Wednesday, September 06, 2006

TONY JAY (1933-2006)

I just found out that one of my favourite voices passed away a few weeks ago.

Tony Jay, a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a actor at heart and did many voiceover jobs for a variety of animated programs. He loved acting in Broadway Theatre (which is evident in his voice acting performances), recorded a few books and CD and narrated several programs including NausicaƤ of the Valley of the Wind, Treasure Planet, an episode of Teen Titans and the World of Warcraft video game.

His distinct baritone voice landed him many roles as villains or narrators. Some of his more notable roles included the following:

Beauty and the Beast - Monsieur D'Arque
Fantastic Four - Galactus
Hunchback of Notre Dame - Judge Claude Frollo
Jungle Book 2 - Shere Khan
ReBoot - Megabyte
Rugrats - Dr. Lipschitz
TaleSpin - Shere Khan


Tony Jay died on August 13, 2006, aged 73 after failing to recover from endoscopic surgery to remove a non-cancerous tumor in his lungs.

We will miss you Tony. Rest in Peace.

1 comment:

J said...

His voice had such a beautiful rich quality to it; I'm sure many of the characters he voiced would not be nearly as charismatic or intriguing without that velvet touch backing the delivery.

This does make me oddly sad.