Voice Actors - Animation & More

Mel Blanc, known as "The Man of Thousand Voices" is regarded as the most prolific actor to ever work in Hollywood with over a thousand screen credits. He developed and performed nearly 400 distinct character voices with precision and a uniquely expressive vocal range. The legendary specialist from radio programs, television series, cartoon shorts and movie was rarely seen by his audience but his voice characterizations were famous around the world.

Blanc under exclusive contract until 1960 to Warner Brothers voiced virtually every major character in the Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoon pantheon. Characters including Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Wile E. Coyote,The Roadrunner, Yosemite Sam, Sam the Sheepdog, Taz the Tazmanian Devil, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé la Pew, Charlie the Dog, Blacque Jacque Shellacque, Pussyfoot, Private Snafu among others were voiced by Blanc.

After 1960, Blanc continued to work for Warner Brothers but began to work for other companies once his exclusive contract ended. He worked for Hanna-Barbera voicing characters including Barney Rubble, Dino the Dinosaur, Cosmo Spacely, Secret Squirrel, Captain Caveman, Speed Buggy, Wally Gator among others. He provided vocal effects for Tom & Jerry in the mid 1960's working with fellow Warner Bros. alum, Chuck Jones at what would become MGM Animation. In the mid 1960's, Blanc originated and voiced Toucan Sam for the Kellogg's Fruit Loops commercials. He would later go to originate and voice Twiki for Buck Rogers and Heathcliff in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Flora Disney (née Call) and Elias Disney, a Canadian-born farmer and businessperson. He had Irish, German, and English ancestry. Walt moved with his parents to Kansas City at age seven, where he spent the majority of his childhood. At age 16, during World War I, he faked his age to join the American Red Cross. He soon returned home, where he won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. There, he met a fellow animator, Ub Iwerks. The two soon set up their own company. In the early 1920s, they made a series of animated shorts for the Newman theater chain, entitled "Newman's Laugh-O-Grams". Their company soon went bankrupt, however.

The two then went to Hollywood in 1923. They started work on a new series, about a live-action little girl who journeys to a world of animated characters. Entitled the "Alice Comedies", they were distributed by M.J. Winkler (Margaret). Walt was backed up financially only by Winkler and his older brother Roy O. Disney, who remained his business partner for the rest of his life. Hundreds of "Alice Comedies" were produced between 1923 and 1927, before they lost popularity.

Walt then started work on a series around a new animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. This series was successful, but in 1928, Walt discovered that M.J. Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz, had stolen the rights to the character away from him. They had also stolen all his animators, except for Ub Iwerks. While taking the train home, Walt started doodling on a piece of paper. The result of these doodles was a mouse named Mickey. With only Walt and Ub to animate, and Walt's wife Lillian Disney (Lilly) and Roy's wife Edna Disney to ink in the animation cells, three Mickey Mouse cartoons were quickly produced. The first two didn't sell, so Walt added synchronized sound to the last one, Steamboat Willie (1928), and it was immediately picked up. With Walt as the voice of Mickey, it premiered to great success. Many more cartoons followed. Walt was now in the big time, but he didn't stop creating new ideas.

In 1929, he created the 'Silly Symphonies', a cartoon series that didn't have a continuous character. They were another success. One of them, Flowers and Trees (1932), was the first cartoon to be produced in color and the first cartoon to win an Oscar; another, Three Little Pigs (1933), was so popular it was often billed above the feature films it accompanied. The Silly Symphonies stopped coming out in 1939, but Mickey and friends, (including Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and plenty more), were still going strong and still very popular.

In 1934, Walt started work on another new idea: a cartoon that ran the length of a feature film. Everyone in Hollywood was calling it "Disney's Folly", but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was anything but, winning critical raves, the adoration of the public, and one big and seven little special Oscars for Walt. Now Walt listed animated features among his ever-growing list of accomplishments. While continuing to produce cartoon shorts, he also started producing more of the animated features. Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942) were all successes; not even a flop like Fantasia (1940) and a studio animators' strike in 1941 could stop Disney now.

In the mid 1940s, he began producing "packaged features", essentially a group of shorts put together to run feature length, but by 1950 he was back with animated features that stuck to one story, with Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953). In 1950, he also started producing live-action films, with Treasure Island (1950). These began taking on greater importance throughout the 50s and 60s, but Walt continued to produce animated features, including Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).

In 1955 he opened a theme park in southern California: Disneyland. It was a place where children and their parents could take rides, just explore, and meet the familiar animated characters, all in a clean, safe environment. It was another great success. Walt also became one of the first producers of films to venture into television, with his series The Magical World of Disney (1954) which he began in 1954 to promote his theme park. He also produced The Mickey Mouse Club (1955) and Zorro (1957). To top it all off, Walt came out with the lavish musical fantasy Mary Poppins (1964), which mixed live-action with animation. It is considered by many to be his magnum opus. Even after that, Walt continued to forge onward, with plans to build a new theme park and an experimental prototype city in Florida.

He did not live to see the culmination of those plans, however; in 1966, he developed lung cancer brought on by his lifelong chain-smoking. He died of a heart attack following cancer surgery on December 15, 1966 at age 65. But not even his death, it seemed, could stop him. Roy carried on plans to build the Florida theme park, and it premiered in 1971 under the name Walt Disney World. His company continues to flourish, still producing animated and live-action films and overseeing the still-growing empire started by one man: Walt Disney, who will never be forgotten.

