Cast Members: Walt Disney Feature Animation
To celebrate Disney’s 100 year anniversary. This is a list of all actors and actresses who’ve lended their voices to a Disney animated film. This will not include Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, or any other Disney property. Those will be provided in other lists. This list will start with the first film Snow White, and go up to the most recent film. Every role big or small will appear here. The characters they’ve played along with the movie they played in will appear below their names.
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- A legendary stage actress and character player in early films, Lucille La Verne is one of those forgotten legends who seem to fade as the years go on. However, at her prime she was one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation.
Lucille La Verne Mitchum was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 7, 1872. Little is known about her family. She made her stage debut at the local summer stock theater in 1876. The production was called "Centennial" in honor of America's 100th birthday, and the three-year old Lucille was among a handful of child extras in the play. In 1878 she returned to play another child part. She continued to return every summer, sort of becoming the playhouse's resident child star. She quickly proved herself a talented actress, and as she got older she was given better parts. She won great acclaim when during the summer of 1887 she played both Juliet and Lady Macbeth--at only 14 years of age.
On the night of her 16th birthday in 1888, made her Broadway debut with a supporting role in "La Tosca". The play closed after four weeks. In the fall of 1889 she performed with a stock company in Washington, DC, where she played May in "May Blossom" and Chrissy Rogers in "The Governess". She also toured as Ethel in "Judge Not". Her breakthrough performance was a limited-run Broadway revival of "As You Like It" with an all-female cast in March 1894, and she won much acclaim for her performance as "Corin". In the 1894-95 season, she played Patsy in Frank Mayo's Broadway production of Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson". She also scored great success by playing the female lead roles in three different acclaimed touring productions over the next three years: "Notre Dame" (1895-96), "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1897-98) and "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1897-98). In 1898 La Verne was made manager and director of the newly built Empire Theater in Richmond, VA. She staged five shows every season, and received mostly rave reviews. She played everything from leading roles in "Hedda Gabbler" and "Antigone" to character parts such as "Ma Frochard" in "The Two Orphans." She also wrote an adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", which she first staged in 1900, and her version was used by several other theaters in the early 1900s. She received much acclaim for her work at the Empire, and even received the Woman of the Year Award from the Virginia Women's Society in 1901.
She stepped down from the Empire Theater at the end of the 1903-04 season to make her London debut in a comic supporting role in the play "Clarice". She again received acclaim and repeated her success in the Broadway production three months later. She remained a staple of the Broadway stage for the next several years, specializing in character parts. She also returned on occasion to stock theaters to act and direct. She made her film debut in 1914 in Butterflies and Orange Blossoms (1914). From then on she would divide her time between film and the stage. She was used in film frequently by D.W. Griffith for various character parts. While she was a versatile actress, her most memorable parts in film were always those of vengeful women.
Her greatest stage triumph was the creation of the Widow Caggle role in the original Broadway production of "Sun Up". After the Broadway engagement she directed, as well as continued to perform, in the US and European tours of the play. She also recreated her role for the film version (Sun-Up (1925)). In 1927 Broadway's Princess Theater was renamed the Lucille La Verne Theater in her honor, and she was named manager and director. For her first outing as a Broadway producer and director she chose an original play called "Hot Water", giving herself the role of Jessica Dale. The play received mixed reviews and closed rather quickly. Later that same season she launched a revival of "Sun Up" repeating her Widow Caggle role, but it also closed quickly. Since the theater had lost money, she was let go as manager and the name reverted to being the Princess Theater. Upset, she moved to California for the time being to make more movies.
By 1928 she had already established herself as a good character actress in silent films and made the transition easily to talkies. As with her stage career, however, she tended to get typecast as unlikable women, despite her acclaim on Broadway for being able to play almost any character type. She did not abandon the stage entirely, however, and appeared frequently in regional productions in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1936 she returned to Broadway in the lead role of the thriller "Black Widow". Despite the rave reviews she received, the play itself got mixed reviews and closed after just a few performances. It would be her last stage production. La Verne quickly returned to Hollywood to take on her most famous role. She voiced both the Wicked Queen and her alter ego, the Old Hag in Walt Disney's first animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). She also worked as a live-action model for the artists.
After working on "Snow White", Lucille La Verne retired from acting and became co-owner of a successful nightclub. She died at age 72 of cancer on March 4, 1945, in Culver City, CA.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Evil Queen, The Witch - Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Adriana was born into an operatic family. Her father Guido, an immigrant from Italy, taught music in New York City. Her mother Maria, originally from Naples, sang at the Royal Opera. Her sister Louise was a noted opera singer & voice teacher. At 18, she was chosen by Walt Disney to voice Snow White in his first full-length animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). He had been looking for a fresh as well as natural voice & asked her father if any of his students might be suitable. Upon hearing Adriana's voice, he realized his search was over. In the days of studio contracts & indenture, Walt wanted to keep the mystery of Snow White's voice, so except for a bit part in The Wizard of Oz (1939), she didn't do any other film work. When Jack Benny wished to have her appear on his radio show, Walt refused-he owned the voice & it couldn't be used anywhere else. She tried opera singing, invested in real estate & the stock market while living a full life.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Snow White- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Actor, comedian, and composer, educated at the Sargent School of Acting. His Broadway stage appearances included "The Little Missus", "The Mimic World", "The Firefly", and "How's Your Health?". He was a member of the Fortune Gallo Opera Company, and joined ASCAP in 1957. He composed the popular song "Some Little Bug is Going to Bite You".Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Doc- Actor
- Writer
- Animation Department
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.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Grumpy, Sleepy
Saludos Amigos (1943)
Goofy
The Three Caballeros (1944)
Aracuan Bird
Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Goofy
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Daredevil
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Flamingos
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Maleficent’s Goon- Actor
- Soundtrack
Otis Harlan was born on 29 December 1865 in Zanesville, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Show Boat (1929), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) and Nine and Three-Fifths Seconds (1925). He was married to Nellie Harvey. He died on 21 January 1940 in Martinsville, Indiana, USA.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Happy- Actor
- Soundtrack
Scotty Mattraw was born on 19 October 1880 in Evans Mills, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for In Old Chicago (1938), Two Lovers (1928) and Quick Triggers (1928). He was married to Edna A. Hunter. He died on 9 November 1946 in Hollywood, California, USA.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Bashful- Actor
- Director
- Writer
The son of singers in the Metropolitan Opera, Billy Gilbert began performing in vaudeville at age 12. He developed a drawn-out, explosive sneezing routine that became his trademark (he was the model for, and voice of, Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)). Gilbert's exquisite comic timing made him the perfect foil for such comedians as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and he was especially memorable as the dim-witted process server Pettibone in His Girl Friday (1940).Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Sneezy
Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Willie the Giant- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Eddie Collins was born on 30 January 1883 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for The Blue Bird (1940), Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938) and Quick Millions (1939). He was married to Florence Wilmot (actress). He died on 2 September 1940 in Arcadia, California, USA.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Dopey (partial)- Jimmy Macdonald is known for Black Power in America: Myth... or Reality? (1987).Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Dopey (partial)
Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Mickey Mouse (partial
Cinderella (1950)
Jaq, Gus, Bruno
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Dormouse, Flamingo
Mary Poppins (1964)
Various Animals
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Jaq, Gus - Actor
- Soundtrack
Harry Stockwell was born on 27 April 1905 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Here Comes the Band (1935), All Over Town (1937) and Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935). He was married to Nina Olivette, Dorothy Tucker and Elizabeth (Betty) Margaret Veronica. He died on 19 July 1984 in New York City, New York, USA.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Prince- Even his more courteous, somewhat friendlier types gave one pause for concern. The tall, beefy, balding, icy-eyed character actor Moroni Olsen was one of Hollywood's more popular and imposing performers of film during the late 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s.
The versatile player was born Moroni Olsen and raised in Utah to Mormon parents (Edward Arenholt Olsen and Marsha Holverholst). Acting in church theatricals, Olsen attended and graduated from Weber State Academy before studying drama and elocution at the University of Utah. The voice training he received there served him quite well in the years to come, both on the Broadway stage and in Hollywood. After scattered performances in stage and tent shows in the East, he spent some time selling war bonds during World War I, then organized The Moroni Olsen Players in his native Ogden. The Utah-formed touring company eventually became one of the better known repertory companies around the county.
Olsen made his Broadway debut portraying Jason in "Medea" in 1920, and continued in NY for the next couple of years with a series of classical plays that included "The Trial of Joan of Arc," "Iphegenia in Aulis," "Mr. Faust" and "Candida". For the next eight seasons he continued to direct and coach his repertory Players, while also handling scenery, staging and choreographing duties. The actor returned to Broadway (after a decade's absence) in 1933 with "Her Man of Wax," which was followed by appearances in "Mary of Scotland" (as John Knox), Katharine Cornell's production of "Romeo and Juliet" (as Lord Capulet) and in 1935's "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (as Doctor Chambers).
Olsen made a tepid film debut as Porthos in The Three Musketeers (1935), a rather dull version of the classic Dumas story that starred an uninspired Walter Abel as D'Artagnan. His strong, regal bearing and classically trained voice, however, was not to be denied and he proved quite suitable for movies in the ongoing years. Staying in Hollywood, he played a formidable Buffalo Bill opposite Barbara Stanwyck's Annie Oakley (1935) and, in other key historical supports, was quite good in the Katharine Hepburn vehicle Mary of Scotland (1936) (again as John Knox, the role he played on Broadway), The Plough and the Stars (1936) (as Gen. Connolly), Santa Fe Trail (1940) (as Robert E. Lee) and Lone Star (1952) as Sam Houston. He played a much older Porthos (at age 63) in At Sword's Point (1952) opposite Cornel Wilde's D'Artagnan and Alan Hale Jr. as the younger, more limber Athos. Olsen's voice will be forever recognized from the Disney animated movie classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) as the prophetic baritone voice of the Magic Mirror ("Mirror, mirror, on the wall...). The actor's intimidating, unsympathetic features were very much in demand during the 40s and 50s and he proved quite at home portraying corrupt villains, dogged inspectors, no-nonsense doctors, barnstorming preachers, powerful attorneys and other men of distinction.
In between film assignments Olsen was active with the Pasadena Playhouse as both director and performer. For several years, the character actor and devout Mormon also directed the Pilgrimage Play, Hollywood's great passion play that predated the arrival of motion pictures. One of his last film assignments was as Pope Leo I in Sign of the Pagan (1954). The never-married actor died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on November 22, 1954, and was survived by a nephew, Edward Olsen (of Los Angeles). Funeral services were held back in his native Ogden, Utah, and was buried there at the Ogden City Cemetery.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Magic Mirror - Actor
On March 18, 1894, Buchanan was born in Benton, Iowa, as Paul Stuart Buchanan. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he received his undergraduate degree at Wooster College. He taught English and coached basketball at the University of West Virginia, then switched to Florida University, where he started the school's 5000-watt radio station.
