Sweet, charming Russi Taylor has died at the age of 75. She was the voice of dozens of animated characters over the years, most of them cute creatures like herself. Since the mid-eighties, she spoke for Minnie Mouse and, in the kind of story even Disney's publicists couldn't arrange, for much of that time she was married to Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey. Isn't that just too perfect?
Russi was just adorable in everything she said and everything she did. The only time I actually worked with her was in 1984 when I wrote and co-produced one of those prime-time Saturday Preview Specials for CBS, showing kids what would be appearing the next morning on that network's Saturday morning schedule. One of the shows was Muppet Babies and we did a segment replicating a voice recording with Frank Welker, Howie Mandel, Laurie O'Brien and Russi, who played — respectively — Kermit, Animal, Miss Piggy and Gonzo. Russi was a delight on the show.
The last time I saw her was in September of 2017 when some of us threw a big salute to the recently-departed June Foray at the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills. In one part of the show, we were discussing how June was a role model for every other female who worked in voiceover and I (I was the host) called eighteen of the best in that profession to the stage to pose around a photo of June and create a great photo-op. Here is that photo and Russi is the second one in from the right. (If you want to identify all the ladies, click here and scroll down.)
I remember how after the event, Russi kept thanking me and everyone for including her in that historic picture. She really loved June and the feeling was mutual. We all loved Russi. You just couldn't help it.