He began imitating birds and various barnyard animals as a child growing up in Watonga, Oklahoma. In his teens his family moved to Southern California where he got a promotional job with a dairy company and in between jobs performed animal imitations at various Los Angeles schools. In 1934 hearing that Walt Disney was looking for bird and animal recordings for his cartoons Clarence went to the studios and went through his repertoire of voices during which Walt walked in and said "That fellow sounds like a duck, lets keep him in mind if we ever create a duck character"

It wasn't long after that , that Donald Duck made his debut in "The Wise Little Hen" with Clarence providing his voice. When the film was finished and shown Donald stood out so prominently that he was put into the Mickey Mouse film "Orphan's Benefit" and soon after was getting star billing in his own films and has been in more than Mickey.

With the help of language coaches Clarence has quacked in Spanish, French, German, Swedish, Dutch, Portugese and Japanese.

Pinto Colvig was the quintessential clown whose own identity was always hidden but whose innate warmhearted character always came through his many talents. His humor tickled the funny bone and touched the heart. Incredibly gifted in music, art and mime, he spoke to different generations in different roles: as a child clown playing a squeaky clarinet, as a full-fledged circus clown under the big top, as a newspaper cartoonist, as a film animator, as a mimic and sound effects wizard, and as the voice of dozens of well-known characters on film, records, radio and television.

Vance DeBar Colvig was born in Jacksonville, Oregon, on September 11, 1892. His school friends nicknamed him after a spotted horse named "Pinto" because of his freckled face - and just like his freckles, the name stuck for his entire life.

Pinto's childhood home was filled with music and laughter, and he was a clown from birth. As the youngest of seven children, he would do anything to get attention. He learned to make people laugh by making faces and playing pranks. He also spent hours mimicking the sounds around him: a rusty gate, farm animals, sneezes, wind, cars, trains, etc. He and his brother Don put on song-and-dance minstrel shows at local functions. Along the way he picked up his instrument of choice, the clarinet, and soon played well enough to join the town band.

It was the clarinet that got Pinto into show business when he was 12. Visiting Portland's "Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition" with his father William, he was magnetized by "The Crazy House" on the Midway where a huckster attracted the crowd with a bass drum and shouts of "Hubba Hubba!" Pinto told the man he could play "squeaky" clarinet and ran back to the hotel to get his instrument. He was hired on the spot and given some oversized old clothes and a derby and, for the first time, white makeup and a clown face. The man told Pinto, "Now you look like a real bozo" ("bozo" was a name given to hobo or tramp clowns in those days). Pinto's act was to play a screechy clarinet while distorting his face and crossing his eyes at the high notes. He later recalled, "I never was able to get circuses and carnivals out of my blood after that."

He went to school during the winter and worked in the circus and vaudeville in the spring. While studying art at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University) and playing with the college band, he became known for his clever cartoons in student publications, his funny "chalk talk" performances improvising a monologue while quickly sketching cartoons, and his unconventional lifestyle. He never took his class courses seriously and his college career ended abruptly in the spring of 1913 when he accepted an offer to do his chalk talks for the prestigious Pantages vaudeville circuit and wound up in Seattle, Washington. There he joined a circus band and traveled throughout the country struggling to make ends meet.

In 1914 he landed a job as a newspaper cartoonist at the "Nevada Rockroller" in Reno, and later the "Carson City News" in Carson City. By the spring of 1915 his cartooning was going well but the lure of the circus was too strong. When the Al G. Barnes Circus came through Carson City, Pinto dropped everything and joined the troupe, once again clowning and playing his clarinet in the circus band.

In those days circuses closed down each winter and Pinto returned to newspaper cartooning wherever he could find a job. While working on a Portland newspaper between seasons in 1916, he met and married Margaret Bourke Slavin, putting an end to his vagabond life as a circus performer. With a family to support, Pinto and Margaret moved to San Francisco, where he returned to the newspaper business writing and drawing cartoons full-time at "The Bulletin" and later the "San Francisco Chronicle". His cartoon series, "Life on the Radio Wave," which poked fun at the way the newly introduced radio was influencing people's lives, was syndicated nationally by United Features Syndicate. He greatly enjoyed cartooning and considered it another form of clowning. "A cartoonist," he said, "is just a clown with a pencil."

While Pinto toiled daily to meet newspaper commitments, he began to spend evenings experimenting with the animation of cartoons and eventually set up his own studio, Pinto Cartoon Comedies Co., where he created one of the first animated silent films in color called "Pinto's Prizma Comedy Revue (1919)". In 1922, after realizing that San Francisco was not the place to break into the movie business, he moved his family to Hollywood. There he would be able to continue his animation work and find a wealth of other things that he could do. He was overjoyed one day to get an offer to join Mack Sennett, the reigning king of movie comedies, who had developed one of the most successful studios of the day, the Keystone Film Co., home of the famous Keystone Kops, Charles Chaplin and many others. Sennett needed an experienced animator for his own films, but Pinto soon found himself also writing and acting in comedies and dramas. In 1928 he teamed up with his friend Walter Lantz to create an early talking cartoon, "Bolivar, the Talking Ostrich (1928)", but unlike Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928), it failed to become a hit. Pinto and Lantz, who would later be the voice of Woody Woodpecker, gave up and went to larger studios.