Buchanan earned a Ph.D. at Harvard before giving up the education business in favor of what he called "making a living." He went to Hollywood and became a character in tough-guy acting roles and took on a job as director of the Pasadena Play House. In May of 1930, he took a job as program director at radio station KHJ in Los Angeles, where he directed episodes of the "Hollywood Hotel" and "Lux Radio Theatre."
Walt Disney hired Buchanan as a dialogue and casting director at the Disney studios in Hollywood and put him in charge of all foreign versions of Disney productions. Buchanan was the voice of "The Huntsman" in the 1937 Disney animated film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Managing the foreign versions of Disney films took him to Europe and South America to translate "Snow White" into ten languages. Buchanan also had cameo voiceover roles as a flight attendant in "Saludos Amigos" (1942) and "Super-Speed" (1935), and he voiced Goofy in "The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air" (1938).
In New York radio, Buchanan produced and directed many network shows. He was head of the script department and program supervision for American Broadcasting Co. before moving to Cleveland in 1947 to produce "The Ohio Story" radio and TV series sponsored by Ohio Bell Telephone Co. He also took on directing the radio and television department of McCann-Erickson advertising agency's offices in Cleveland. He remained in Cleveland for the rest of his life.
"The Ohio Story" ran state-wide from 1947 to 1955 on radio and 1953 to 1961 on TV. At the time, the filmed series held the record as the longest-running scripted radio and TV program in the nation. In more than 2,500 "Ohio Story" shows, Buchanan never missed a rehearsal or a program. Buchanan worked tirelessly with actors, musicians, and sound technicians to get precisely the right shade of meaning into every sequence. He made actors out of bank clerks, students, and homemakers. Buchanan picked Robert Waldrop, a nationally known radio personality, to narrate the "Ohio Story" radio series. He convinced Hollywood actor Nelson Olmsted, known for his adaptations of terror tales by Edgar Allen Poe and science-fantasy stories, to commute to Cleveland for seven years to host, narrate and act in the "Ohio Story" TV episodes and the final two years of the "Ohio Story" radio series.
In an article in the June 25, 1958, Columbus Dispatch, Buchanan talked about his love and loyalty to Ohio and the "Ohio Story" series: "There has never been - or will be, a radio series that commanded the respect and attention of this state, or, for that fact, the nation. The "Ohio Story" reached its peak in the heyday of radio... the late 1940s. Only one show in the nation had a higher rating ... that was the Jack Benny show. I guess of all the things I've done in my lifetime; I'm most proud to have had a hand in developing and producing "The Ohio Story."
Buchanan was married twice. His first wife was Anna Hall Hilditch (December 28, 1900 - November 10, 1987). His second wife was Rita Whearty (November 19, 1919 - March 31, 2009).
Buchanan died on February 4, 1974, in Cleveland, Ohio.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Huntsman
Pinocchio (1940)
Carnival Barker
Saludos Amigos (1943)
Flight Attendant- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Legendary voice actress June Foray was born June Lucille Forer on September 18, 1917 in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Maurice Forer and Ida Edith Robinson, who wed in Hampden, Massachusetts. Her father, who was Jewish, emigrated from Novgorod, Imperial Russia, while her Massachusetts-born mother was of Lithuanian Jewish and French-Canadian descent. Her mother converted to Judaism to marry, and took the name Sarah.
At age 12, young June was already doing "old lady" voices. She had the good fortune of having a speech teacher who also had a radio program in the Springfield area. This teacher became her mentor, and added June to the cast of her show. Eventually her family moved to Los Angeles, where she continued in radio. By age fifteen, she was writing her own show for children, "Lady Makebelieve", in which she also provided voices. June dabbled in both on-camera acting and voice work, but was particularly talented in voice characterizations, dialects and accents. Just like Daws Butler, one of her later co-stars, she was a "voice magician" and worked steadily in radio from the 1930s into the 1950s.
June branched out from radio and began providing voices for cartoon characters. In the 1940s, she provided the voices for a live-action series of shorts, "Speaking of Animals", in which she dubbed in voices for real on-screen animals, a task she was to repeat many years later in an episode of The Magical World of Disney (1954). In the late 1940s June, Stan Freberg, Daws Butler, Pinto Colvig and many others recorded hundreds of children's and adult albums for Capitol Records. Her female characterizations on these records ran the entire gamut from little girls to middle-aged women, old ladies, dowagers and witches. No one seemed to be able to do these same voices with the warmth, energy and sparkle that June did.
In the 1950s June's star in animation not only began to rise but soared when Walt Disney sought her out and hired her to do the voice of Lucifer the cat in Cinderella (1950). The Disney organization continued to use June many times over, well into the 21st century. Warner Brothers also hired her to replace Bea Benaderet and do all of its "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" cartoons. June has done many incidental characters for Warners, but her most famous voice has been that of Granny (in the "Tweety and Sylvester" series). Unfortunately, since Mel Blanc's contract called for exclusive voice credit on these cartoons, June never received credit for all the voices she did. During this time she also appeared on [error].
In 1957, Jay Ward met with June to discuss her voicing the characters of "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" and "Natasha Fatale" in a cartoon series. On November 19, 1959, the show debuted as The Bullwinkle Show (1959), later changing its name to The Bullwinkle Show (1959). June provided many other voices for this show, especially its "side shows" such as "Fractured Fairy Tales" and "Aesop and Son". She did fewer voices for the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment, but she did appear in at least three of those episodes. After the show had been successful for a few years, Ward added one of its most popular segments, "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties". June was a regular in this side show as Dudley's girlfriend Nell Fenwick.
Since Ward used June exclusively for nearly all his female voices, he showcased her talents as no other producer had before. June missed out on doing voices for three of the show's "Fractured Fairy Tales" because she could not reschedule some bookings to do recording work with Stan Freberg, so Julie Bennett filled in for her on those occasions. Dorothy Scott--co-producer Bill Scott's wife--also filled in for June a few times for "Peabody's Improbable History". Her collaboration with Ward made her incredibly famous, and "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" became her signature voice. To this day June regularly wears a necklace with the figure of Rocky sculpted by her niece Lauren Marems.
Ward later produced two other cartoon series, Hoppity Hooper (1964) and George of the Jungle (1967). June's appearances on "Hoppity Hooper" were limited to the segments of "Fractured Fairy Tales", "Dudley Do-Right" and "Peabody" that aired during its run. On "Fractured Fairy Tales" June did a whole montage of voices similar to those from her Capitol Records days. Her witch voices were so incredibly funny and magnificently done that Disney and Warner Brothers tapped her to provide that same voice for the character of Witch Hazel. She was once again the lone female voice artist, this time on "George of the Jungle". Included on that show were the "Super Chicken" and "Tom Slick" side shows.
In the 1960s, June lost out to Bea Benaderet when she auditioned for the voice of "Betty Rubble" on The Flintstones (1960). June appeared numerous times during the decade in holiday specials such as Frosty the Snowman (1969) and The Little Drummer Boy (1968)). In the 1960s and 1970s, June dubbed in voices for full-length live-action feature films many times. Jay Ward and Bill Scott also had her dub in dialogue for silent movies in their non-animated series Fractured Flickers (1963).
In the early 1970s, June tried her hand at puppetry. She became the voice of an elephant, an aardvark and a giraffe on Curiosity Shop (1971). Around this time she also recorded various voices for the road shows of "Disney on Parade", which toured the US and Europe for several years.
She acted on-camera occasionally over the years, primarily on talk shows, game shows and documentaries; in the early years of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), she performed a 13-week stint as a little Mexican girl. However, June had said that she prefers to record behind the scenes because she jokingly said "She can earn more money in less time."
June Foray died on July 26, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, U.S. She was ninety nine years old.Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Birds
Cinderella (1950)
Lucifer
Peter Pan (1953)
Mermaid, Squaw Woman
Mulan (1998)
Grandmother Fa- Actor
- Stunts
- Soundtrack
American actor who achieved some success as a child and as a young adult, especially in B-Westerns and in television. The son of a Texas newspaper editor. Jones was a accomplished horseman from infancy. At the age of four he was billed as the World's Youngest Trick Rider and Roper. At the age of six, he was hired to perform riding and lariat tricks in the rodeo owned by western star Hoot Gibson. Gibson convinced young Jones and his parents that there was a place for him in Hollywood, and the boy and his mother went west. Gibson arranged for some small parts for the boy. His good looks, energy, and pleasant voice quickly landed him more and bigger parts. In both low-budget Westerns and in more substantial productions. In 1940 he had one of his most prominent roles, as the voice of Pinocchio (1940) in Walt Disney's animated film of the same name. Jones attended Hollywood High School and at 15, took over the role of Henry Aldrich on the hit radio show "The Aldrich Family." He learned carpentry and augmented his income with jobs in that field. He served in the Army in Alaska during the final months of World War II. Gene Autry, who had cast Jones in several Westerns before the war, now put him back to work in films. And later in television, on programs produced by Autry's company. Now billed as Dick Jones the handsome young man starred as Dick West. Where he was sidekick to the Western hero known as The Range Rider (1951), in a TV series that ran for 76 episodes in 1951 (and for decades in syndication). Then Autry gave Jones his own series Buffalo Bill, Jr. (1955)', which ran for 40 episodes. Jones continued working in films throughout the 50's and into the 60's. In 1966 he retired and entered the business world.Pinocchio (1940)
Pinocchio- Actor
- Soundtrack
Becoming popular with playing the ukulele, his unique singing and supplying the voice of animated movies, Cliff Edwards was one of the most popular singers in America.
Born in Hannibal, Missouri, Edwards left school at the age of 14, moved to St. Louis, and started to work as a singer in saloons. Edwards then taught himself to play the ukulele. He got his nickname, "Ukelele Ike", from a club owner who couldn't remember his name.
