­fered from em­phy­se­ma, died last Thurs­day in Cape Cod, Mass­a­chu­setts. A Sesame Work­shop state­ment said he would be re­mem­bered for "the laugh­ter he brought to chil­dren world­wide". Nel­son was born in Ok­la­homa, in the US, and raised in Wash­ing­ton DC.

He be­gan pup­peteer­ing for Bil Baird, who pro­duced and per­formed the pup­petry se­quence for The Lone­ly Goatherd in the film ver­sion of The Sound of Mu­sic. Nel­son's first job with the Mup­pets was The Jim­my Dean Show in 1965-re­plac­ing Frank Oz as Rowlf the Dog's right hand. He went on to work again with Hen­son on Sesame Street, go­ing on to an­i­mate some of the long-run­ning show's best-loved char­ac­ters in­clud­ing Mr Snuf­fle­u­pa­guss. But it was his math­e­mat­ics-ob­sessed Count von Count, mod­elled on Bela Lu­gosi's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Count Drac­u­la, with which he be­came most close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed. He con­tin­ued to voice the char­ac­ter from 1972 un­til his death, though he ceased op­er­at­ing the pup­pet in 2004.

Ex­tra­or­di­nary spir­it

Nel­son al­so per­formed many oth­er char­ac­ters on The Mup­pet Show, in­clud­ing Pigs in Space star Dr Julius Strange­pork, the boomerang fish-throw­ing Lew Zealand, and Ker­mit the Frog's nephew Robin the Frog. The Sesame Work­shop said: "He will for­ev­er be in our hearts and re­mem­bered for the artistry in his pup­petry, his mu­sic, and the laugh­ter he brought to chil­dren world­wide through his por­tray­al of Count von Count, Her­ry Mon­ster, Fat Blue, Sher­lock Hem­lock, the Amaz­ing Mum­ford and many oth­er beloved char­ac­ters. "We will miss his ex­tra­or­di­nary spir­it and the joy he brought to our Street."

Pay­ing trib­ute on its Face­book page, Lisa Hen­son, CEO of the Jim Hen­son Com­pa­ny, added: "Jer­ry Nel­son im­bued all his char­ac­ters with the same gen­tle, sweet whim­sy and kind­ness that were a part of his own per­son­al­i­ty. "He joined The Jim Hen­son Com­pa­ny in the ear­li­est years, and his unique con­tri­bu­tions to the worlds of Frag­gles, Mup­pets, Sesame Street and so many oth­ers are, and will con­tin­ue to be, un­for­get­table."