Actors

Dick Beals

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"Born in Detroit, as a child Dick Beals was too small to play sports, instead opting to be a cheerleader. He attended Michigan State University, where he began to lend his voice to radio broadcasting. In the 1940s, Beal began to do voice acting profes..."

Bea Benaderet

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"Born in New York City to a Turkish-Sephardic tobacconist and an Irish-American woman, Bea Benaderet made a name for herself in the first half of the twentieth century displaying her vocal and comedic talents in animation, radio, television, and film...."

Richard Bickenbach

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"Richard Bickenbach was born in Indiana August 9 1907. He moved to Los Angeles California during the 1930’s where he became a longtime animator for Hanna-Barbara. Spending the first years of his animation career (the 1930s, 1940s) working as a layou..."

James Stuart Blackton

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"James Stuart Blackton, born in Lincolnshire England, was a cartoonist and journalist for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and  New York's Evening World. He did brisk business in a vaudeville act called Lightning Sketches, where the cartoonist draws as he le..."

Tommy Bond

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"Tommy Bond was an American actor who got his start in the industry as a child at the age of 5. Bond passed away in 2005 due to heart disease. "

John Randolph Bray

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"John Randolph Bray was the founder of Bray Studios, one of the first studios dedicated to animation. He did it all from producing and directing to acting and animating. Bray's goal was to have four units working on four cartoons at any one time, that..."

Clayton “Bud” Collyer

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"Born in Manhattan to Clayton Johnson Heermance and Caroline Collyer as Clayton Johnson Heermance Jr., Clayton "Bud" Collyer initially intended to pursue law as his profession. While attending Fordham University, he began work as a radio singer and an..."

Hans Conreid

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"Hans Georg Conried Jr., was raised in Baltimore, and New York City. He studied acting at Columbia University, and played many major classical roles onstage. After having been a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre Company, he was heard as Professo..."

Virginia Davis

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"Virginia began taking dance and dramatic lessons at age two. A couple of years later, when Walt Disney was struggling with his first Studio, Laugh-O-gram Films in Kansas City, he happened to see Virginia in a Warneke's Bread advertisement in a local ..."

Walt Disney

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"In 1919, Walt landed a job with the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio making $50 a month. There, he met a young artist named Ubbe Iwwerks. The two became friends and formed their own company called Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. Ubbe handled the ..."

Bernice Hansen

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"Miscredited as Bernice Hansell in a variety of animated cartoon through the golden age, Bernice Edna Hansell was a voice actress known for her squealing voice in countless cartoons of the 1930's, providing the squeaks for Mickey Mouse, small children..."

Sterling Holloway

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"Born in Cedartown, Georgia to a grocer, Sterling Holloway's acting career began in his teens, when he enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, where his classmates included Spencer Tracy and Pat O'Brien. After graduation, h..."

Kenzō Masaoka

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"Masaoka was one of the first Japanese animators, who also trained and guided artists who would move on to become the next generation of animators. Masaoka is credited with creating the earliest anime using cel animation and recorded sound. He has als..."

Grant Munro

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"Grant Munro was an animator, actor, producer and filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada, who was instrumental in many of the first developments of the film board and its associated studios. He was one of the board's earliest and longest ser..."

Duke Redbird

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"Duke Redbird was born in Saugeen First Nation, Ontario. Redbird is an accomplished writer, filmmaker, scholar, and artist. He is also an educator across Canada, collaborating with several schools to revise curriculums with the objective to decolon..."

Ann “Little” Rothschild

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"Ann L. Rothschild, better known as Little Ann Little, started in show business in 1925 as a part of the Greenwich Village Follies. In the early 1930s, she auditioned for the part of a new cartoon character at Fleischer Studios. Impressed by her high-..."