Entering in the vaudeville circuit, he finally made it big. When entering into movies, one of his first movies he made was his most noticeable: The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929). Eleven years later, he was immortalized in Disney's Pinocchio (1940).Pinocchio (1940)
Jiminy Cricket
Dumbo (1941)
Dandy Crow (previously known as Jim Crow)
Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Jiminy Cricket- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Christian Rub was born on 13 April 1886 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He was an actor, known for You Can't Take It with You (1938), Peter Ibbetson (1935) and Girls' Dormitory (1936). He was married to Amy. He died on 14 April 1956 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.Pinocchio (1940)
Geppetto- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
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.Pinocchio (1940)
Figaro
Saludos Amigos (1943)
Donald Duck
The Three Caballeros (1944)
Donald Duck
Song of the South (1946)
Bluebird
Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Donald Duck
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Gunpowder- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Walter Catlett carved out a career for himself playing excitable, officious blowhards, and few actors did it better. A San Francisco native, he started out in vaudeville - with a detour for a while in opera - before breaking into films in the mid-1920s. Two of his best remembered roles were as the stage manager driven to distraction by James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and the local constable who throws the entire cast in jail, and winds up there himself, in the classic screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938). He retired after making Beau James (1957), and died of a stroke in 1960.Pinocchio (1940)
Honest John- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Charles Judels or Charles Judel was born in Amsterdam in 1882. Starred on vaudeville in the early 1900s, and made his Broadway stage debut in 'The Ziegfeld Follies of 1912'. Highly talented chubby man who appeared in more than 130 American comedy and drama movies, his expertise with dialects served him well throughout his career. His first film was the comedy Old Dutch (1915) directed by Frank Hall Crane and starring Lew Fields for the Shubert Film Co. He is perhaps best remembered as the cheese-store proprietor in the Laurel & Hardy film Swiss Miss (1938). He also did extensive work as a voice actor in animated films, most notably as the voice of Stromboli in Disney's Pinocchio (1940). His last appearance on screen was as a Danite Merchant in Samson and Delilah (1949).Pinocchio (1940)
Stromboli
The Coachman- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lovely and ethereal in looks, and quite unassuming in nature, 1930s actress Evelyn Venable was born in 1913 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she grew up and received her schooling. Both her father, Emerson Venable, and grandfather were writers/teachers. In her high school drama department, Evelyn played the top leads in their productions of "Romeo and Juliet" (Juliet) and "As You Like It" (Rosalind). Critics were so bowled over by her performances that she was cast in a professional production of "Dear Brutus" in the nearby area. Following graduation, she earned a four-year non-acting scholarship to Vassar but left after the first year to study at the University of Cincinnati. After college the acting bug returned. Encouraged by classical actor/director Walter Hampden, who was a family friend, he invited her to join his touring company where she eventually performed Ophelia to his Hamlet and Roxanne to his Cyrano. Film scouts at Paramount caught these productions and invited her to Hollywood.
Evelyn made her film debut with Cradle Song (1933) and proceeded to take on sensitive, soft-spoken leads or second leads in a number of "A" class fare including Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934) with Pauline Lord; the classic fantasy Death Takes a Holiday (1934) starring Fredric March, which is deemed her best role; David Harum (1934) and The County Chairman (1935), both Will Rogers' vehicles; and Alice Adams (1935) starring Katharine Hepburn in the title role. In each of these Evelyn looked simply luminous and proved most able, but perhaps her modest, rather delicate nature didn't carry off enough weight to make her a star. In any event, she was thereafter relegated to working at "poverty-row" studios. She started appearing in movies with titles that indicated a downhill slide was imminent -- Vagabond Lady (1935), Streamline Express (1935), North of Nome (1936), Racketeers in Exile (1937), The Headleys at Home (1938) and Hollywood Stadium Mystery (1938). One bright spot would be her sooth voicing of the "Blue Fairy" in the Disney animated classic Pinocchio (1940).
By this time, Evelyn had married Hal Mohr, the Oscar-winning cinematographer she had met on the set of one of Will Rogers' films, and bore him two daughters, Dolores and Rosalia. Interest waned for the actress, who decided that family came first and completely retired after appearing opposite Stuart Erwin Jr. in the light comedy He Hired the Boss (1943). Evelyn gamely returned to college (UCLA) where she studied Greek and Latin and attained a Master's degree. Invited to join the UCLA staff as a drama instructor, she stayed there contentedly for decades. She and Mohr lived in Brentwood, California in later years and enjoyed a 40-year marriage that lasted until his death in 1974. Evelyn died in Idaho of cancer in 1993.Pinocchio (1940)
Blue Fairy- Actor
- Stunts
- Soundtrack
Born into a show-business family - his parents were circus aerialists - Frankie Darro appeared in his first film at age six. Due to his small size and youthful appearance, he played teenagers well into his 20s. Always a physical performer, Darro often did his own stunts, many times out of necessity - his small stature made it difficult to find stunt doubles his size. He was an accomplished horseman and, in addition to westerns, made several films where he played jockeys. In 1933 he played the lead as a troubled teen in a major film for Warner Brothers : Wild Boys of the Road (1933). It is a pre code film with a realistic look at "The Great Depression" , from the point of view of the youth of the time. This film seems to have been rediscovered only recently and has received critical acclaim.That same year, he played a troubled youth in the James Cagney classic, "The Mayor Of Hell". Later in 1935, he had a key role in the cult serial classic' "The Phantom Empire"(1935). As Darro got older, however, he found it increasingly difficult to secure employment, and by the late 1940s was doing uncredited stunt work and bit parts. He had a recurring role on The Red Skelton Hour (1951), unrecognized by his fans, he played "Robby The Robot" in the groundbreaking sci-fi film "The Forbidden Planet" (1956), though Marvin Miller, best remembered as Michael Anthony of TVs "Millionaire"(1955-60), was the robot's voice. After that Frankie appeared sporadically in films and on TV . .Pinocchio (1940)
Lampwick- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
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.Pinocchio (1940)
Gideon- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Born in 1914, raised in Norfolk, Nebraska, Thurl Ravenscroft served as a navigator in the US Army Air Transport Command in World War II before settling in Hollywood. An accomplished singer, he performed with The Sportsmen Quartet, The Mellowmen Quartet, The Johnny Mann Singers, The Norman Luboff Choir, and many major stars, including Jim Nabors and Elvis Presley. He was best known, however, for his mellifluous voice-overs, and he voiced Tony the Tiger in countless advertisements for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes in both English and Spanish. In 1996 he and his wife June retired to southern California, although he still did occasional work as Tony. He died in 2005 of prostate cancer.Pinocchio (1940)
Monstro
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Card Painter
Peter Pan (1953)
Pirates, Never Land natives
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Al the Alligator, Dogs
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
The Captain
The Sword in the Stone (1963)
Sir Bart
Mary Poppins (1964)
Hog
The Aristocats (1970)
Billy Boss- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Production Manager
Edward S. Brophy was born on February 27, 1895 in New York City and educated at the University of Virginia. He became a bit and small-part in the movies starting in 1919, but switched to behind-the-scenes work for job security, though he continued appearing in small parts. While serving as a property master for Buster Keaton's production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Brophy appeared in a memorable sequence in Keaton's classic The Cameraman (1928), in which Buster and Brophy both try to undress simultaneously in a tiny wardrobe room. Keaton cast Brophy in larger parts in two of his talkies, and by 1934, Brophy abandoned the production end of the movies altogether and was acting full-time.
Possessed of a chubby, bald-headed face with pop-eyes, and blessed with (for a comic) a high-pitched voice, Brophy appeared in scores of comic roles. He also played straight dramatic parts, but was less effective in them. Typical of his work was his memorable turn providing comic relief in the small supporting role of the Marine in Manila who adopts the dog "Tripoli" in Howard Hawks' war propaganda masterpiece Air Force (1943).
In the 1950s, Brophy began taking fewer roles. His last role was in director John Ford's Western Two Rode Together (1961), during the production of which, he died on May 27, 1960 in Pacific Palisades, California. He will always be remembered to film-lovers as the voice of Timothy Mouse in Walt Disney's classic 1941 cartoon Dumbo (1941).Dumbo (1941)
Timothy Q. Mouse- Actress
- Soundtrack
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.Dumbo (1941)
Elephant Matriarch
Cinderella (1950)
Fairy Godmother
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Queen of Hearts
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Aunt Sarah
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Flora
The Jungle Book (1967)
Winifred- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Production Manager
Herman Bing was born on 30 March 1889 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was an actor and assistant director, known for The Great Waltz (1938), Redheads on Parade (1935) and Sweethearts (1938). He was married to Carla Lichtenstein. He died on 9 January 1947 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
The Ringmaster- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
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.Dumbo (1941)
Mr. Stork
Bambi (1942)
Flower (Adult)
The Three Caballeros (1944)
Narrator
Make Mine Music (1945)
Narrator
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Cheshire Cat
The Jungle Book (1967)
Kaa
The Aristocats (1970)
Roquefort
The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977)
Winnie-the-Pooh- Actress
Margaret Wright was born on 11 January 1917 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress. She died on 20 August 1999 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Casey Junior- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Composer, author, conductor and arranger, educated at the Knox Institute, Atlanta University, Allen University, USC, the Hahn School of Music, the University of Pennsylvania and the New York Institute of Musical Art. He also studied with Percy Goetschius and was awarded an Honorary Music Degree from the Philadelphia Musical Academy. In 1925, he formed the Hall Johnson Choir, appearing in concerts, films, theater, radio, television and recordings. He arranged and directed the music for the Broadway production of "Green Pastures" (in which his choir appeared), and wrote the Broadway stage score for "Run, Little Chillun". In 1936, he organized the Festival Negro Chorus of Los Angeles, and appeared in the International Festival of Fine Arts in Berlin. In 1951, he toured Germany and Vienna through the auspices of the US State Department, and won the New York City Citation in 1962. He was also a member of the New York City Citizens Advisory Commission for Cultural Affairs.Dumbo (1941)
Deacon Crow- Actor
- Soundtrack
James Baskett was born on February 16, 1904 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA as James Franklin Baskett. He was an actor, known for Song of the South (1946), Revenge of the Zombies (1943) and Policy Man (1938). He was married to Margaret. He died on July 9, 1948 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Fats Crow
Song of the South (1946)
Br’er Fox- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Nick Stewart was born on 15 March 1910 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), Carmen Jones (1954) and Silver Streak (1976). He was married to Edna Stewart. He died on 18 December 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Specks Crow
Song of the South (1946)
Br’er Bear- Art Department
- Animation Department
- Soundtrack
Jim Carmichael was born on 1 August 1909 in California, USA. He is known for Operation Dumbo Drop (1995), It's the Wolf (1969) and The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie (1972). He died on 26 May 1988 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Dopey Crow- Noreen Gammill was born on 12 December 1898 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Sanford and Son (1972), Maude (1972) and The Bigelow Theatre (1950). She died on 21 December 1988 in San Diego, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Elephant Caddy - Dorothy Scott was born on 24 July 1923 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for The Pretender (1947), My Bodyguard (1980) and The Girl in Room 20 (1946). She was married to Bill Scott. She died on 2 January 2004 in Ventura, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Elephant Giddy - Actress
- Soundtrack
Sarah Selby was born on 30 August 1905 in Middletown, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Tower of London (1962), Beyond the Forest (1949) and The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Ghost Farm (1957). She was married to Holger Yngvar Harthern-Jakobsen and Stanley Robert Wuliger. She died on 7 January 1980 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Elephant Prissy- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Billy Bletcher, standing 5' 2", was known as the little guy with the big voice, who, ironically, started his film career during the silent era.
Billy's show business career began in 1913 at the age of 19 in vaudeville, and within a year, he went to work for Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn where he both acted and directed. Two years later, he met his wife, Arline Harriett Roberts with whom he would stay married until the day he died in 1979.
