Troy Beyer

Troy Beyer (b. 1964) is an actress who began her TV career as one of the Kids on Sesame Street. Subsequent roles included Knots Landing, a regular spot on Dynasty, the Showtime TV movie Uncle Tom's Cabin (with Phylicia Rashad), and feature films like Eddie (with Whoopi Goldberg) and John Q (with Denzel Washington). She wrote and appeared in the 1997 film B*A*P*S*, which starred Halle Berry.

In a 1987 interview, Beyer recalled how she auditioned for the show:

Her mother, Hannah Parks . . . took the three-year-old to a Sesame Street audition . . . The job hinged on whether or not Troy was afraid of Big Bird. But when Big Bird came out, she screamed with laughter. "I thought I was dying. Then he took his head off his body to show me his human head, but my little brain could not compute. I screamed and ran and knocked things over." Yet the producers were impressed enough to give her another audition. She got the job and until age 12 was a regular on the still popular children's show. (Her older brother, Gregory, had already been on the show for two years.)^[1]

This account has discrepancies. Given her birthdate and the comment that her brother had been appearing for two years, Beyer must have been at least six when she auditioned, and her story conflicts with the construction of Big Bird, as the puppet doesn't have a fully removable head.