Martin Patrick Robinson

A shy Brookfield kid used a monster-makeup handbook as a bible, then took any local production that would have him—Brookfield East, Waukesha Civic Theatre, whoever else was putting on a show. Martin Patrick Robinson was born in Dearborn, Michigan, on March 9, 1954, raised in Brookfield, and graduated from Brookfield East in 1972 before leaving for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His father was a hydraulics engineer and his mother a teacher; a marionette souvenir from Mexico, when he was five, was mostly for messing with the family cat.

A touring Jack and the Beanstalk company hired him at $125 a week; two years under Bil Baird followed. In 1980 he mailed a picture and a resume to Sesame Street. A year later, at the Ansonia Hotel, about 300 people shrank to five. The only opening was Mr. Snuffleupagus: six feet tall, a strong back, a voice to match Jerry Nelson. He tried the costume on the seventh or eighth attempt. They never phoned. A season schedule showed up in the mail. He has been Snuffy since 1981 and Telly since 1984; Telly is the favorite. New performers usually start as a right-hand helper on characters with working mouths; Robinson got the classic character first and learned the helper work afterward—he called it backwards.

In 1982 he designed, built, and performed Audrey II in the original Off-Broadway Little Shop of Horrors, and again on Broadway in 2003. He married Sesame writer Annie Evans on the 123 Sesame Street stoop at Kaufman Astoria in 2008; twin daughters arrived in 2009. The shy kid from East is still doing the big woolly character. Brookfield’s claim is the upbringing and the East diploma, not the Dearborn birth certificate.