In 1917, he took his wife westward to Hollywood where he started with smaller production companies, such as the Christie Film Company, writing and acting in shorts, and then moved on to larger and larger companies, such as the Fox Film Corporation where he did a few cowboy movies, one with Tom Mix, playing the comedic element. Then onto larger companies, such as Warner Brothers, RKO, Columbia, and Paramount where he had mostly bit parts, but got experience working with the likes of The Three Stooges and The Marx Brothers. But it was in Mack Sennett's comedy troupe where he started getting recognition doing two-reelers, and his biggest break came when Hal Roach studios pared him with Billy Gilbert and his career took off. Because pictures now had sound, directors and studios everywhere were clamoring for his deep, rich voice.
Mack Sennett and Hal Roach put Bletcher in shorts with W.C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy and he even played Spanky's father in the Little Rascals series, but it was Disney who made Bletcher a star.
Pinto Colvig, the original voice of Goofy and Pluto, told Bletcher that Disney needed a big, blustering voice to "huff and puff and blow your house in," so he tried out, got the job, and within a very short time, Disney had him doing a session a week in the sound booth, sometimes doing two and three voices. His voice got so famous that when he auditioned to do the voice of one of the seven dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Walt Disney took him aside and told him, "Billy, your voice is heard so much in all of these singles that I make, I don't think I'd want to use you as one of the Seven Dwarfs." Bletcher admits that because his voice was so low and resonant, the characters he got to play were usually the "heavies" (bad guys). And as a heavy his voice became too recognizable for him to get a role in a feature length Disney production, with one exception: he did get a minor role in Dumbo as the voice of one of the clowns.
As a voice actor, he could go anywhere and soon found himself working for Leon Schlesinger at Warner Brothers, but never got credit for his work since Mel Blanc had it in his contract that he'd be the sole credit for voice characterizations. And at that time there were only a dozen or so actors doing voicework that the jobs were plentiful. He worked for Disney, Warner, and at MGM he did the voice of the Captain in the Captain and the Kids cartoons.
In the fifties, he did several characters on the Lone Ranger radio program, but before that he did what's known in the business as ADR (automated dialogue replacement) work, with his old pal Pinto Colvig. In The Wizard of Oz (1939), their voices were substituted for a few of the munchkins.
All in all, Bletcher worked on just over 450 films spanning nearly 60 years, his last film being a made-for-TV version of Li'l Abner (1971) in which he played Pappy Yokum. He passed away 13 years later at the age of 84.Dumbo (1941)
The Clown
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
The Headless Horseman- Malcolm Hutton was born on 17 November 1928 in Sheridan, Wyoming, USA. He was an actor, known for Reg'lar Fellers (1941). He died on 14 December 2014 in Sheridan, Wyoming, USA.Dumbo (1941)
Smitty - Actor
- Writer
John McLeish was born on 10 May 1916 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for Fantasia (1940), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) and Carnival Courage (1945). He was married to Lila Dorothea Wead. He died on 30 October 1968 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.Dumbo (1941)
Narrator
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Prosecutor, News Announcer- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Paula Winslowe was born on 23 March 1910 in Grafton, North Dakota, USA. She was an actress, known for Our Miss Brooks (1952), Panic! (1957) and 77 Sunset Strip (1958). She was married to John Sutherland and Bill Goodwin. She died on 7 March 1996 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Bambi (1942)
Bambi’s Mom
Pheasant- Actor
- Soundtrack
Born in Depression-era Texas, Donnie Dunagan moved with his parents to Memphis as a young child. There, as a three-year-old, he was taught to tap dance by a neighbor and entered in a talent contest at the Orpheum Theatre. Donnie won the $100 prize and caught the attention of a movie talent scout in the audience, who arranged for the family to come by train to Hollywood. The blonde moppet made his film debut in "Mother Carey's Chickens" (1938), played the son of the "Son of Frankenstein" (1939) and provided the voice of young Bambi for the 1942 animated classic. Dunagan later became a career Marine (1952-77), serving in Vietnam and working in counter intelligence.Bambi (1942)
Bambi (Young)- Producer
- Writer
- Director
John Sutherland was born on 11 September 1910 in Williston, North Dakota, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for Too Many Winners (1947), Flight Command (1940) and Lady at Midnight (1948). He was married to Lysiane Wagner and Paula Winslowe. He died on 17 February 2001 in Van Nuys, California, USA.Bambi (1942)
Bambi (Adult)- Bobby L. Stewart was born in Amherstburg, a small town in southern Ontario. He first appeared on stage when he was in Grade 5, singing a classic Motown tune. Feeling a little stage shy in his early years, he sang the song....behind the stage curtain lol . Yet Bobby's fascination with theatre only grew, and by grade 9, he , along with two classmates wrote , produced and stared in his first short film about street life in the big city. Since then, his curiosity and commitment to the performing art continued to develop. In the late 1980s , Bobby moved to Vancouver Bc where he began formal study of theatre and film, including 4 years intensive training at William Davis Center for Performing Arts, as well as with many other teaching professionals in the Vancouver area. Bobby has appeared in numerous film and tv series produced in the Vancouver region , including Canadian classic such as X-Files ( several episode's) Madison ( recurring) , Northwood and Dark Angel (several episodes), as well more than 30 tv commercials. For a period of time , he put a hold on his film and theatre career to raise his young family and pursue other professional interest. He always intended to continue acting his true passion in life and returned to the scene in early 2000s . He has since renewed success in the industry and has landed several Supporting Lead roles in film/tv .Bambi (1942)
Bambi (Baby) - Actor
- Soundtrack
Hardie Albright's parents had a traveling vaudeville act, in which he made his stage debut at the age of six. He studied drama at Carnegie Tech and was a member of Eva Le Gallienne's repertory theater. He appeared in many Broadway plays before making his film debut in 1931. Appearing in over 50 films, Albright retired from acting in 1948 and took a position as a drama instructor at UCLA, where he authored several books on acting and directing.Bambi (1942)
Bambi (Adolescent)- Peter Behn was born on 24 October 1934 in Prescott, Arizona, USA. He is an actor, known for WGN Morning News (1994), The View (1997) and Bambi: The Magic Behind the Masterpiece (1997). He is married to Pam Pease. He was previously married to Ulla Nielsen.Bambi (1942)
Thumper (Baby) - Producer
- Actor
- Music Department
Tim Davis has been arranging and producing vocalists and music on film, television, and artist recordings for countless projects for the past 26 years. An accomplished singer himself, Tim has sung on hundreds of projects, and still performs with artists like Jane Lynch, Idina Menzel, Barbra Streisand.
Currently, Tim is focused on acting, and screenwriting, and is attached as producer to several films, series, and live entertainment projects.Bambi (1942)
Thumper (Adolescent), Flower (Adolescent)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Sam Edwards grew up in a show business family, having made his debut on stage while he was just a baby (his mother, the actress Edna Park, was holding him). With his family, he acted on radio in "The Adventures of Sunny and Buddy," and on his family's show, "The Edwards Family."Bambi (1942)
Thumper (Adult)- Actor
Stan Alexander was born on 23 February 1933 in Santa Barbara, California, USA. He is an actor. He is married to Gail Alexander.Bambi (1942)
Flower (Baby)- Cammie King Conlon was born on 5 August 1934 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Gone with the Wind (1939), Change in the Wind (2010) and Living Famously (2002). She was married to Michael W. Conlon and Walter ''Ned'' Pollock. She died on 1 September 2010 in Fort Bragg, California, USA.Bambi (1942)
Faline (Young) - Actress
- Soundtrack
Ann Gillis was born Alma Mabel Conner on February 12, 1927, in Little Rock, Arkansas. At age seven, she appeared in her first film, Men in White (1934), as an extra. During the next two years, she had uncredited appearances in six more films until she received her first major role in King of Hockey (1936). Warner Brothers Studios gave significant screen time to Gillis in this movie, in hopes that she would become another Shirley Temple. Although (like all child stars of the 1930s) she never achieved Temple's level of fame, for the next several years Gillis starred in many films, almost always playing a spoiled, bratty character. She had two rare sympathetic roles as Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) and as the title character in Little Orphan Annie (1938). One scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer called for her to go into screaming hysterics when her character was trapped in a cave of bats, and Gillis delivered in a powerful performance that is probably the most memorable scene of her film career. As Gillis grew older, however, her career slowed down, and she left Hollywood in 1947. When she left Hollywood she married Paul Ziebold and had 2 sons. She then divorced, relocated to New York City and married Richard Fraser, a Scottish-born actor (they had a son born in 1958). During the 1950s and '60s, Gillis made sporadic television appearances, and in 1959, she hosted a national telecast presentation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Gillis and her husband moved to England in 1961, and they were living in London when they heard of a casting call for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) that called for an American actress living in the city. Gillis auditioned and got the role, this was her final film.Bambi (1942)
Faline (Adult)- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of those familiar character actors who seems to have been born old, Will Wright specialized in playing crusty old codgers, rich skinflints,crooked small-town politicians and the like. A former newspaper reporter in San Francisco, he switched careers and entered vaudeville, then took to the stage. He ventured from acting to producing, and staged shows on Broadway as well as other cities, eventually making his way to Hollywood. He appeared in over 100 films and did much TV work, including a recurring role on The Andy Griffith Show (1960). Although his hunched-over figure, craggy face and somewhat sour disposition made it seem like he started out his 20+-year career as an old man, he was actually only 68 when he died of cancer in Hollywood in 1962.Bambi (1942)
Friend Owl- In Kansas City, Shields owned a theatre group, The Playmakers, and performed in stage plays. He also worked as a newscaster for WDAF radio. In 1929, he announced the plane flight of Germany's Graf Zeppelin over the U.S. In 1930, he came to Hollywood, CA, with Ger, his wife, Karena, and daughter, Evelyn. He was employed as the Station Manager for KTM Los Angeles. In 1939, he was President of the American Federation of Radio Artists. From 1940 to he 1965, he was the announcer on the Alka Seltzer News, KHJ, Hollywood. He also played Mr. Archer on "Meet Corliss Archer" both on CBS radio and television (Meet Corliss Archer (1950)).Bambi (1942)
The Great Prince of the Forest
The Three Caballeros (1944)
Narrator - Actress
- Soundtrack
Margaret Lee was born on 4 August 1943 in Wolverhampton, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Secret Agent Super Dragon (1966), From the Orient with Fury (1965) and The Violent Four (1968). She was married to Walter Creighton, Gino Malerba and Patrick Anderson. She died on 24 April 2024 in Gloucester, South West England, United Kingdom.Bambi (1942)
Mrs. Rabbit- Mary Lansing was born on 10 June 1911 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She was an actress, known for The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Happy Days (1929) and Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). She was married to Frank Nelson. She died on 30 September 1988 in Northridge, California, USA.Bambi (1942)
Aunt Ena
Mrs. Possum - Writer
- Producer
- Director
Perce Pearce was born on 17 September 1899 in Waukegan, Illinois, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Bambi (1942), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia (1940). He was married to June Herrig Swan. He died on 4 July 1955 in London, England, UK.Bambi (1942)
Mr. Mole- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Thelma Boardman was born on 31 October 1909 in Panama Canal Zone, Panama. She was an actress and writer, known for Gunsmoke (1955), Ethel Barrymore Theater (1956) and Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938). She was married to True Boardman and Russell Erwin Diehl. She died on 21 April 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Bambi (1942)
Girl Rabbit, Female Pheasant, Quail Mother- Actor
- Soundtrack
José Oliveira was born on 11 February 1904 in Jundiaí, São Paulo, Brazil. He was an actor, known for The Three Caballeros (1944), The Magical World of Disney (1954) and Aquarela do Brasil (1942). He died on 22 December 1987 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Saludos Amigos (1943)
José Carioca
The Three Caballeros (1944)
José Carioca- Actor
- Soundtrack
Joaquin appeared in It Happened One Night, singing The Man On the Flying Trapeze in the 2nd and 3rd verses in the bus scene. He went on to appear in several films already listed. He is best known for his lively character of Ponchito, the Rooster, in Disney's The Three Cabelleros.The Three Caballeros (1944)
Panchito Pistoles- Actress
- Soundtrack
Aurora Miranda had a successful career in Brazil and the US, although somewhat overshadowed by her sister Carmen Miranda's larger-then-life persona. Aurora was six years younger than Carmen, not as brilliant but equally talented and vivacious.