Disney, who was making "Mickey Mouse" and "Silly Symphony" cartoons, signed Pinto to a contract in 1930. Pinto worked on stories, co-wrote songs such as the lyrics to "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" and was the original voice of animated characters such as Goofy and Pluto, Grumpy and Sleepy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and the Practical Pig in "Three Little Pigs." Disney cartoonists copied many of Pinto's facial expressions while drawing animal characters for the cartoons. He left Disney in 1937 following a fallout with Walt and Disney proceeded to reuse his old voice tracks. Meanwhile, Pinto freelanced voices and sound effects for Warner Bros. cartoons, sang for some of the Munchkins during Dorothy's arrival scenes in MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939), and also joined Max Fleischer Studios in Miami, where he did the voice of Gabby in Gulliver's Travels (1939) and the blustering of Bluto in "Popeye the Sailor" cartoons. He returned to Disney in 1941 and continued to freelance for them and on radio programs for others. He was the original Maxwell automobile on Jack Benny's show, the hiccuping horse for Dennis Day, and a variety of voices for "Amos 'n Andy." His live radio experience and contacts introduced him to the recording industry. He did several albums before encountering one of his best-known characters, Bozo the Clown.

It was 1946 when Capitol Records in Hollywood hired Alan Livingston as a writer/producer. His initial assignment was to create a children's record library, for which he came up with the soon-to-be-legendary Bozo character. He wrote and produced a popular series of storytelling record-album and illustrative read-along book sets, beginning with the October 1946 release of "Bozo at the Circus." His record-reader concept, which enabled children to read and follow a story in pictures while listening to it, was the first of its kind. The Bozo image was a composite design of Livingston's, derived from a variety of clown pictures and then given to an artist to turn into comic-book-like illustrations. Livingston then hired Pinto to portray the character. "Pinto came in," Livingston recalls, "and turned out to be a very jolly, likable fellow with the kind of warm, folksy voice I wanted. He didn't talk down to children." Not only did Livingston get a perfect Bozo voice in Pinto, he also got most of the animals and odd creatures under the sea and in outer space, all for the price of one. On some of the records, Pinto provided as many as eight other voices. The series turned out to be a smash hit for Capitol, selling over eight million albums in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The character also became a mascot for the record company and was later nicknamed "Bozo the Capitol Clown." Pinto, as Bozo, also starred in the very first Bozo television series, Bozo's Circus (1951) on KTTV-Channel 11 (CBS) in Los Angeles, made numerous guest appearances on radio and personal appearance tours all over the country. He especially enjoyed his visits to children's hospitals and orphanages, according to Pinto, "doin' my silly stuff to make them laugh."

Pinto's Bozo days came to an end by 1956, when Livingston left Capitol and Larry Harmon acquired the rights to Bozo (excluding the record-readers) in 1957. In 1958 Jayark Films Corp. began distributing Bozo limited-animation cartoons to television stations, along with the rights for each to hire its own live Bozo host. Harmon produced and provided the voice of the character in the cartoons. On January 5, 1959, Bozo returned to television with a live half-hour weeknight show on KTLA-Channel 5 in Los Angeles starring Pinto's son, Vance Colvig Jr. as the live Bozo host. Vance's portrayal and the KTLA show lasted for six years, at which time Harmon bought out his partners and continued to market the character through his Larry Harmon Pictures Corporation.

If Pinto had any dark years, they were during World War II. Four of his five sons were of eligible age and his wife felt the dread that millions of mothers felt, which may have complicated an illness that made her a semi-invalid for several years. Pinto took care of her until her death in 1950.

Throughout his life Pinto was upbeat and cheerful, convinced that laughter was the world's best medicine. "Sure, there have been kicks in the pants and occasionally an empty gut," he once said, "but those are the jolts what pushes a guy upward and onward!" His letters, though touching on his philosophy, were never serious but always funny and filled with odd typing effects, extraneous capitalization, underlining, misspellings and strange made-up words. He also lavished his letters and envelopes with outrageous cartoons and balloons filled with gags. He kept regular correspondence with clown legends Felix Adler, Emmett Kelly, Lou Jacobs and Otto Griebling, and visited "clown alley" whenever a circus came to the Los Angeles area.

In 1963 Pinto received a letter from Oregon Senator Maurine Neuberger thanking him for supporting her bill requiring warning labels on cigarette packages. It was a controversial idea at a time when nonsmoking areas were just a dream and America was blue with secondhand smoke. With lungs ravaged by a lifetime of heavy smoking, Pinto did his part to help others become aware of the problem. On October 3, 1967, Vance Debar "Pinto" Colvig died of lung cancer at the age of 75 in Woodland Hills, California.

Vance Jr. donated his and his father's memorabilia to the Southern Oregon Historical Society in Pinto's hometown of Jacksonville in 1978. Vance Jr. passed away in 1991.

In 1993, the Walt Disney Company honored Pinto Colvig as a "Disney Legend." On May 28, 2004, he was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Arthur Quirk Bryan was an American actor from Brooklyn, New York City. He is primarily remembered as a voice actor for radio and animation. His best known roles were the wisecracking physician and surgeon Dr. George Gamble in "Fibber McGee and Molly" (1935-1959), and the inept hunter Elmer Fudd in "Looney Tunes". Bryan voiced Fudd from 1940 to 1959, the heyday of the character in theatrical animation. When playing Fudd, Bryan nearly always vocalized consonants [r] and [l], pronouncing them as [w] instead. This became one of the character's main traits. Following Bryan's death in 1959, Hal Smith voiced Fudd in two animated shorts. In 1962, the production crew decided to cease using Fudd as a character. The character would later be revived, with most subsequent voice actors imitating Bryan's performance in the role.

