June Foray

If you have watched a cartoon in the past 60 years, then the answer to the question posed in the title of June Foray’s 2009 autobiography, “Did You Grow Up With Me, Too?” is undoubtedly, “yes.” Foray is one of the preeminent voiceover artists of this, or any, time. At 92, she is one of the few who remain from the golden age of theatrical cartoons.

Foray started her career on radio at age 12 in her hometown of Springfield, Mass., and by 15 she was working regularly. Two years later, she was in Los Angeles where she quickly became an in-demand voice actress.

During her decades-long career, Foray has worked for everybody who is anybody in the world of animation. She is best known for her work with Jay Ward, playing nearly every female on “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show,” including Natasha Fatale and Nell Fenwick, as well as being the voice of Rocky J. Squirrel. For Walt Disney, Foray played Lucifer the Cat in “Cinderella,” Grandmother Fa in “Mulan” and a mermaid in “Peter Pan.”

On Aug. 3, 1952, Louis Berg wrote in the Los Angeles Times about a live-action performance of Disney’s “Never-Never Land” production, done for an audience of animators. “The actors who stole the show were not Peter Pan, Wendy … but three anonymous mermaids. The girls are June Foray, Margaret Kerry and Connie Hilton, a redhead, brunette and blonde in that order. June Foray, from radio and TV, has a fine voice.”

She did a number of voices for Walter Lanz’s Woody Woodpecker and for Warner Bros. Cartoons. She has played Granny, the owner of Tweety and Sylvester, on and off since 1955. Her voice is part of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including “The Flintstones,” “Tom and Jerry,” “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” and “The Jetsons.”

Foray has also been Jokey Smurf, Cindy Lou Who in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and the original voice of Chatty Cathy dolls.

As a legend in her field, Foray has received her share of recognition from succeeding generations of animators. She guest starred in Season 1 of “The Simpsons,” playing the receptionist for the Rubber Baby Buggy Bumper Babysitting Service, a sly nod to the tongue-twisting phrase that was a running gag on “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.” For a Season 3 episode of “Family Guy,” Foray once again voiced Rocky J. Squirrel with the famous tag line, “And now, here’s something we hope you’ll really like!”

Although the bulk of Foray’s long career has been as a voice actress, she has appeared in live action films and TV productions. She played the high priestess of a fire cult in “Sabaka,” a 1954 feature that also starred Boris Karloff and Reginald Denny, and a Mexican phone operator in a episode of “Green Acres.” She had cameo roles in the 1992 live-action “Boris & Natasha” and the 2000 “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

In 1995, Foray received the newly established June Foray Award, created in her honor by the Hollywood chapter of the International Animated Film Association to be given to “individuals who have made a significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animations.”

Foray continues to work in animation.

— Nancie Clare for the Los Angeles Times June 18, 2010