The woman on the right is the great character actress Jane Withers. The woman on the left is the First Lady of Cartoon Voices, the wonderful June Foray. This picture was taken Thursday evening at a party to celebrate June's birthday, which is today.
It's rude to tell a lady's age but (a) you can find it out with one click on the Internet and (b) at some point, it becomes a point of pride to tell how long a person has endured. So I'll bet June won't mind when I reveal here that she's 94 years of age. I have to divulge that in order to make you fully appreciate the following fact: She is still doing what she does best. She is still doing voices for cartoons.
Last Monday, I directed her (and some guy named Stan Freberg) in a voice session for The Garfield Show. June played a witch. You know how long she's been playing witches in cartoons? She voiced the witch in a Donald Duck cartoon called Trick or Treat that was released in 1952, the year I was born. How many other actors can you name who've been able to play pretty much the same role for that long? And what's more, she's still "got it." She still sounds like June Foray.
Of course, June has done a lot more than just play witches in her amazing career. She's done a lot more than voice Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale and other superstars of animation. She's done commercials and narration and looping other actors and appearing on funny records (like Mr. Freberg's) and radio plays. She's also still playing Granny, owner of Tweety, for The Looney Tunes Show, which I'm hearing has just been picked up for another year.
It was a great party, filled with other voice actors (like Bob Bergen and Joe Alaskey), veterans of animation (Bob Kurtz, Willie Ito, Jerry Eisenberg, Tony Benedict, Don Jurwich), friends and family…I'm leaving out an awful lot of names. We all convened to wish June a happy birthday today and many more. The way she's going, there will probably be many more…and June will still be doing voices for cartoons. Makes you think she might actually be a witch, doesn't it?