She made her recording debut on May 25, 1933, at the age of 18. On that day she sang Assis Valente''s marcha "Cai, Cai, Balão!" and 'Floriano Ribeiro de Pi'nho''s samba "Toque de Amor" in a duo with Francisco Alves, Brazil's greatest male singing star. Three weeks later she was in the studio again, recording a macumba by Pixinguinha and João da Baiana. Another duo with Chico Alves came in July: Noel Rosa's and Hélio Rosa's foxtrot "Você só . . . Mente." Aurora was launched.
Her record company was Odeon, and her principal competition--her sister Carmen--recorded for Victor. During the rest of the decade, Aurora recorded 162 more sides, many of them enormous hits, such as "Cidade Maravilhosa" (André Filho) and "Se a Lua Contasse" (Custódio Mesquita), whose composers were her constant songwriters, along with Walfrido Silva and Assis Valente. In 1936 Aurora appeared in the film Alô Alô Carnaval (1936), in which she was seen with Carmen dressed in gold-lamé top hat and tails, singing "Cantores do Rádio" (João de Barro / Alberto Ribeiro / Lamartine Babo). This film is apparently lost except from some short sequences.
In 1940 Aurora married Gabriel Richaid. Carmen gave the couple a trip to the US as a honeymoon present, and before long Aurora was appearing in American nightclubs and revues. During the war, when Walt Disney was producing his "Good Neighbor" south-of-the-border films, he wanted to cast Carmen with Ethel Smith in a picture to be called "Blame It on the Samba". Carmen was unavailable, and the technology wasn't advanced enough for making that film (it would eventually be made in 1948 (Blame It on the Samba (1948)) with Ethel as the only live character. However, Carmen recommended her sister, and Aurora was cast in The Three Caballeros (1944), in which she shined in the Bahia sequence, dancing with Donald Duck and Zé Carioca to the tune of Ary Barroso's "Os Quindins de Iaiá.". She also appears in the film noir classic Phantom Lady (1944), in which she can be seen as a nightclub performer.
Unlike her sister, Aurora preferred married life to her career. In 1951 she returned to Rio de Janeiro and settled down as a wife and mother. She often spoke of her sister Carmen and appeared in many documentaries.
Aurora Miranda passed away at the age of 90 on Thursday, December 22, 2005.The Three Caballeros (1944)
Yaya- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Frank Graham was born on 22 November 1914 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Cosmo Jones in the Crime Smasher (1943), The Three Caballeros (1944) and Horton Hatches the Egg (1942). He died on 2 September 1950 in Hollywood, California, USA.The Three Caballeros (1944)
Narrator- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Francisco Mayorga is known for Tomorrow's Thespians (2015) and El Efecto Clemente (2013).The Three Caballeros (1944)
Mexican Guitarist- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Composer, conductor, singer and actor, he was educated in Brazilian public schools and arrived in the US with Carmen Miranda and her group in 1940. He joined ASCAP in 1956, and his chief musical collaborators included Laurindo Almeida, Ray Gilbert, and Johnny Mercer. His popular-music compositions include: "Old Man and the Sea", "Sambiana", and "Sighs".The Three Caballeros (1944)
José Carioca’s Singing Voice- Actor
- Art Department
- Soundtrack
The only career Nelson Eddy ever considered was singing. His parents, Isabel (Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy, were singers, his grandparents were musicians. Unable to afford a teacher, he learned by imitating opera recordings. At age 14 he worked as a telephone operator in a Philadelphia iron foundry. He sold newspaper advertising and performed in amateur musicals. Dr. Edouard Lippe coached him and loaned him the money to study in Dresden and Paris. He gave his first concert recital in 1928 in Philadelphia. In 1933 he did 18 encores for an audience that included an assistant to MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, who signed him to a seven-year contract. After MGM acting lessons and initial trials, his first real success came as the Yankee scout to Jeanette MacDonald's French princess in Naughty Marietta (1935), a huge box-office success made on a small budget. Eddy and MacDonald were paired twice more (Rose-Marie (1936), Maytime (1937)) when metropolitan Opera star Grace Moore was unavailable; they became an institution. Their last work together was in 1942. Critics nearly always panned his acting. He did have a large radio following (his theme song: "Short'nin Bread"). In 1959 Eddy and MacDonald issued a recording of their movie hits which sold well. In 1953 he had a fairly successful nightclub routine with Gale Sherwood which ran until his death in 1967. He and his wife Anne Denitz had no children.Make Mine Music (1945)
Narrator, Various Characters- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Comedian, composer, songwriter ("At Dusk", "I Came to Say Goodbye"), author and trombonist, educated in high school, then a trombonist with the Columbia Symphony (1931-1936). He was a member of the Bob Hope radio program, and appears in many films. Joining ASCAP in 1956, his other songs include "Life of a Sailor", "Sleighbells in the Sky", "Take Your Time", and "One Day".Make Mine Music (1945)
Narrator
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
March Hare- Actor
- Soundtrack
Johnny Lee was born on 4 July 1898 in Springfield, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Song of the South (1946), The Amos 'n Andy Show (1951) and The Black King (1932). He was married to Genevieve Turner and Anne Cox. He died on 12 December 1965 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Song of the South (1946)
Br’er Rabbit- Actor
- Soundtrack
Roy Glenn was born on 3 June 1914 in Pittsburg, Kansas, USA. He was an actor, known for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and Lydia Bailey (1952). He was married to Pauline (Lilla) Fractious. He died on 12 March 1971 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Song of the South (1946)
Br’er Frog- Helen Crozier is known for Song of the South (1946).Song of the South (1946)
Mother Possum - Producer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
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.Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
Mickey Mouse (partial)- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
At age 6 in 1935, Anita Gordon moved with her family from Texas to Hollywood where she became a successful child star. As a teenager, she achieved singing fame on network radio as a regular on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's show (allegedly, his famous dummy Charlie McCarthy was smitten with her). She was the voice who said "I don't talk to strangers" on the Buddy Clark hit "Linda" (1946), and she voiced the Singing Harp who helped Mickey Mouse escape from the Beanstalk Giant with "... in his right vest pocket you'll find a key..." for Disney in 1947. In the early days of television, Anita was a regular on the Ken Murray Show, and later a featured singer on the Tennessee Ernie Ford show on ABC. In 1948 she married Dale Sheets, who was later an MCA/Universal executive, and she gave birth to their three daughters. In the 1960s she appeared on various episodic television show, then enjoyed a mini-career as the "ghost singer" for various female film stars in movie musicals, including Jean Seberg in the role of Elizabeth in "Paint Your Wagon" (1969). In the 1980s and 1990s she wrote music and co-produced videos for various international clients including Philippine Airlines and Continental Airlines. Anita and Dale eventually divorced and she later married El Chan; they were married for 41 years. They retired to Newhall, California, where they stayed active and in touch with her three daughters, 9 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren. She was married to him for 41 years. Her health declined rapidly in the year before her death in 2015.Fun and Fancy Free (1947)
The Golden Harp- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Always bright and beaming from ear to ear, Irish singer Dennis Day's name and career remains synonymous with that of Jack Benny's, working with the star comedian on radio and TV for the entire duration. It was Jack who gave him his break in 1939 and Jack who kept him employed as a singer and naive comic sidekick (his "Gee, Mr. Benny!" became a well-known catchphrase on the show). Dennis in fact would play second-banana to the comedian until Benny's death in 1974.
Dennis was christened Owen Patrick McNulty on May 21, 1917 in Bronx, New York, the son of an Ireland-born stationary engineer. The strength and promise of his lilting tenor was first discovered while performing with his glee club at St. Patrick's Cathedral High School. Graduating from Manhattan College, he first had designs on a law career and starting singing in order to earn money for tuition. By himself, he recorded "I Never Knew Heaven Could Speak" and distributed the song out to various radio producers, one of whom presented it to Mary Livingston, Benny's wife. She was so taken that she insisted he be considered for her husband's popular radio show "The Jack Benny Show". When the show's then-tenor Kenny Baker objected to being a featherbrained foil to Benny on the show and gave notice, Dennis auditioned and won a regular spot, and the idea of law school became a thing of the past. Making his debut on the Benny show on October 8, 1939, Dennis' innocent-eyed teenager (he was actually 21 at the time) often drew more laughs than Benny himself in their rapport together. His career was interrupted by World War II when he served with the Navy. He was discharged in 1946.
His cherry-cheeked, wide-eyed charm delighted scores of radio fans and the fame Dennis received from the show drew invitations to other radio programs, and eventually his own radio show "A Day in the Life of Dennis Day" in 1946. Here he played (naturally) a naive soda jerk. But he never left Benny, staying true-blue to the comedian when The Jack Benny Program (1950) transferred to TV and became an institution for a decade and a half. Dennis also showed great flair as a mimic, impersonating a number of illustrious stars such as Ronald Colman, Jimmy Durante and James Stewart on the Benny program. Dubbed "America's Favorite Irish Tenor", The Dennis Day Show (1952) took life just two years after the Benny program went on the air. It enjoyed two seasons on TV before it was canceled.
