Greatest voice actors in Animation

A bandleader of the 1940s and a radio, film, and TV actor who always seemed to imply allegiance to the former Confederate States of America. Was a principal of long standing among the comedian Jack Benny's radio retinue, parlaying his popularity into his own radio series, in which his wife, Alice Faye, co-starred.

James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi, USA. At an early age, he started to take dramatic lessons to calm himself down. It appeared to work as he has since starred in many films over a 40-year period, beginning with the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. He is probably best known for his role as Darth Vader (for the voice only...

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. Walt Disney was so impressed with Kathyrn's long curly blonde hair, sparkling eyes and acting ability, that he chose her as the model for Alice.

Born in 1952, Jim grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, and eventually moved to New Orleans. There he designed Mardi Gras floats, was a singer, door-to-door salesman, and a Louisiana riverboat deckhand. Then he moved to Anaheim, California, where he started his career playing Lionel from the program Dumbo's Circus.

The son of a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain, James, and his wife Patricia, a school secretary, Tim Curry studied Drama and English at Cambridge and at Birmingham University, from which he graduated with Combined Honors. His first professional success was in the London production of 'Hair,' followed by more work in the Royal Shakespeare Company...

Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. was born on November 17, 1944, in Neptune, New Jersey. His father, Daniel, Sr., was a small business owner whose ventures included a dry cleaning shop, a dairy outlet, a diner, and a pool hall. His mother, Julia, was a homemaker. While growing up in Asbury Park, his parents sent him to private schools...

Amelia Fiona J. Driver was born January 31, 1970 in Finsbury Park, London. Her mother, Gaynor Churchward, was a designer and former couture model and her father, Ronnie Driver, was a businessman. She has a sister, Kate Driver, who's a model and a producer. Minnie's mother was her father's mistress...

Madeline Kahn was born on September 29, 1942, in Boston, Massachusetts. She began her acting career in high school and went on to university where she trained as an opera singer and starred in several campus productions, ultimately earning a doctorate in her chosen field. Her finest years came in Paper Moon with Ryan O'Neal...

June Foray was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on September 18. Various years of birth have been given for her: 1917, 1919, 1920 and 1925; 1917 seems the most plausible year, since it was attributed to her in an interview that she did in the year 2000 (when the The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle movie came out). ...

Whoopi Goldberg was born in the Chelsea section of Manhattan in 1955 as Caryn Elaine Johnson. She worked in a funeral parlor and as a bricklayer while taking small parts on Broadway. She moved to California and worked with improv groups, including Spontaneous Combustion, and developed her skills as a stand-up comedienne...

Born in California, Tom Hanks grew up in what he calls a "fractured" family. His parents were pioneers in the development of marriage dissolution law in that state, and Tom moved around a lot, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no abuse, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood...

Born March 6, 1968 in Queens, New York, she is the third of six kids. Her father, Peter, was trained as a concert violinist. Her mother, Anne, is a nurse. Both are Irish immigrants. Moira was raised in Ronkonkoma, NY. She attended Connetquot Senior High School and graduated in the class of 1986. Later Moira attended Marymount Manhattan College...

Tom Kenny grew up in East Syracuse, New York. When Tom was young he was into comic books, drawing funny pictures and collecting records. Tom turned to stand-up comedy in Boston and San Francisco. This led to appearances on every cable show spawned by the stand-up epidemic of the 80's and 90's as well as stints on The Dennis Miller Show...

An out-of-wedlock child, Eartha Kitt was born in the cotton fields of South Carolina, a pregnancy resulting from the rape by a white plantation owner and a sharecropper mother of African-American and Cherokee Native American descent. Given away by her mother, she arrived in Harlem at age nine, and at 15 she quit high school to work in a Brooklyn factory...

Born to immigrants in Queens, New York, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Lucy's mother is from Beijing, and her father is from Shanghai. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts, the energetic actress is finally earning her stripes as an across-the-board leading lady...

Eddie Murphy's father died when Eddie was quite young, and he, his brother, and step-brother were raised by his mother, a telephone-company employee, and his stepfather, a foreman at a Breyer's Ice Cream plant. His comic talent was evident from an early age, and by 15 he was writing and performing his own routines at youth centers and local bars...

Ming-Na (translated her name means "enlightenment") was born on the island of Macau, a Portuguese territory located 40 miles from Hong Kong that was returned to China in 1999. Her mother Lin Chan Wen divorced her father when Ming-Na was only a toddler. She has an older brother named Jonathan. After the divorce...

Well-known, king-sized actor and voice artist Kevin Michael Richardson was born in Bronx, New York. He is, perhaps mostly recognizable for his deep voice, which he uses in many of his works. Richardson is a classically trained actor. He first gained recognition as one of only eight U.S. high school students selected for the National Foundation for the Arts' "Arts '82" program...

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 was born Andy Serkis on April 20, 1964, in Ruislip Manor, West London, England. He has three sisters and a brother. His father, an ethnic Armenian, named Serkissian, was a Medical Doctor working abroad, in Iraq, and the Serkis family spent a lot of time traveling around the Middle East. For the first ten years of his life Andy Serkis used to go backwards and forwards between Baghdad and London...

John Cleese was born on October 27, 1939, in Weston-Super-Mare, England. He was born into a family of modest means, his father being an insurance salesman; but he was nonetheless sent off to private schools to obtain a good education. Here he was often tormented for his height, having reached a height of six feet by the age of twelve...

Comic brat extraordinaire David Spade was born on July 22, 1964, in Birmingham, Michigan, the youngest of three brothers. Raised in both Scottsdale (from age four) and Casa Grande, Arizona, he graduated with a degree in business from Arizona State University in 1986. A natural prankster most of his life...

Mae was born in Los Angeles, California to Pat Musick, a voice artist, and Jeff Whitman, a personal manager and set construction coordinator. She began her career with a voice over for a Tyson Chicken commercial. Whitman attended Ribét Academy, a private preparatory school in Los Angeles. She was later transferred to Whitefish Bay High School where she graduated...

Elijah Jordan Wood was born on January 28, 1981, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Warren and Debbie Wood. He has an older brother Zack and a younger sister Hannah Wood. At an early age Elijah showed a knack for entertaining and wowing audiences, and his mother decided to take him to Los Angeles for an Annual International Modeling and Talent Association convention...