September 19 - Jeremy John Irons

On this day, in 1948, Jeremy John Irons was born on the Isle of Wight in England.

Jeremy attended the Bristol Old Vic Theater School in Bristol, England for his formal theatrical training. The Old Vic is, of course, the most prestigious British acting school having been founded by Laurence Olivier himself, don't you know. His training definitely took though, as he's managed to win all kinds of awards since his West End debut 47 years ago.

And what a debut. He played John the Baptist and Judas in the original London production of Godspell, which ran for over 1100 performances. Jeremy would go on to grace West End stages for multiple productions right up to this year. He's played with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and at the Globe Theatre. All that success on British stages naturally made British television notice him.

Jeremy began appearing fairly regularly on all sorts of programs on the BBC starting in the early 1970s. In 1977, he starred in Love for Lydia for 13 episodes. The following year he was romantically linked to Judy Dench in Langrishe, Go Down.

But it was in 1981's Brideshead Revisited that Jeremy got a taste of what could really be called fame. A Golden Globe nomination would come out of that performance. The same year, Jeremy would star opposite Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant's Woman. A BAFTA award nomination would come out of that performance. If you can believe it, things would only get better for Jeremy after that pretty spectacular year.

A Tony Award win for his Broadway debut in The Real Thing in 1984. Multiple awards for playing twin brothers in 1988's Dead Ringers. Multiple awards including an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Reversal of Fortune in 1990. Primetime Emmys in 1997, 2006 and 2014. Another Golden Globe, a SAG Award and more nominations then most graduating classes can usually amass collectively. Yes, Jeremy is just that good.

His contribution to the Disney Studio is threefold. First, and foremost, Jeremy turned an a deliciously unctuous performance as the villain of The Lion King, Scar. My second favorite Disney bad guy earned Jeremy a well deserved Annie Award. The second place you might known him, actually seeing him this time, was as HG Wells in the Circle-Vision movie called The Timekeeper. This film played in Walt Disney World, Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland from the mid 1990s through the mid 2000s. The third place Jeremy was heard was also a place that almost paired him with Judy Dench again. He was the third person to narrate the Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth, replacing Walter Cronkite in 1994. She was his replacement in 2008.

As I said earlier, Jeremy was playing on the West End earlier this year. Even though he turns 70 today, he may have a few more award nominations in his future. I think I speak for all of us when I say we look forward to seeing what that future brings.

September 18 - June Lucille Foray

On this day, in 1917, veteran voice actress June Lucille Foray was born in Springfield, Massachusetts.

 As a little girl, June, like many little girls, wanted to be a dancer when she grew up. Lucky for us, if not for her as a child, an ill timed case of pneumonia kept her home from dance class and she ended up becoming a voice actress instead. By the age of 12, June had already been heard in a drama on the local radio station and by 15, was doing that sort of thing regularly. After graduating from high school, her family fell on hard financial times and moved to Los Angeles, mostly to be near an uncle, but that was when June's career took off.

By the late 1930s, June had her own radio show, Lady Make Believe (also the title of a children's album she released in 2016). It didn't take long for her to be featured on coast-to-coast radio shows like The Jimmy Durante Show. In the 1940s, June began working in the movies. Very occasionally she would do a live action part, but mostly she voiced animated characters. This work naturally spilled onto the television screen when the new media came along. If you've payed even the tiniest bit of passing attention to cartoons since the 1950s, I guarantee you've heard June's voice. How can I make this guarantee? June provided the voice for:

Rocky J. Squirrel, Natasha Fatale and Nell Fenwick for The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show

Granny and Witch Hazel for The Bugs Bunny Show (and dozens of Loony Tunes shows and shorts both before and after)


Cindy Lou Who for How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Ursula and Marigold for

The original voice of Karen and the Teacher for Frosty the Snowman

Jokey Smurf and Mother Nature for The Smurfs

 Mrs. Cauldron for The Garfield Show (for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award)


Plus literally dozens and dozens of other characters in everything from Scooby Doo to Mr. Magoo to the Pink Panther. If you try to say you haven't ever heard her voice, you're flat out lying.



 June also did extensive work for Disney. Those credits include:

Lucifer in Cinderella

Witch Hazel in the Donald Duck short Trick or Treat (and not to be confused with her Loony Tunes character of the same name)

Mrs. Sheep in Lambert the Sheepish Lion

A Squaw in Peter Pan (she also was the live model for one of the mermaids)

Wheezy Weasel and Lena Hyena in Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Mrs. Featherby  and Magica De Spell in Duck Tales

Grandmother Fa in Mulan and Mulan II

She can also be heard in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction as the wife of the man getting dunked in the town well.

In the mid 1960s, June looked around and began to worry that the legacy of animation wasn't being paid attention to much less preserved. Being who she was, rather than talking about the problem, she did something about it by creating the Annie Awards, basically the Oscars of animation, in 1972. Almost 46 years later, the Annies are still going strong thanks in large part to June's efforts. The fact that there is an actual Oscar for Best Animated Feature is also due to June's lobbying efforts.

June worked regularly up until 2014. In 2015, her health began to decline after she was involved in an automobile accident. On July 26, 2017, June passed away in Los Angeles, California. She was less than two months shy of her 100th birthday.