In 1899, Bryan was born in Brooklyn. In his early years, he sang in a number of churches in the New York City area. He had aspirations to become a professional singer. In 1918, the teen-aged Bryan was hired as an as insurance clerk for the Mutual Life Insurance Company. In 1926, Bryan was hired as a singer by the New York City-based radio station WINS.

In 1928, Bryan was hired as a tenor soloist by the radio station WFAN, which was also located in New York City. From 1929 to 1931, Bryan worked as an announcer for the New Jersey-based radio station WOR. In the autumn of 1931, Bryan moved to Philadelphia to work as an announcer for the radio station WCAU. In 1933, he started working for the radio station WTEL, which was also based in Philadelphia. In 1934, Bryan moved back to New York City. He was hired by the radio station WHN.

In 1936, Bryan moved to Los Angeles. He was initially hired as a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures. He soon transitioned into acting roles, frequently portraying supporting characters in B Movies. He portrayed newspaper editor Joe McGinty in the horror film "The Devil Bat" (1940). His later roles included an unnamed Philistine merchant in the Biblical drama "Samson and Delilah" (1949), two appearances in the film series "Road to ...", and a single appearance in an "Ozzie and Harriet" feature film.

From 1938 to 1940, Bryan was a regular cast member in the radio talk show "The Grouch Club". The show featured radio stars who voiced their frustrations with the recurring problems of everyday life. Vitaphone produced a short film series based on the show, with Bryan depicting unfortunate souls who struggled with taxation, with the vote registry, and with the lack of available parking places.

In 1940, Bryan was asked to voice Elmer Fudd for the animated short film "Elmer's Candid Camera". The film introduced an entirely new design for the character, following a few years of appearances by prototype versions of Fudd. Previous versions of the character had been voiced by Mel Blanc, Danny Webb, and Roy Rogers. But it Bryan's voice for the character who made Fudd a hit with the audience of the time. Bryan would continue to portray Fudd for 19 years. Fudd would serve as the main antagonist for another hit character of the "Looney Tunes" film series, Bugs Bunny.

Bryan was increasingly famous as a voice actor in the early 1940s. He was hired to portray semi-regular character Lucius Llewellyn in the radio sitcom "The Great Gildersleeve" (1941-1958), using the same voice as Elmer Fudd. In 1942, Bryan used his natural voice to portray the barber Floyd Munson in the same series. In 1943, writers Don Quinn and Phil Leslie decided to create a role for Bryan in their radio series "Fibber McGee and Molly", based on what they liked about Bryan's previous performances. His new role was Dr. George Gamble, who would exchange creative insults with the main character Fibber McGee (voiced by Jim Jordan).

Bryan was also hired to portray protagonist Major Hoople in a radio adaptation of the comic strip "Our Boarding House" (1921-1984). Hoople was portrayed as a "retired military man of dubious achievement", who would boast of the adventures of his youth. He has been described as a modernized version of Falstaff. The radio adaptation was not particularly successful, only lasting from June 1942 to April 1943. No recordings of this series have survived.

From 1948 to 1949, Bryan was a regular panelist on the television quiz show "Quizzing the News". The panelists had to identify events in the news based on spoken clues and drawings. During the 1950s, Bryan regularly appeared on television, though mostly in one shot roles. He portrayed history teacher Professor Warren in the short-lived sitcom "The Halls of Ivy" (1954-1955), his only recurring role in this medium.

In November 1959, Bryan died of a sudden heart attack. He was 60 years old at the time of his death. He was buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery, located in North Hollywood. His final appearance as Fudd was the posthumously released short "Person to Bunny" (April 1960), a parody of the interview show "Person to Person" (1953-1961). Bryan was initially replaced by Hal Smith as Fudd's voice actor, but the production crew decided to cease using Fudd as a character in 1962. Decades following his death, Bryan is still remembered as one of the most prominent voice actors of his era.

Popular American character actor of amusing appearance and voice whose long career led from dozens of highly enjoyable onscreen performances to world-wide familiarity as the voice of numerous Walt Disney animated films. Born in the American Deep South to grocer Sterling P. Holloway Sr. and Rebecca Boothby Holloway, he had a younger brother, Boothby. Holloway spent his early years as an actor playing comic juveniles on the stage. His bushy reddish-blond hair and trademark near-falsetto voice made him a natural for sound pictures, and he acted in scores of talkies, although he had made his picture debut in silents. His physical image and voice relegated him almost exclusively to comic roles, but in 1945, director Lewis Milestone cast him more or less against type in the classic war film A Walk in the Sun (1945), where Holloway's portrayal of a reluctant soldier was quite notable. He played frequently on television, becoming familiar to baby-boomers in a recurring role as Uncle Oscar on Adventures of Superman (1952), and later in television series of his own. His later work as the voice of numerous characters in Disney cartoons brought him new audiences and many fans, especially for his voicing of beloved Winnie the Pooh. He died in 1992.

James MacDonald was born on 19 May 1906 in Crewe, Cheshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and The Black Hole (1979). He was married to Sarah Roberta Cullen. He died on 1 February 1991 in Glendale, California, USA.