Dennis also appeared in support of Benny on film. Buck Benny Rides Again (1940), marked Dennis' movie debut and in it he sang "My Kind of Country." Other sporadic filming emphasizing his vocal prowess were for the most part "B"-level musical entertainment. He co-starred with Judy Canova in the cornball comedy Sleepy Lagoon (1943); Anne Shirley in the romantic Music in Manhattan (1944); June Haver and Gloria DeHaven in I'll Get By (1950), in which he sang "McNamara's Band" and "There Will Never Be Another You", and; the Civil War-themed Golden Girl (1951) headlining Mitzi Gaynor as entertainer Lotta Crabtree in which Dennis crooned "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" and "California Moon." Despite these agreeable outings, he never came close to becoming a musical film star perhaps because he was too identified with his cheery, naive image on radio and TV. Once he finished The Girl Next Door (1953) which again starred Ms. Haver, Dennis was nowhere to be seen on celluloid for at least another two decades. Walt Disney also welcomed Dennis' sunny tenor in his animated features The Legend of Johnny Appleseed (1948), in which Dennis sang the title song, and Melody Time (1948).
Best known for his recording of Irish tunes, including such novelty songs as "Clancy Lowered the Boom", Dennis won over the ladies with his romantic covers of such ballads as "Mam'selle," "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" and "Mona Lisa." Occasionally he was given dramatic work on TV but nothing really came of it, coming off much better as a guest in musical variety shows.
Dennis legally adopted his professional name in 1944 against his family's wishes. The strict Irish-Catholic married Peggy Almquist in 1948 and the couple had ten children (six daughters, four sons). Dennis and his family settled in Los Angeles where he became an honorary mayor of Mandeville Canyon. He and his wife also owned an antique shop in Santa Monica for a time. He continued to perform at conventions and fairs throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and was seen only occasionally in film and TV parts as he refused any work he deemed objectionable. He died at age 72 in Los Angeles from Lou Gehrig's disease.Melody Time (1948)
Johnny Appleseed- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Roy Rogers (born Leonard Slye) moved to California in 1930, aged 18. He played in such musical groups as The Hollywood Hillbillies, Rocky Mountaineers, Texas Outlaws, and his own group, the International Cowboys. In 1934 he formed a group with Bob Nolan called Sons of the Pioneers. While in that group he was known as Leonard Slye, then Dick Weston. Their songs included "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". They first appeared in the western Rhythm on the Range (1936), starring Bing Crosby and Martha Raye. In 1936 he appeared as a bandit opposite Gene Autry in "The Old Coral". In 1937 Rogers went solo from "The Sons Of The Pioneeres", and made his first starring film in 1938, Under Western Stars (1938). He made almost 100 films. The Roy Rogers Show (1951) ran on NBC from October 1951 through 1957 and on CBS from 1961 to September 1964. In 1955, 67 of his feature films were released to television.Melody Time (1948)
Narrator- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Buddy Clark grew up in the Westend of Boston. As a youngster, he expressed strong interests in sports, body building, exercising, and one of his big dreams was to become a professional baseball player. Buddy even had plans to become a lawyer. He attended Northeastern Law School in Boston, however his love for music was stronger than his dreams of becoming a pro baseball player or an attorney. As a young boy Buddy sang as often as he could at gatherings, and in what today's times would be called "joints", local pubs, where the floors of the local pubs and ba rooms were covered with sawdust. He often times sang just to earn enough to pay for a square meal. Neighbors and friends, who heard this young lad sing were supportive; whether he sang on the streets or in a pub, he was well liked; it wasn't long before Buddy was appearing with local Boston bands, singing his heart out to supportive loyal Boston fans. At 27 years old the young Sam Goldberg was singing at a local wedding in Boston when he was heard by David Lilienthal, a proprietor of Boston's leading furriers, I.J. Fox, located on Washington Street in Boston. Sam became a protégé of Mr. Lilienthal who arranged music lessons for him and started him off on a professional career as a band vocalist and radio star. He appeared for nine years on a Boston radio show sponsored by I.J. Fox; Sam made two evening broadcasts and sang six days a week on morning shows. Sam was now on his way to a new musical career with his own Boston radio show, with a new name, were he was billed as Buddy Clark...a name that had more of a show business flair than his own. It wasn't too long that the Buddy Clark stylish unique baritone voice was catching on to local audiences in his own home state of Massachusetts. Within a few years after his successful Boston radio show, he was now ready to tackle the "Big Apple"...New York City, where singers often went to seek their musical careers by joining the big bands.... and Buddy was no exception. In 1934 he made his big band singing debut career in earnest as a vocalist with the Benny Goodman band on the "Let's Dance" radio show. Buddy was billed on several other top radio shows including the "Hit Parade" from 1936-1939. Buddy worked hard to achieve his musical goals. He even supplemented his vocal activity by appearing, often times unaccredited, on the transcription discs recorded with such giants of the big band era as Fred Rich, Archie Blyer, Freddy Martin, Lud Gluskin, Nat Brandywynne, and other popular bands of the radio stations that couldn't afford to have a live music program of their own. In fact, Buddy Clark's renown as a "ghost singer" was such that film producer Darryl F. Zanuck hired him to do the singing for actor Jack Haley in "Wake Up and Live", a 1937 movie about a popular radio singer who gets "Mike Fright". The Hollywood welcome mat was now laid down for Buddy. He was offered his own radio show called, "Here's to Romance" and he even played a small cameo role in the 1942 film "Seven Days Leave' which starred two of Hollywood's leading stars, Lucille Ball and Victor Mature. He also sang for actor Mark Stevens in the musical hit "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now". Buddy made scores of hit records many of them with Xavier Cugat's orchestra. The balding Clark who didn't care whether he lost his hair or not earned the title of the "Contented Crooner", partly because of his radio sponsor on the "Carnation Contented" program, and also because of his appeal to the bobby-sox fans. He didn't care if his fans swooned when he sang. Although fame and fortune came to Buddy Clark, in the 30's and 40's he was one who never forgot where he came from as a struggling singer of Boston. Every year he would return back to the Westend of Boston and perform for friends, and fans alike. Jdacob Burnes at the time was an official of the Westend House on Blossom Street in Boston, where Clark was an alumnus of the famous Westend House. Burnes recalled, "The young singer was a good looking boy, an excellent debater and a fine athlete. He was the catcher on the Wesend House baseball team and was on the basketball team." Buddy Clark put his career on hold by enlisting into the U.S. Army for three years during World War II. While serving his country, Buddy sand with many of the military bands until his discharge in 1945, in which he resumed his career. For the last ten years of his singing career as a super star in radio and a top ranking celebrity of the juke boxes, he had lived in an aura of success while earning over a $100,000 a year, which in those days would be equivalent to millions of dollars to popular singers of the 1990's and now of the 2000's. Buddy married twice. His first wife was Louise Dahl, the adopted daughter of famed hotelier, Ralph Hitz, who owned the famous New Yorker Hotel, as well as the Lexington, and several other New York hotels. Buddy and Louise had three children, all born between 1935 and 1939. Following their divorce, Buddy married Nedra Stevens. They had one daughter, Penelope, born in 1943. Penny, as she was called, died in 1950, as a result of being hit by a car as she ran across the street to meet her governess. Penny was a 'little friend' of Clark Gable, the Clark's next-door neighbor, who often shared 'little tea' with his young neighbor.
Buddy's career ended abruptly in the plane crash onto Beverly Boulevard on the 1st of October 1949.Melody Time (1948)
Narrator- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
American singer-songwriter who appeared in a number of low-budget Westerns, but was most renowned as the leader of the singing group, The Sons of the Pioneers. The son of an Army officer, Nolan attended the University of Arizona after his father retired to that state. He studied music and poetry in college, then drifted around the country writing songs. He took a lifeguard job in Los Angeles in 1929, then joined Tim Spencer and Leonard Slye (the future Roy Rogers) in a singing group called "The Rocky Mountaineers". The group evolved into "The Pioneer Trio" and then The Sons of the Pioneers. When Rogers left the group to become a singing cowboy in Westerns, Nolan became the de facto leader of "The Sons of Pioneers". The group became very popular on radio, due not only to its innovative western harmonizing, but also to the numerous songs Nolan composed for the group. Several of them, including "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Cool Water", became not only standards but classics of the style. The Sons of the Pioneers appeared in many B-Westerns, often performing in musical numbers, but just as often playing sidekicks to the stars, particularly Rogers. Nolan left the group in 1949 and concentrated on writing songs. He continued to record with the group, intermittently, through the 1950s. In 1979, he recorded his last album, "The Sound of a Pioneer". It was his first recording in nearly two decades. A friendly but introverted man who liked to keep to himself, Nolan had the looks, the charm, and the voice to compete with Rogers for stardom in musical Westerns, but chose rather to remain on the screen periphery as the amiable friend of the hero, devoting his energies to writing and singing some of the most memorable songs of the era. Nolan died in 1980.Melody Time (1948)
Narrator- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Beal was born James Andrew Bliedung on August 13, 1909, in Joplin, Missouri. The son of a department store owner and concert pianist, he began acting in school and church plays and decided to pursue it as a career following his B.S. degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. The more marquee-friendly stage moniker of "John Beal" came from the names of two close college friends that same year.
Following repertory theatre work, he began his Broadway run as an understudy and walk-on before earning his first lead in the short-lived play "Wild Waves" in 1932. Following excellent notices in the hit play "Another Language," John repeated his showcase role in the film version of Another Language (1933) opposite Helen Hayes. Declining a Hollywood contract at the time, he returned to Broadway in 1933 for "She Loves Me Not". It wasn't long, however, before he was front-and-center again in films and showing great promise in RKO movie parts opposite Katharine Hepburn in both The Little Minister (1934) and Break of Hearts (1935), the title role in Laddie (1935) co-starring Gloria Stuart, and in the prime role of Marius in the Charles Laughton/Fredric March version of Les Misérables (1935).
Briefly signed by MGM, in which his best role was as Gladys George's son in the studio's classic, tear-stained drama Madame X (1937), WWII took the wind out of his career sails, serving as a staff sergeant in the motion picture unit of the Army Air Force. Theatre, radio and film would take up much of his time in the post-WWII years. Prestigious stage productions over time included "The Voice of the Turtle," "Lend an Ear," "The Teahouse of the August Moon," "Our Town," "The Long Christmas Dinner," "The Front Page," "To Be Young Gifted and Black" and "The Little Foxes". Excellent performances on TV in "A Trip to Bountiful," "Twelve Angry Men" and "The Long Way Home" added flavor and distinction to his later career.
Sporadic film roles included I Am the Law (1938), The Cat and the Canary (1939), One Thrilling Night (1942), My Six Convicts (1952), The Vampire (1957), The Sound and the Fury (1959), The Bride (1973), Amityville 3-D (1983), and his last, The Firm (1993), in which he played a bearded villain. He was never able again to achieve his early cinematic prowess of the early 1930s. In the 1960s Beal made a dent in daytime soap dramas, in particular his Judge Vail in the cult vampire series Dark Shadows (1966).
