I don't have a lot of details but the animation community is today mourning the passing of Cliff Voorhees, one of the most prolific and respected artists in the Hollywood cartoon industry. Cliff was one of those guys who was never out of work. Every studio wanted him on board because he was fast, reliable and good…and also someone you just liked having around the building. He was a very pleasant, easy-going gentleman.
His career was an odd one: He was an effects (assistant) animator on Disney's Lady and the Tramp, after which he decided he needed to learn more and enrolled in the Chouinard Art Institute. After that, he worked on the newspaper strip, The Toodles for several years of what he described as eighty-hour weeks. He finally quit that and found work as an associate art director at Westways magazine, the official publication of the Auto Club, as well as doing illustration work for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.
A friend told Cliff that there was work available at Western Publishing Company, drawing comic books for their Gold Key line. He applied and was quickly hired. He worked on most of their comics based on animated characters but most often drew for the Disney titles, especially Chip n' Dale. Some published sources date his work for Western from around 1974 to the mid-eighties but he was working for that firm well before I was and I started there in '72. No matter what he did in animation, he still moonlighted for Western until a year or two before their comics line ended in 1984. He also did work for Disney's foreign comics division, mostly on Super Goof.
Working in comics got Cliff back into animation in 1967, starting with Filmation where he worked on Archie, Fat Albert, The Brady Kids, Heckle & Jeckle, Star Trek and many more. He then moved to Hanna-Barbera for several years (mostly drawing Smurfs), followed by stints at Marvel Productions (Muppet Babies) and Film Roman. It was at Film Roman, when he worked on Bobby's World and Garfield that I got to know him. He worked for Nickelodeon on Angry Beavers and Cartoon Network on The Grim Adventures of Bill and Mandy and he occasionally freelanced for other houses. During the last decade or so of his career, he was known to retire, then get lured back, then retire again, then get lured back…
He was a nice man and he sure drew well. You can hear an interview that Steve Hulett recorded with Cliff in 2011 over on this page. I'll bet some of his friends will give it a listen just to be able to spend a little more time with him. (Incidentally, I don't think the Beagle Boys comic book sample they have up there is by Cliff, though it might be him inking Jack Manning's drawing.)