January 4 - Sterling Holloway

Image courtesy of disney.wikia.com

On this day, in 1905, Sterling Prince Holloway was born in Cedartown, Georgia. The son of the town grocer (and later mayor), Sterling went to the Georgia Military Academy for his primary schooling. He graduated at the age of 15 and almost immediately traveled to New York City to begin attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. While there he began a lifelong friendship with Spencer Tracy. After graduating a second time, Sterling traveled the country doing vaudeville acts interspersed with walk-on parts on Broadway whenever he was in New York.

In 1926, Sterling moved to Hollywood to try his luck in motion pictures. His high pitched voice and shock of red hair usually meant some sort of comedic sidekick role for him, but he didn't mind. Over the next five decades, he would appear in more than 150 films. It started with The Battling Kangaroo, a silent picture. A couple of years later, when talkies came along, many of the actors in Tinsel Town couldn't make the transition. Not only did Sterling make the leap but sound actually made him more popular. Over the years, he worked alongside the likes of Fred McMurray, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Bing Crosby, to drop just a few names.

Image copyright Disney

When World War II hit, Sterling stepped right up, joining the United States Army in 1942 as an old man of 37. He was assigned to special forces where he developed a show, Hey Rookie, that ran for nine months and raised over $350,000 for the Army Relief Fund. At the end of the war, he played a rare dramatic role in the movie A Walk in the Sun, as a reluctant medic, earning quite a bit of critical praise in the process.

With his distinctive voice, and nearly ubiquitous presence in Hollywood, it didn't take long for Sterling to show up on Walt Disney's radar. In the mid thirties, Sterling was actually tested for the role of Sleepy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a role he ultimately lost to Pinto Colvig. He made his first appearance for Disney in 1941 as Mr. Stork in Dumbo. From there, he became a Disney staple. When I met Dave Smith, the head Disney archivist, once I asked him who had done the most voices in Disney films. His reply was that with all the little, mostly uncredited voices we may never know but that when it came to major roles, it was Sterling Holloway, hands down.

Image copyright Disney

Over the next few decades, Sterling would play a variety of characters for Disney, from the villainous to the downright cuddly. He provided the voice for Adult Flower in Bambi in 1942. Two years later he narrated the Pablo, the Cold Blooded Penguin section of The Three Caballeros. Two years after that, he narrated the Peter and the Wolf sequence in Make Mine Music. In 1951, Sterling was the Cheshire Cat for Alice in Wonderland, 1967 brought us Kaa in The Jungle Book and 1970 found him as Roquefort the mouse in The Aristocats.

Image copyright Disney

But it was Sterling's last series of roles (just one role but in a series of films) for Disney that he is not only best known for, but was his favorite to perform. I am, of course, talking about that tubby little cubby, Winnie the Pooh. Starting with Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree in 1966, Sterling also did Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974). All three of those shorts were later combined into the studio's 22nd feature film called The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh released in 1977.

Image copyright Disney

In addition to his voice work in Disney features, Sterling also narrated a bunch of shorts, including The Little House, Susie the Little Blue Coupe, Lambert the Sheepish Lion, and the role of Amos Mouse in Ben and Me. His final role with the company was actually a live action one, moonshiner Hobe Carpenter in the 1977 comedy Thunder and Lightning, starring David Carradine and Kate Jackson.

Image lifted from gettyimages.com

Outside of Disney, Sterling had smoothly made the transition to television starting in the Fifties. He had recurring roles on Superman, The Andy Griffith Show and The Life of Riley as well as guest spots on everything from The Untouchables to Gilligan's Island to Moonlighting. He also landed several contracts for commercials, hawking wares ranging from Puppy Chow to Libby's baked beans. He was also the voice of Woodsy the Owl in Forest Service PSAs during the Seventies and Eighties.

In 1991, Sterling was named an official Disney Legend, the first person to receive the award for voice work. At the ceremony, the 86 year old was helped to the stage by none other than Winnie the Pooh himself. He would pass away a little over a year later on November 22, 1992 from cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, California.