Toby Froud

Toby Froud (born 1984) is an English-American artist, special effects designer, puppeteer, filmmaker, and performer. He rose to prominence for his role as the baby who was wished away to the goblins in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth. He became a puppeteer, sculptor, and fabricator for film, television, and theatre. He wrote and directed the 2014 fantasy short film Lessons Learned. He was the design supervisor of the 2019 streaming television series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Early life Toby Froud was born in 1984 in London, to English painter Brian Froud and American puppet-maker Wendy Froud. His maternal grandfather was the German-American sculptor Walter Midener (1912–1998), and his maternal grandmother was Margaret "Peggy" Midener (née Mackenzie; 1925–2016), a painter and collage artist in Michigan. His parents met in 1978 while working on preproduction for the 1982 Jim Henson film The Dark Crystal, for which Brian was the conceptual designer and Wendy a puppet fabricator. They married in 1980. Froud was born during preproduction of his parents' second film with Henson, Labyrinth (released in 1986), and at the age of one he was featured in the film as the baby who is wished away to the Goblin King by his older sister Sarah. The name of the baby in the script had originally been Freddie, but was changed to Toby so as not to confuse Froud. Due to Labyrinths popularity Froud has garnered a cult status and been described as one of the most famous babies in cinema and of the 1980s. Froud was raised in Chagford, Devon, on the edge of Dartmoor. He developed an interest in puppetry from a young age due to exposure to his parents' artwork.