Long married (1934-1986) to actress Helen Craig and the father of two daughters, he focused on his passion for portrait painting in later years. Beal died in 1997 at age 87 in Santa Cruz, California, from the lingering effects of a stroke.So Dear to My Heart (1948)
Adult Jeremiah, Narrator- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ken Carson was born on 14 November 1914 in Coalgate, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for San Fernando Valley (1944), Song of Nevada (1944) and Sunset in El Dorado (1945). He died on 7 April 1994 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA.So Dear to My Heart (1948)
The Owl- Bob Stanton was born on 14 April 1905 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He was married to Vivian Mims and Regine. He died on 12 June 1977 in Miami, Florida, USA.So Dear to My Heart (1948)
Danny - Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Born in London, Eric Blore came out of college and started his working life as an insurance agent. But while touring in Australia he took an interest in the stage and theater. He gave up his insurance job and turned to acting after returning to England. With his elfish long, straight nose, squint-eyed demeanor and a crisp voice, he successfully began a career starring in many shows and revues, focusing on traditional British comedy. Encouraged further, in 1923 he came to New York and was almost immediately using his London stage experience on Broadway. Though there were a few dramatic parts, he inevitably played comic roles in musical comedies and revues (in some of which he also received billing as a lyricist) regularly from 1923 to 1933. He would return once again some ten years later to take on multiple roles for Ziegfeld Follies of 1943. No stranger to film, as early as 1920 he had tried his hand in British cinema. And in 1926 he did the US silent version of The Great Gatsby (1926) that starred Warner Baxter. His familiar role as a head waiter began with his first Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film, Flying Down to Rio (1933). With a foot still on Broadway, in 1933 he played the waiter in the stage version of The Gay Divorcee and was then tapped to reprise the role in the film version with Fred and Ginger. Blore had been perfecting his basic comic characters since his London days -- a leering English gentlemen, brusque/wise-acre butler or waiter or other service provider -- with a lockjawed British accent. These characters accompanied by Blore's flawlessly timed delivery were thoroughly applicable and effective as he moved permanently to Hollywood character acting. He played a fair spectrum of other roles, even in a few rare dramas, such as the adventure The Soldier and the Lady (1937) and Island of Lost Men (1939).
Blore was very busy with movies from 1934 through most of the 1940s. He appeared in five of the nine Fred and Ginger dance musicals. Some of his best mugging and scripted lines were in Top Hat (1935) and Shall We Dance (1937) of that series. He was also cast very effectively as valet/butler Jamison in the screen adaptations of the Wolfe Kaufman Lone Wolf mystery novel series. There were eleven films between 1940 and 1947, with all but the last three starring the dashing, sonorous-voiced Warren William (who had a greater profile than 'The Great Profile', John Barrymore) as Michael Lanyard. This was a popular series with first-rate scripts and good production values to keep the public coming back for more. Blore was also invited into the company of stock players ruled over by zany comedy director Preston Sturges. Though Blore only did two films for Sturges, his role in the first of these, The Lady Eve (1941), was a Blore tour de force. Playing the suave confidence man, Pearly, to his old bunko acquaintances Barbara Stanwyck and Charles Coburn, he took the role of pseudo-wealthy Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith out to fleece the local American business gentry. His scene with a gullible Henry Fonda taking in Sir Alfred's concocted story of Stanwyck's being a twin daughter of the lady of the manor by way of her coachman is a delight, punctuated with Blore interrupting perplexed Fonda's questions with a loud shhhhhhh of silence at each.
Inevitably, the parts started to become less frequent. Several of Blore's 1940s movies were with lesser known up-and-comers or older stars such as himself. Still, he enjoyed a variety of roles, including the opportunity of animation immortality when Disney chose him for the voice of Mr. Toad in the classic short The Wind in the Willows (1949). But for two widely spaced appearances, Blore essentially retired by 1955.
And as sometimes is the case when personalities move into obscurity, their deaths are prematurely announced. Such was the case with Blore when the New Yorker journalist Kenneth Tynan reported him as having already passed on. Blore's lawyer raised a flurry, as did the editor of the New Yorker, who claimed the periodical had never had to print a retraction. The night before the highly profiled retraction appeared, Blore indeed passed away. And the next morning the New Yorker was the only publication with the wrong information. It seems likely Blore would have been particularly tickled with the irony of this last comedic bit in honor of his passing.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
J. Thaddeus Toad Esq.- Actor
- Soundtrack
J. Pat had a warm smile, twinkling eyes, and an Irish name. He was born in Burnley, England, and began his acting career in British musical halls. J. Pat came to the USA at the outbreak of World War II. He also worked on the Broadway stage during the 1940s and 1950s. J. Pat was a very familiar face on TV sitcoms and dramas for 3 decades, where he played mostly uncle and grandfather types. He made over 100 TV guest appearances, and was in groundbreaking series such as the The Twilight Zone (1959) and The Untouchables (1959). J. Pat performed a lot in radio with his versatile voice work, and he later used his talent in animated cartoons, providing many vocal characterizations. And the children always loved J. Pat the most. Many baby boomers have fond childhood memories of his portrayals in the TV series The Adventures of Spin and Marty (1955) and The New Adventures of Spin and Marty (1957) and of course he played Mr. Harry Burns in My Favorite Martian (1963). J. Pat was a kind and gentle man, who made this world a better place for having been here, and he left his legacy on film.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Cyril Proudbottom
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Tweedledee, Tweedledum, Walrus, Carpenter, Mother Oyster
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
Jasper Badden, The Colonel
Mary Poppins (1964)
Bloodhound, Horse, Master of Hounds, Pearly Drummer, Penguin Waiter, Photographer, Reporter
The Jungle Book (1967)
Colonel Hathi, Buzzy the Vulture
Robin Hood (1973)
Otto the Blacksmith- Actor
- Soundtrack
He had drama lessons as a child and at 12 did a season at the Old Vic, In 1955 he did his national service in the Royal Signals where he took up boxing as a light welter weight and is still a member of the Amateur Boxing Association.By the time of being demobbed he'd lost his theatre contacts and was too old for juvenile roles and too young for 25 year olds so spent time in factories, and drove lorries., 1962 Arnold Wesker asked him to play Charlie Wingate in Chips With Everything, which he eventually left to take the part of Rita Tuhingham's husband in the film Leather Boys.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Mr. Mole- Writer
- Actor
- Animation Department
Campbell Grant was born on 7 November 1909 in Berkeley, California, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Fantasia (1940), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) and Pinocchio (1940). He died on 24 March 1992 in Carpinteria, California, USA.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Angus MacBadger- Actor
- Soundtrack
Claud Allister was born on 3 October 1888 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1937), Bulldog Drummond (1929) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). He was married to Daisy Isabel Douglas Overend (aka Dorothy Overend, actress), Barbara Fay and Gwen Dowling. He died on 26 July 1970 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Mr. Rat- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1892, but three years later his family was forced to flee the country because his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy at a time when Dutch-British conflicts were leading to the Boer War. The Rathbones escaped to England, where Basil and his two younger siblings, Beatrice and John, were raised. Their mother, Anna Barbara (George), was a violinist, who was born in Grahamstown, South Africa, of British parents, and their father, Edgar Philip Rathbone, was a mining engineer born in Liverpool. From 1906 to 1910 Rathbone attended Repton School, where he was more interested in sports--especially fencing, at which he excelled--than studies, but where he also discovered his interest in the theater. After graduation he planned to pursue acting as a profession, but his father disapproved and suggested that his son try working in business for a year, hoping he would forget about acting. Rathbone accepted his father's suggestion and worked as a clerk for an insurance company--for exactly one year. Then he contacted his cousin Frank Benson, an actor managing a Shakespearean troupe in Stratford-on-Avon.
Rathbone was hired as an actor on the condition that he work his way through the ranks, which he did quite rapidly. Starting in bit parts in 1911, he was playing juvenile leads within two years. In 1915 his career was interrupted by the First World War. During his military service, as a second lieutenant in the Liverpool Scottish 2nd Battalion, he worked in intelligence and received the Military Cross for bravery. In 1919, released from military service, he returned to Stratford-on-Avon and continued with Shakespeare but after a year moved onto the London stage. The year after that he made his first appearance on Broadway and his film debut in the silent Innocent (1921).
For the remainder of the decade Rathbone alternated between the London and New York stages and occasional appearances in films. In 1929 he co-wrote and starred as the title character in a short-running Broadway play called "Judas". Soon afterwards he abandoned his first love, the theater, for a film career. During the 1920s his roles had evolved from the romantic lead to the suave lady-killer to the sinister villain (usually wielding a sword), and Hollywood put him to good use during the 1930s in numerous costume romps, including Captain Blood (1935), David Copperfield (1935), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Anna Karenina (1935), The Last Days of Pompeii (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Tower of London (1939), The Mark of Zorro (1940) and others. Rathbone earned two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1936) and as King Louis XI in If I Were King (1938).
However, it was in 1939 that Rathbone played his best-known and most popular character, Sherlock Holmes, with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, first in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and then in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), which were followed by 12 more films and numerous radio broadcasts over the next seven years.
