Now, statistics prove, prove that you've one birthday.
Imagine, just one birthday every year!
But there are three hundred and sixty four unbirthdays!
Precisely why we're gathered here to cheer...
Imagine, just one birthday every year!
But there are three hundred and sixty four unbirthdays!
Precisely why we're gathered here to cheer...
However, as it happens, today is the real (as opposed to un-) birthday of my good friend, KATHRYN BEAUMONT, the voice of Disney's Alice...
Click on image to go to my flickr album for the option to view at a larger size
I love the enterprise of the Hollywood (or, in Disney's case, Burbank) studio: in addition to providing the voice for Alice and acting out the entire scenario of the film in live-action for the animators' reference, Kathryn was also photographed posing with the film's merchandise!
Not only that, she also provided Alice's voice in a couple of TV commercials, including this one for Jello featuring two Carrollian characters who never made it into the film - the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. As you will see, the child in the opening shot who is about to consume an entire plate of Jello is not Kathryn, but she is the one extolling the product's virtues to the two Wonderlanders and the voice-over narrator is none other than Sterling Holloway, who gave a memorable vocal purr-formance in the film as the Cheshire Cat...
I can't help thinking Tim Burton missed a trick in not giving Kathryn a cameo role in his film of Alice's newest exploits!
Anyway...
Not only that, she also provided Alice's voice in a couple of TV commercials, including this one for Jello featuring two Carrollian characters who never made it into the film - the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. As you will see, the child in the opening shot who is about to consume an entire plate of Jello is not Kathryn, but she is the one extolling the product's virtues to the two Wonderlanders and the voice-over narrator is none other than Sterling Holloway, who gave a memorable vocal purr-formance in the film as the Cheshire Cat...
I can't help thinking Tim Burton missed a trick in not giving Kathryn a cameo role in his film of Alice's newest exploits!
Anyway...
VERY MANY MERRY RETURNS, KATHY,
today and on all your unbirthdays, too!
To read more about Ms Beaumont and her roles for Disney (she was also the voice of Wendy in Peter Pan) click on the 'Kathryn Beaumont' tag below.
Image via Disney History uploaded using flickr
4 comments:
A very happy REAL birthday to Kathryn -- and a thank you to you, Brian, for all the wonderful Alice history you share.
Not to everyone's taste - judging by one of the comments left on yesterday's blog - but hey-ho...
Following on from the mixed comments on the last post and given that Disney do sometimes select much-loved figures like Pooh and Alice to do the treatment on,does Mr B think any character should be off-limits ?
An interesting question, BOLL. It's a bit late now to attempt to sit in judgment, since Disney have already tackled most of the children's classics I love, including Alive, Pooh and the folks in The Wind in the Willows.
Besides, I've always had the ability to view film versions (Disney's and others') as being quite distinct from the original books and very often, in their own way, perfectly entertaining and enjoyable.
I've never believed a film can damage the memory of a book in the mind of someone who's read the original, but as Andrew's comments yesterday reveal, they can, obviously, put someone off reading it in the first place!
I know Disney was interested in animating The Hobbit and the stories of Beatrix Potter but was refused. I'm not sure than the Rankin-Bass Hobbit that appeared many years later was particular superior to whatever Disney might have produced and the namby-pamby ballet film of The Tales of Beatrix Potter that eventually won approval from the Potter Estate was little more than a pretty - but rather tedious - pantomime.
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