Biography for
Frank Welker More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

12 March 1946, Denver, Colorado, USA

Birth Name

Franklin W. Welker

Height

5' 8" (1.73 m)

Trade Mark

Is often cast in animated production as the "voice" of various animal characters.

Trivia

Referred to in Hollywood as a voice god.

Has shared two roles with Leonard Nimoy. When the third season of "The Transformers" (1984) came around, Frank took the role of Galvatron that Leonard Nimoy had taken in The Transformers: The Movie (1986). And in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Frank provided the screams of Leonard Nimoy's most famous character, Spock.

Provided the voice for 8 of the original 14 Decepticons in "The Transformers" (1984) cartoon: Megatron, Soundwave, Skywarp, Laserbeak, Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage, and Buzzsaw. He voiced two of the original Autobots as well: Trailbreaker and Mirage, as well as one of the Dinobots (Sludge) that also appeared in the first season.

He has done every voicing of Freddy "Fred" Jones for all of the Scooby-Doo series with the sole exception of "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" (1988). Even in parodies and cameos on different TV shows, he has always done this voice.

Has done voices for both the original Star Trek film series and the television series "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995).

He also did the animal voice effects including Dumbo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

In "Tiny Toon Adventures" (1990), he voiced Furrball, Gogo Dodo, Calamity Coyote, Little Beeper, Byron Basset, Uncle Stinky Pig, Henry Bear, and Ralph the Guard who later appeared in "Animaniacs" (1993), where Frank not only voiced Ralph, but also voiced Thaddeus Plotz, Buttons, Runt, Flavio Hippo, and Chicken Boo.

His broad spectrum of character voices, noises, and other vocal effects that have appeared over the last 40 years in motion pictures, have vaulted him to number one on the "All Time Top 100 Stars at the Box office" list. The revenue of films he has participated in have generated over 12 billion dollars worldwide. His work in over 90 films has put him ahead of Eddie Murphy, Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks and Samuel L. Jackson.

Although he never met with the producers or the director Michael Bay, Bay felt his Welker's G1 Megatron voice did not fit the film and Bay's new interpretation. Ironically, he recreated the G1 voice for Transformers: The Game (2007) (VG) based on the movie, and was once again reunited with his old nemesis Optimus Prime played by Peter Cullen.

One of the most prolific voice actors of all time, he has been involved with some of the most popular and important animated programs of all time as well, beginning with his role as level-headed leader Fred Jones in "Scooby-Doo", the evil Decepticon leader Megatron in "The Transformers" (1984) (among others), Dr. Ray Stantz in "The Real Ghost Busters" (1986), and a variety of supporting roles in "G.I. Joe" (1985), "Tiny Toon Adventures" (1990), "Animaniacs" (1993) and "Smurfs" (1981).

His "Dr. Claw" voice is arguably his most famous role. Aside from playing Dr. Claw in "Inspector Gadget" (1983), he has used the voice for other characters, such as Darkseid in "SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show" (1984), Emperor Krulos in "Dino-Riders" (1988), Soundwave in "The Transformers" (1984) (only heavily modified with a vocoder, to give it a distinct monotone, robotic sound), as well as in movies such as the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin (1992), Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat (1995), Soundwave again in both Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) (without the vocoder effects), as well as playing the Devil in four different movies; The Golden Child (1986), All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) and Spawn (1997).

His "Dr. Claw" voice came about as a result of him trying to do an impression of Barry White.

He has played the same character (Freddy Jones) on 14 different series: "Scooby Doo, Where Are You!" (1969), "The New Scooby-Doo Movies" (1972), "The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour" (1976), "Dynomutt Dog Wonder" (1978), "Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo" (1979), "The Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Puppy Hour" (1982), "The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries" (1984), "Scooby's Mystery Funhouse" (1985), "Family Guy" (1999), "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" (2000), "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" (2002), "Robot Chicken" (2005), "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" (2008) and "Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated" (2010).

Became the sixth actor to appear in two films to gross $1 billion with Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011). He is the first voice actor to achieve this feat.

Personal Quotes

I've been doing voices as long as I can remember. When I was little I could pick up on sounds and then I discovered you could distort what you hear and make people laugh or disrupt a class.

I was voted by my high school senior class as most likely to receed.