Eleanor Audley was an American actress, with a distinctive voice that helped her find work as a voice actress in radio and animation. She is primarily remembered as the first actress to voice Lady Tremaine and Maleficent, two of the most memorable Disney villains.

Audley's real name was Eleanor Zellman, and she was from New York City. She was Jewish, but little is known about her family background and she apparently never married.

She made her acting debut in 1926, aged 20, at the Broadway production of "Howdy, King". She remained primarily a theatrical actress through the 1920s and the 1930s. During the 1940s, Audley started playing a number of prominent roles in radio serials. Among them was mother-in-law Leticia Cooper in "My Favorite Husband" (1948-51), receptionist Molly Byrd in "The Story of Dr. Kildare" (1949-51), and neighbor, Elizabeth Smith in "Father Knows Best" (1949-54).

Audley was hired by Disney to play the role of wealthy widow Lady Tremaine in the animated feature film "Cinderella" (1950). Audley was also used as the live-action model of the character, and her facial features were used by the animators who designed the character. In the film, Lady Tremaine is depicted as the abusive stepmother of Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods) and the domineering mother of Anastasia Tremaine (voiced by Lucille Bliss) and Drizella Tremaine (voiced by Rhoda Williams). The film was a box office hit, and its profits helped rescue the Disney studio from a financial decline that had lasted for almost a decade.

For the rest of the decade, Audley appeared regularly in supporting roles in film, and guest roles in television. She returned to animation when hired to voice the evil fairy Maleficent in "Sleeping Beauty" (1959). As before, Audley was also used as a live-action model for the character. During the film's production, Audley was struggling with tuberculosis. While nominally the villain, Maleficent received more screen-time in the finished film than titular protagonist Princess Aurora (voiced by singer Mary Costa).

"Sleeping Beauty" had box office receipts of more than $51 million in the U.S. and Canada, against a budget of $6 million. It finished the year second in ticket sales, behind the number one film, "Ben-Hur." Audley was not invited to voice other villains. The film earned critical and popular acclaim through later re-releases, and Maleficent has been revived many times by Disney. But never with her original voice actress.

In the 1960s, Audley played supporting roles in then-popular television series. Among her most prominent roles were Irma Lumpkin in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", Peggy Billings in "The Dick Van Dyke Show", Millicent Schuyler-Potts in "The Beverly Hillbillies" , Aunt Martha in "Mister Ed", Jenny Teasley in "Pistols 'n' Petticoats", Eunice Douglas in "Green Acres", and Beatrice Vincent in "My Three Sons".

Audley worked with Disney again to voice psychic medium Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion attractions in Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Leota is depicted as a ghost who communicates with the living, and other actresses have since voiced the character.

Her long career ended prematurely in the 1970s, due to increasingly poor health. She lived in retirement until her death in 1991, at the age of 86. The cause of death was respiratory failure. Audley was interred at the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her character of Madame Leota received its own tombstone in 2001. The epitaph reads: "Dear sweet Leota, beloved by all. In regions beyond now, but having a ball."

Verna Felton had extensive experience on the stage and in radio before she broke into film and television. Her trademarks was her distinctive husky voice and her no-nonsense attitude. She was quite in demand for voiceover work, as evidenced by her roles in Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Lady and the Tramp (1955). She appeared in many films, but is best remembered as Hilda Crocker in the TV series December Bride (1954), a character she carried over into its spinoff, Pete and Gladys (1960). Verna died in 1966 at 76 years of age of a stroke.

Kathryn Beaumont was just ten years old when she was chosen for the voice of Alice, in Disney's animated version of the classic children's tale, Alice in Wonderland (1951). Walt Disney was so impressed with Kathryn's long curly blonde hair, sparkling eyes and acting ability, that he chose her as the model for Alice.

A bandleader of the 1940s and a radio, film, and TV actor who celebrated his Southern roots. He was a principal of long standing among the comedian Jack Benny's radio retinue, parlaying his popularity into his own radio series, in which his wife, Alice Faye, co-starred.

Linton, Indiana birthplace, but he spent much of his early years in Nashville, Tennessee, which helped explain his little Southern accent and, later on, the self-deprecating remarks of his radio persona. Harris started his musical career in San Francisco as a drummer. In the later 1920s, he formed an orchestra with Carol Lofner and began a lengthy residency at the St. Francis Hotel. When the collaboration came to an end in 1932, Harris formed and headed his own band, which was centered in Los Angeles. He wed actress Marcia Ralston in Sydney, Australia, on September 2, 1927. Phil Harris, Jr., the couple's adopted son, was born in 1935. Their divorce was finalized in September 1940.

Harris joined The Jell-O Show Starring Jack Benny (later renamed The Jack Benny Program) in 1936 as musical director. He sang, led his band, and, when his penchant for witty one-liners became apparent, joined the Benny ensemble as Phil Harris, a brash, hard-drinking, hipster-talking Southerner whose good nature overcame his ego. His jive-talk nicknames for the other people in Benny's orbit were his signature. Benny identified as "Jackson," but Harris's typical response was a jovial "Hiya, Jackson!" Strangely enough, given his true Hoosier origins, his signature song was "That's What I Like About the South."

