| June Foray | |
|---|---|
Foray's 90th birthday celebration, 2007 |
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| Born | June Lucille Forer September 18, 1917 Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Voice actress |
| Years active | 1943-present |
| Spouse | Hobart Donavan (1954-76; deceased) |
| Awards | Annie Awards Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Television Production 1997 Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Television Production 1996 Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries |
June Foray (born September 18, 1917) is an American voice actress, best known as the voice of many animated characters (particularly Lucifer from Cinderella, Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Cindy Lou Who, Jokey Smurf, Witch Hazel, Granny, Natasha Fatale and Nell Fenwick). Her career has encompassed radio, theatrical shorts, feature films, television, record albums (particularly with Stan Freberg), video games, talking toys and other media. Foray was also one of the founding members of ASIFA-Hollywood, the society devoted to promoting and encouraging animation.
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Foray was born as June Lucille Forer, the second of three children (the other two were her elder brother Bertram and younger sister Geraldine) of Maurice Forer and Ida E. Robinson in Springfield, Massachusetts,[1] on September 18, 1917 (but some sources have incorrectly cited 1918, 1919 and 1920 as her year of birth).[2][3] There her voice was first broadcast in a local radio drama when she was 12 years old; by age 15, she was doing regular radio voice work. Two years later, she moved to Los Angeles, California, and soon became a popular voice actress on radio, with regular appearances on coast-to-coast broadcasts starring Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope and Danny Thomas.
In the 1940s, she also began film work, including a few appearances acting in live-action movies, but mostly doing voiceovers for animated cartoons. At 4 feet 11 inches (1.50 m), Foray's diminutive stature somewhat limited her stage and on-camera acting career.
For Walt Disney, she played Lucifer the Cat in the feature film Cinderella, a mermaid in Peter Pan and her Witch Hazel character; Foray would later be the voice of Grandmother Fa in Mulan in 1998; she also did a variety of voices in Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker cartoons. For Warner Brothers Cartoons, she was Granny (whom she has played, on and off, since 1955, taking over for Bea Benaderet), owner of Tweety and Sylvester, and, memorably, a series of witches, including Witch Hazel, for Chuck Jones.
She voice acted on The Smurfs as Jokey Smurf and Mother Nature, Ursula in George of the Jungle, and on How the Grinch Stole Christmas as Cindy Lou Who, asking "Santa" why he's taking their tree. She was the voice of the original "Chatty Cathy" doll.
She voiced evil characters as well, such as the "Talky Tina" doll in the iconic The Twilight Zone episode ("Living Doll") as well as all of the female roles in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1975), including the villainous cobra Nagaina. (Legendary actor and director Orson Welles voiced her husband, the cobra "Nag".)[4]
Foray worked for Hanna-Barbera, including The Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The Jetsons and many others. She has done extensive voice acting for Stan Freberg's commercials, albums and 1957 radio series, memorably as secretary to the werewolf advertising executive. Foray has also appeared in several Rankin/Bass TV specials in the 1960s and 1970s, most notably as the original voice of the young girl, Karen, in the TV special, Frosty the Snowman (although only her singing parts remain in current airings, after Rankin-Bass re-edited the special a few years after it debuted, with Foray's speaking parts re-dubbed with an uncredited voice).
Most recognizable, though, is her work for Jay Ward: she played nearly every female on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, including Natasha Fatale and Nell Fenwick, as well as male lead character Rocket J. Squirrel (a.k.a. Rocky Squirrel). Foray also voiced Magica De Spell and Ma Beagle in the televised cartoon DuckTales. Most significantly in the later part of her career, she had a leading role voicing Grammi Gummi on the television series, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Walt Disney Pictures' first major animated television series, where she worked with her Rocky & Bullwinkle co-star Bill Scott for the final time until his death in 1985.
Foray and Stan Freberg are among the few surviving voice artists from the Golden Age of theatrical cartoons. She remains active to this day, with roles in recent animated films, such as Mulan (as Grandmother Fa) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Around 2003, she was a special guest star in an episode of the Powerpuff Girls. She is also known for voicing Wheezy, one of the toon patrol weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. In October 2006, she portrayed Susan B. Anthony on three episodes of the podcast The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd.
Renowned animator/director Chuck Jones is reported to have said, "June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc, Mel Blanc was the male June Foray."[5]
In 1995, ASIFA-Hollywood, a chapter of the Association Internationale du Film d'Animation (the International Animated Film Association), established the June Foray Award,[6] which is awarded to "individuals who have made a significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation." Foray was the first recipient of the award. In 2007, Foray became a contributor to ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive Project.
In 2007, Britt Irvin became the first person ever to voice a character in a cartoon remake that had been previously voiced by Foray in the original series (and so far is the only person ever to have done so), when she started voicing the character Ursula (Foray's former character) in the new George of the Jungle cartoon series on the Cartoon Network. Foray was also the voice of Queen Tabitha in the Don Bluth film, Thumbelina.
Foray guest-voiced only once on The Simpsons, in the Season 1 episode "Some Enchanted Evening" as the receptionist for the Rubber Baby Buggy Bumper Babysitting Service. This was a play on a Rocky & Bullwinkle gag years earlier in which none of the cartoon's characters, including narrator William Conrad, was able to pronounce "rubber baby buggy bumpers" unerringly. Foray was later homaged in The Simpsons, in the season 8 episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" in which a character named June Bellamy is introduced as the voice behind both Itchy & Scratchy. She was voiced by series regular Tress MacNeille, though her "Itchy" and "Scratchy" voices were performed by Dan Castellaneta and Harry Shearer, respectively.
Foray appeared on camera in a major role only once, in Sabaka as a high priestess of a fire cult. She also appeared on camera in an episode of Green Acres as a Mexican telephone operator.
She was often called for ADR voice work for television and feature films some notable works include dubbing the voice for Mary Badham in the Twilight Zone episode "The Bewitchin' Pool" and the voices for Sean and Michael Brody in some scenes of Jaws (film), it was mostly because the children's voices were difficult to distinguish during windy day filming.
In 1991, she provided her voice as the sock-puppet talk-show-host Scary Mary on the television show Married With Children. She played gag cameos in both 1992's Boris & Natasha and 2000's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Another on-camera appearance was in the 1984 TV sitcom The Duck Factory, which starred Jim Carrey.
In 2000, Foray reprised her role as Rocky the Flying Squirrel in Universal Pictures' live-action/CGI animated film The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, co-starring and produced by Robert DeNiro. On Season Three, Episode One ("The Thin White Line") of Family Guy, Foray reprised her role as Rocky the Flying Squirrel in a visual gag with a single line ("And now, here's something we hope you'll really like!").
Foray voiced the wife of the man getting dunked ("Don't tell him, Carlos!") in Pirates of the Caribbean. In November 2009, Foray appeared twice on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: in one episode as Ruth, a pie-maker trapped in Bubbie's stomach, and in another episode as Kelly, a young boy having a birthday party and as Kelly's Mom and Captain K'Nuckles' kindergarten teacher.
In 2011, Foray reprised her role as Granny in Cartoon Network's new series, The Looney Tunes Show. That year, she received the Comic-Con Icon Award at the 2011 Scream Awards. She also appeared as Granny in the theatrically released Looney Tunes short, "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat"[7], which was shortlisted for Academy Award consideration[8].