Feeling that his identification with the character was killing his film career, Rathbone went back to New York and the stage in 1946. The next year he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Dr. Sloper in the Broadway play "The Heiress," but afterwards found little rewarding stage work. Nevertheless, during the last two decades of his life, Rathbone was a very busy actor, appearing on numerous television shows, primarily drama, variety and game shows; in occasional films, such as Casanova's Big Night (1954), The Court Jester (1955), Tales of Terror (1962) and The Comedy of Terrors (1963); and in his own one-man show, "An Evening with Basil Rathbone", with which he toured the U.S.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Narrator
The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Sherlock Holmes- Alec Harford was born on 7 September 1888 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Heart of the North (1938), Botany Bay (1952) and Men in Exile (1937). He died on 31 March 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Mr. Winky, Jailer, Postman - Actor
- Additional Crew
Leslie Denison was born on 16 June 1905 in Warwickshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Black Arrow (1948), The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946) and The Fighting O'Flynn (1949). He died on 25 September 1992 in Austin, Texas, USA.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Weasel 1, Judge- Writer
- Additional Crew
Edmond Stevens was born on 5 February 1954 in Burlington, Vermont, USA. He is a writer, known for The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979), Skating to New York (2013) and Promised Land (1996).The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Weasel 2, Policeman, Count Clerk- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington, the fourth of seven children of Catherine (Harrigan) and Harry Lincoln Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper. He was of English and Irish descent. Crosby studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker, left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932. His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope. He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). Playing golf was what he liked to do best. He died at age 74 playing golf at a course outside Madrid, Spain, after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Ichabod, Brom Bones, Narrator- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ilene Woods was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of a backstage mom who was responsible for Ilene getting her show biz start on the stage at 2. At 14, she received an offer to top-line her own radio show once she became available at the end of that school year during a vacation in New York City. The Ilene Woods Show soon started its run on the Blue Network as a 3-nights-a-week, 15-minute musical series. She then did radio work in Chicago before moving to California, where she landed her first & only on-screen movie role (On Stage Everybody (1945)) as well as a stint on the Jack Carson-starring radio series Sealtest Village Store. Her songwriter-friends Mack David & Jerry Livingston asked her to record 2 of their newest songs, not telling her that they were for the upcoming Disney film Cinderella (1950). When Walt Disney heard her voice on the recordings, he chose her to voice that film's title role.Cinderella (1950)
Cinderella- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
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." Audrey 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 Lumpk 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."Cinderella (1950)
Lady Tremaine AKA The Evil Stepmother
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Maleficent- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Rhoda Williams was born on 3 July 1930 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Cinderella (1950), Space Master X-7 (1958) and High School Hellcats (1958). She was married to David Van Meter. She died on 8 March 2006 in Eugene, Oregon, USA.Cinderella (1950)
Drizella Tremaine- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Lucille Bliss was an American voice actress from New York City who was known for voicing Smurfette from The Smurfs, Anastasia from Cinderella and Ms. Bitters from Invader Zim. She voiced in other animated projects and video games including Robots and The Secret of NIMH. She passed away in November 8th, 2012.Cinderella (1950)
Anastasia Tremaine
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
The Lazy Daisies, Tulips
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
Kanine Krunchies commercial jingle- Ethnic bald-domed character actor Luis Van Rooten was born November 29, 1906, in Mexico City, but raised in the United States and would become known in post-war Hollywood as a specialist in multiple dialects. Studying at the University of Pennsylvania, he received his B.A. and set up a sturdy practice as an architect before making a dramatic transition into acting sometime during WWII. He built up his reputation initially on stage at the Cleveland Playhouse, then in radio serials, notably playing the titular sleuth in "The Adventures of Nero Wolfe." He also did special French, Italian and Spanish broadcasts during the war
After serving in the Armed Forces, he settled into post-war films, playing outright villains or slick, shady suspects. Interestingly, he bookended his film career impersonating the nefarious Nazi ringleader Heinrich Himmeler (1900-1945), who organized the extermination of millions of Jews during the Third Reich, in the films Hitler's Madman (1943) and Operation Eichmann (1961). In between he backed up the various studio's top stars including Alan Ladd in the rugged adventures Two Years Before the Mast (1946), Beyond Glory (1948) and Saigon (1947); Ray Milland and Charles Laughton in the exceptional film noir The Big Clock (1948);, Edward G. Robinson in Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) and Kirk Douglas in "Champion" (1949). One notable exception from the usual villainous typecast was his role as a plainclothes cop in the classic film Detective Story (1951).
By the 1950's Van Rooten had moved with ease into TV drama, performing in a number of live dramas during its vital "Golden Age." His regular work in TV series included One Man's Family (1949) and _"Major Dell Conway of the Flying Tigers" (1951)._ He is remembered by 50s TV fans as the fight manager in "The Joe Palooka Story"(1954-55). His slick, cultivated tones were utilized quite frequently in various documentaries and narrative projects. In later years (the 1960s), Van Rooten was seen less and less. He eventually retired during the decade to become an author and expert on horticultural subjects. He also enjoyed painting as a creative sideline. He died in 1973 at the age of 66 of unreported causes in Massachusetts.Cinderella (1950)
The King, Grand Duke - Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
In the early days of 1950s science-fiction, one of the first people to become identified with the genre was actor William Phipps. Aside from furnishing the voice of Prince Charming in Disney's cartoon classic Cinderella (1950), Phipps also hid his boyish face beneath a beard as the star of Arch Oboler's end-of-the-world melodrama Five (1951); made a token appearance in Oboler's The Twonky (1953); encountered Martians in both Invaders from Mars (1953) and The War of the Worlds (1953); and took on the Abominable Snowman as one of the leads in The Snow Creature (1954). Most notoriously, he even grappled with Moon maidens set on world conquest in the almost indescribable Cat-Women of the Moon (1953). Phipps was born in Vincennes, Indiana, and grew up in St. Francisville, Illinois; he knew from boyhood that he was destined to be an actor and appeared in several plays in grade school and at Eastern Illinois University. Hitchhiking to Hollywood in 1941, he worked on the stage and later in films, beginning with RKO's Crossfire (1947). Over the next 60 years he amassed a long list of film and TV credits; he also did commercials and voiceover work, including the narration for the special 190-minute TV version of David Lynch's Dune (1984).Cinderella (1950)
Prince Charming- Betty Lou Gerson was born on 20 April 1914 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. She was an actress, known for One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), Cinderella (1950) and Cats Don't Dance (1997). She was married to Louis Rocco Lauria and Joe Ainley. She died on 12 January 1999 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Cinderella (1950)
Narrator
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
Cruella de Vil, Miss Birdwell - Actor
- Soundtrack
Mike Douglas was born on 11 August 1920 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Cinderella (1950), The Mike Douglas Show (1961) and Bugsy (1991). He was married to Genevieve Purnell. He died on 11 August 2006 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA.Cinderella (1950)
Prince Charming (singing)- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
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.Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Alice
Peter Pan (1953)
Wendy Darling- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
An old-fashioned comedian, who, by recommendation by his son Keenan Wynn, became one of the world's most beloved clowns, and one of the best actors of his time. He was born on November 9, 1886. He performed in the Ziegfeld Follies, and later had a son Keenan in 1916. He later wrote his own shows, then known as the Perfect Fool. In 1941 at age 54, he became a grandfather. He became popular for roles throughout the 1950s and 1960s, best remembered for The Ed Wynn Show (1949), and for Mary Poppins (1964) as Uncle Albert, who reflects his old style charm. He continued to perform, until he died in 1966 at age 79.Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Mad Hatter- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
London-born character actor George Richard Haydon was noted for his put-on nasal delivery and pompous, fussy manner. Haydn had a laborious start to his show business career, selling tickets in the box office of London's Daly Theatre. This was followed by an unsuccessful stint with a comedy act in musical revue. For a change of pace, he became overseer of a Jamaican banana plantation only to see it wiped out by a hurricane.
Returning home, he appeared in the 1926 West End production of 'Betty of Mayfair' and, soon after, also began to act on radio. It was in this medium where he first found success, creating his signature character: the perpetually befuddled nasally-voiced fish expert and mother's boy Edwin Carp. Haydn later immortalized the titular character in a book, titled "The Journal of Edwin Carp". The Carp routine opened the door for Haydn to appear with Beatrice Lillie on Broadway in Noël Coward's 'Set to Music' (1939) and this, in turn, resulted in a contract with 20th Century Fox.
While his first major screen role in Charley's Aunt (1941) was relatively straight-laced, he was more often seen in comedic roles where his lugubrious face and dignified, sometimes unctuous presence could be employed to scene-stealing effect. His notable characterizations in this vein include the over-enunciating Professor Oddly in Ball of Fire (1941), Rogers (the butler) in And Then There Were None (1945) and Mr. Wilson in Cluny Brown (1946). He essayed a rare villainous role as the odious Earl of Radcliffe in the period drama Forever Amber (1947) and was back to his usual form as Mr. Appleton in Sitting Pretty (1948). In The Late George Apley (1947), he played the character of Horatio Willing "with a broad edge of wheezy burlesque" (so wrote Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, March 21, 1947).
In the late 40s, Haydn made a brief foray into directing. Of his three films for Paramount, the Bing Crosby vehicle Mr. Music (1950) enjoyed the best critical reviews. Among his later appearances on screen, that of Trapp family friend and promoter Max Detweiler in The Sound of Music (1965), is the one which most often comes to mind. Over the years, he also made an impression as a voice actor in animated cartoons, notably on Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and as the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland (1951). He had frequent guest roles on television and starred in one of the best-remembered episodes of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone (1959) ("A Thing About Machines"), as the arrogant machine-hating pedant Bartlett Finchley who loses a pitched battle with his household appliances, in particular his car. Haydn also caricatured a Japanese businessman in an episode of Bewitched (1964).
In private life, Haydn was a rather reclusive individual who liked horticulture and shunned interviews.Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Caterpillar- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bill Thompson was born on 8 July 1913 in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Lady and the Tramp (1955), Peter Pan (1953) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). He was married to Mary Margaret McBride. He died on 15 July 1971 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Alice in Wonderland (1951)
White Rabbit, Pat, Dodo
Peter Pan (1953)
Mr. Smee
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Jock, Joe, Bull, Dachsie, Jim’s Friend
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
King Hubert
The Aristocats (1970)
Uncle Waldo- Actress
- Additional Crew
Heather Grace Angel was born in Oxford, England, on February 9, 1909. She dabbled on the stage for a time before coming to California to try her luck on the screen. Heather was 20 years old when she landed a bit part for the 1929 film, Bulldog Drummond (1929). Although she didn't know it at the time, she would become a staple of that particular series eight years hence. That movie would be her only foray onto celluloid for two years. When Heather did return, she did so in 1931's A Night in Montmartre (1931). Not only did she land a part, but it was the leading role in the picture, starring as Annette Lefevre. Later that year, she again landed the leading role in the acclaimed The Hound of the Baskervilles (1931). Throughout the 1930s, Heather's services were in high demand. She kept very busy in such productions as Men of Steel (1932), Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933), Orient Express (1934), and Daniel Boone (1936). In 1937, she began playing Phyllis Clavering in the serial about Bulldog Drummond. Audiences delighted in catching the latest adventures of Drummond. After the last Drummond film, Bulldog Drummond's Bride in 1939, Heather went on her way in other films. Although she didn't have the leading role, she did appear in top movies such as 1940's Kitty Foyle (1940) and Pride and Prejudice (1940) and in 1943's Cry 'Havoc' (1943). After Lifeboat (1944) in 1944, Heather wasn't seen again on the silver screen until The Saxon Charm (1948) in 1948. As with other actresses, Heather's time had come and gone. Her last appearance anywhere was in 1979's television mini-series, Backstairs at the White House (1979) when she played President 'Harry Truman''s mother-in-law. On December 13, 1986, Heather died in Santa Barbara, California, of cancer. She was 77 years old.Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Alice’s Sister
Peter Pan (1953)
Mary Darling- Actor
- Soundtrack
Joseph Kearns was born on 12 February 1907 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was an actor, known for Alice in Wonderland (1951), Dennis the Menace (1959) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). He died on 17 February 1962 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Doorknob- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Pearl Walker (Queenie Leonard), actress and singer was born on 7 April 1905. She had already amassed 20 years of stage and screen experience when, in 1941, she made the first of more than 30 Hollywood films. She also appeared in cabaret in England and in the United States, starred in a one-woman show, acted in television sitcoms, and provided voices for Disney cartoons. She died on January 17, 2002 in her adopted homeland of the United States.Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Bird in the Tree, Snooty Iris
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
Princess the Cow