In 1941, Harris wed Alice Faye, a second marriage for both (Faye had previously been briefly wed to singer-actor Tony Martin). Before Harris passed away, Faye and Harris were married for 54 years. During World War II, Harris and his band joined the United States Navy in 1942 and remained there until the end of the conflict. Faye had virtually given up on her cinematic career by 1946. After studio head Darryl F. Zanuck allegedly cut her scenes from Fallen Angel (1945) to boost his protégé Linda Darnell, she reportedly drove off the 20th Century Fox lot.

A radio show called The Fitch Bandwagon extended an invitation to Harris and Faye to join. Big bands, including Harris's own, used the event as a platform at first, but once Harris and Faye gained notoriety, it evolved into something very different. The couple's wish to raise their kids in Southern California without traveling about at the same time as Bandwagon gave rise to the well-known situation comedy, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. Elliott Lewis played layabout guitarist Frank Remley in the series, and Great Gildersleeve co-star Walter Tetley played annoying grocery boy Julius. Harris played the conceited, illiterate bandleader husband, and Faye played his acidic but devoted wife, helped by actresses playing their two young daughters. For eight years, the Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show was broadcast on NBC until radio succumbed to television.

Following the concert, Harris brought his music career back to life. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he had multiple guest appearances on television shows, such as Hollywood Palace, The Dean Martin Show, Kraft Music Hall, and other musical variety shows. He performed as a voice actor and vocalist for animated movies. He played Baloo the Bear in The Jungle Book, Robin Hood as Little John, and The Aristocats as Thomas O'Malley.

In the years after his radio peak, The Jungle Book was his biggest hit. In addition to providing the character's voice, Harris performed "The Bare Necessities," one of the movie's biggest hits, which brought Harris's former status as a well-known radio star to the attention of a new generation of young admirers. Harris also performs a stunning scat-singing rendition of "I Wanna Be Like You" with Louis Prima. Harris made a brief comeback to Disney in 1989, this time to voice Baloo for the animated series TaleSpin, which was in development at the time. Regretfully, by that point he had become too old to pull off the voice. Actor Ed Gilbert later took his position. in the 1991 film Rock-A-Doodle directed by Don Bluth, in which he played the friendly, laid back farm dog Patou.

Some of Harris's best-known songs were from the early 1950s novelty album "The Thing." In the song, a foolish man discovers a box that holds a strange secret, and he tries to get rid of it. Harris also led a band that frequently performed in Las Vegas in the 1970s and early 1980s, frequently sharing bills with swing era icon Harry James.

Bing Crosby was another close friend and acquaintance of Harris's; in fact, upon Crosby's passing, Harris filled in for his friend, providing color commentary for the annual Bing Crosby Pro-Am Golf Tournament telecast. The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show's previous program opened with Harris recounting his victory in a previous competition.

Harris was a longtime resident and benefactor of Palm Springs, California, where Crosby also made his home. Harris was also a benefactor of his birthplace of Linton, Indiana, establishing scholarships in his honor for promising high school students, performing at the high school, and hosting a celebrity golf tournament in his honor every year. In due course, Harris and Faye donated most of their show business memorabilia and papers to Linton's public library.

Phil Harris died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 91, in Palm Springs after a heart attack. Three years later, Alice Faye passed away from stomach cancer. Harris was inducted into the Indiana Hall of Fame two years prior to his passing. In Riverside County, California, at Forest Lawn-Cathedral City, Harris and Faye are buried. While Alice Harris Regan was last known to be residing in New Orleans, Phyllis Harris was last known to be residing in St. Louis, where she had been with her mother by her father's bedside when he passed away.

Frank Richard Oznowicz was born in Hereford, England to puppeteers Frances and Isidore Oznowicz. His family moved to Montana in 1951, eventually settling in Oakland, California. As a teenager, he worked as an apprentice puppeteer at Children's Fairyland amusement park. He is one of the primary puppeteers responsible for the development of Jim Henson's Sesame Street (1969) and The Muppet Show (1976) as well as over 75 other Muppet productions. George Lucas originally contacted Henson to play the part of Yoda in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), but he recommended Oz for the part instead. He developed the character's trademark syntax, returning to voice and puppet the Jedi Master in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) and Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).

Oz voiced the computer-generated Yoda in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), supporting the transition of the character's rendering to digital. In 2011, the Blu-Ray edition of The Phantom Menace replaced the puppet Yoda with CGI to match the other prequel films.

He began a career of behind-the-camera puppet and live action filmmaking by co-directing The Dark Crystal (1982) with Henson. He went on to direct The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), What About Bob? (1991), The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), Bowfinger (1999), The Score (2001), The Stepford Wives (2004) and Death at a Funeral (2007).

Jim Henson never thought that he would make a name of himself in puppetry; it was merely a way of getting himself on television. The vehicle that achieved it was Sam and Friends (1955), a late-night puppet show that was on after the 11:00 news in Washington DC. It proved to be very popular and inspired Jim to continue using puppets for his work. He made many commercials, developing the signature humor that Henson Productions is known for. A key reason for the success of his puppets is that Jim realized he didn't need to hide puppeteers behind a structure when they were in front of a camera. All he had to do was instruct the camera operators to focus on the puppets and keep the puppeteers out of the frame. This allowed the puppets to dominate the image and make them more lifelike. This work on puppets and television would lead to separate projects that had different goals. The first one was his work on the The Jimmy Dean Show (1963) with the character Rowlf the Dog, the oldest clearly identified character that Henson Productions still uses. This show provided an income that allowed Jim to work on a pet project. That project was Time Piece (1965), a surrealistic short about time which was nominated for best live-action short Oscar. Henson shot to prominence when he was approached to use his muppets for the revolutionary educational show Sesame Street (1969). The show was a smash hit and his characters have become staples on public television. Unforetunately, this also led to Henson being typecast as only an entertainer for children. He sought to disprove that by being part of the initial crew of Saturday Night Live (1975), but his style and that of the creative staff simply didn't jibe. It was this circumstance that encouraged him to develop a variety show format that had the kind of sophisticated humor that "Sesame Street (1969)" didn't work with. No American broadcaster was interested, but British producer Lew Grade was. This led to The Muppet Show (1976). It initially struggled both in the ratings and in the search for guest stars, but in the second season it became a smash hit and would eventually become the most widely watched series in television history. Hungry for a new challenge, Henson made The Muppet Movie (1979), defying the popular industry opinion that his characters would never work in a movie. The film became a hit and spawned a series of features which included the moody fantasy The Dark Crystal (1982), which was a drastic and bold departure from the amiable tone of his previous work. The most successful TV work in the 1980s was Fraggle Rock (1983), a fantasy series specifically designed to appeal to as many cultural groups as possible. During this time he also established the Creature Shop, a puppet studio that became renowned for being as brilliant with puppetry as ILM was at special effects. When he died all too soon in 1990, he was indisputably one of the geniuses of puppetry. More importantly, he was a man who achieved his phenomenal success while still retaining his social conscience and artistic integrity as his work in promoting environmentalism and his brilliant The Storyteller (1987) series respectively attest to.

Widely regarded as the one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native USA and internationally, James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi. At an early age, he started to take dramatic lessons to calm himself down. It appeared to work as he has since starred in many films over a 40-year period, beginning with the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). For several movie fans, he is probably best known for his role as Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy (due to his contribution for the voice of the role, as the man in the Darth Vader suit was David Prowse, whose voice was dubbed because of his British West Country accent). In his brilliant course of memorable performances, among others, he has also appeared on the animated series The Simpsons (1989) three times and played Mufasa both in The Lion King (1994) and The Lion King (2019), while he returned too as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).

Charles Fleischer was born on 27 August 1950 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Zodiac (2007), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). He has been married to Sheryl Stressman since 1977. They have two children.

Alan Young was born in Northern England in 1919, but his Scots father moved the family to Edinburgh, Scotland, when Young was a toddler and then to Canada when Young was about 6 years old. As a boy, he suffered from severe asthma, which kept him bedridden for long periods of time but encouraged his love of radio. By age 13, Young had become a radio performer, and by age 17, he was writing and performing in his own radio show for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The show was broadcast in the U.S. and led to an invitation to New York, initiating Young's career as an "All-American boy," despite his non-American origins and a vestigial Scots accent. He became popular on American radio from 1944 to 1949 with his "Alan Young Radio Show," but when radio began to lose its popularity and his show was canceled, Young decided to put together a comedy act and tour the U.S. theater circuit. After this experience, he wrote a television pilot for CBS in 1950, which resulted in The Alan Young Show (1950). The show was a well-received live revue that ran for 3 years, earned a couple of Emmy Awards, and garnered Young a star on the "Walk of Fame." However, the strain of writing and performing a weekly show got to Young, and the quality of the show declined, leading to his departure from the show and its cancellation. In the meantime, based on his popularity on radio and television, Young had established a film career, starting with his debut in Margie (1946) followed by Chicken Every Sunday (1949), Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick (1952), Androcles and the Lion (1952), Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), Tom Thumb (1958), and The Time Machine (1960).

In the early 1960s, Young landed his best-known role, Wilbur Post, in the popular television series Mister Ed (1961), which ran for 5 years. Since then, Young has made a number of television and film appearances but is known primarily for his voice characterizations in cartoons, especially as Scrooge McDuck in DuckTales (1987).

Daniel Louis Castellaneta is an American actor, voice actor, comedian and television writer. Castellaneta is best known for voicing Homer Simpson on the animated series The Simpsons (1989) (as well as other characters on the show such as Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Mel, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, and Hans Moleman). Castellaneta also had voice roles in several other programs, including Futurama (1999), Sibs (1991) and Darkwing Duck (1991), The Adventures of Dynamo Duck (1990), The Batman (2004), Back to the Future (1991), Aladdin (1994), Taz-Mania (1991) and Hey Arnold! (1996). He also occasionally guest starred on shows like Friends (1994) and How I Met Your Mother (2005).

In 1999, he appeared in the Christmas special Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999) and won an Annie Award for his portrayal of the Postman. Castellaneta released a comedy album "I Am Not Homer", and wrote and starred in a one-person show titled "Where Did Vincent van Gogh?".

William Richard Werstine is an American actor and radio personality with autism and ADHD. He grew up in both New Jersey and Boston. He became a regular cast member of the Howard Stern show. He became known for The Ren & Stimpy Show, Futurama, Doug, Space Jam and several commercials featuring the red M&M.

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has called a "fractured" family. He moved around a great deal after his parents' divorce, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood. He has no acting experience in college and credits the fact that he could not get cast in a college play with actually starting his career. He went downtown, and auditioned for a community theater play, was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland, and there his acting career started.

Ron Howard was working on Splash (1984), a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a business executive. Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, which eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role and the film went on to become a surprise box office success, grossing more than $69 million. After several flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet (1987), Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success with the fantasy-comedy Big (1988) established him as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the film industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor.

Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and then with Philadelphia (1993). The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time magazine called his performance "charming", and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.

In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.

Hanks followed Philadelphia with the blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.

Hanks' next role - astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the docudrama Apollo 13 (1995) - reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film Toy Story (1995), as the voice of Sheriff Woody. A year later, he made his directing debut with the musical comedy That Thing You Do! (1996) about the rise and fall of a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.

As of 2022, Hanks is 66-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and has remained active in the film industry for more than four decades.

Timothy Allen Dick was born on June 13, 1953, in Denver, Colorado, to Martha Katherine (Fox) and Gerald M. Dick. His father, a real estate salesman, was killed in a collision with a drunk driver while driving his family home from a University of Colorado football game, when Tim was eleven years old. His mother, a community service worker, remarried her high school sweetheart, an Episcopalian deacon, two years after Tim's father's death. He was raised with his many siblings and step-siblings. When Tim was young, his family moved to Birmingham, Michigan.

In high school, his favorite subject was shop, of course, and after high school, he attended Western Michigan University and graduated with a degree in Television Production in 1975. In 1978, he was arrested on drug charges and spent two years in jail. Upon his release, he had a new outlook on life and on a dare from a friend, started his comedy career at the Comedy Castle in Detroit. Later, he went on to do several cable specials, including, Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen (1988) and Tim Allen: Men Are Pigs (1990). In 1991, he became the star of his own hit television series on ABC called Home Improvement (1991). While continuing to film his television series throughout most of the 1990s, he starred in a string of blockbuster movies, including The Santa Clause (1994), Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Galaxy Quest (1999). In August 1996, he developed and unveiled his own signature line of power tools, manufactured by Ryobi. On top of all that, he has his own racing team, Tim Allen/Saleen RRRRacing. In May 1999, he ended his series Home Improvement (1991) after eight seasons and in 2001, he filmed such movies as Big Trouble (2002) and Joe Somebody (2001).

Robin McLaurin Williams was born on Saturday, July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, a great-great-grandson of Mississippi Governor and Senator, Anselm J. McLaurin. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (née Janin), was a former model from Mississippi, and his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a Ford Motor Company executive from Indiana. Williams had English, German, French, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.

Robin briefly studied political science at Claremont Men's College and theater at College of Marin before enrolling at The Juilliard School to focus on theater. After leaving Juilliard, he performed in nightclubs where he was discovered for the role of "Mork, from Ork", in an episode of Happy Days (1974). The episode, My Favorite Orkan (1978), led to his famous spin-off weekly TV series, Mork & Mindy (1978). He made his feature starring debut playing the title role in Popeye (1980), directed by Robert Altman.

Williams' continuous comedies and wild comic talents involved a great deal of improvisation, following in the footsteps of his idol Jonathan Winters. Williams also proved to be an effective dramatic actor, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Good Will Hunting (1997).

During the 1990s, Williams became a beloved hero to children the world over for his roles in a string of hit family-oriented films, including Hook (1991), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Flubber (1997), and Bicentennial Man (1999). He continued entertaining children and families into the 21st century with his work in Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Happy Feet Two (2011), and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Other more adult-oriented films for which Williams received acclaim include The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), World's Greatest Dad (2009), and Boulevard (2014).

On Monday, August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams was found dead at his home in Tiburon, California USA, the victim of an apparent suicide, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office. A 911 call was received at 11:55 a.m. PDT, firefighters and paramedics arrived at his home at 12:00 p.m. PDT, and he was pronounced dead at 12:02 p.m. PDT.

A longtime puppet designer and performer, Goelz was picked up by Jim Henson and company to design Muppets for various television projects in the early 70's. By the time Jim Henson and Frank Oz were beginning work on "The Muppet Show", they managed to convince Dave to come work as a puppeteer. He soon began to perform and develop such memorable characters as the Great Gonzo and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. He has gone on to become a principal Muppeteer and one of the major talents of the Jim Henson Company.

Steve Whitmire was born on 24 September 1959 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Fraggle Rock (1983), The Muppets (2011) and Muppet Treasure Island (1996). He has been married to Melissa Whitmire since June 1978.

Peter started off as a junior bank clerk but he had always been interested in the theatre and went every week to the Intimate Theatre in Palmers Green in London which was run by actor John Clements. Serving in the RAF as a radio instructor one of his pupils was Peter Bridge (now a theatre impresario) who later asked him to play David Bliss in his production of 'Hay Fever', He enjoyed the experience so much that he decided to make the theatre his profession.

Trey was born in Conifer, Colorado, on October 19, 1969 to Randy Parker, a geologist, and Sharon Parker, an insurance broker. He has an older sister, Shelley Parker. He met Matt Stone (co-creator of South Park (1997)) while attending the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he had a double major of music and Japanese. While at UCB he wrote, directed and starred in Cannibal! The Musical (1993) (aka "Cannibal: The Musical!") based on a true episode in Colorado's history. After graduation from UCB (rumors that he didn't due to skipping classes to work on the movie are false), he and Stone were asked by then-FoxLab executive Brian Graden to create an animated Christmas card for his friends and family. The now infamous short, titled The Spirit of Christmas (1995), led to South Park (1997).