How I hated typing that subject line. My friend — everybody's friend, actually — Will Ryan died a few hours ago. The cause was Cancer. His Wikipedia page says he was born in 1939 which would make him 82 but I don't know anyone who knew Will who believes he was anywhere near that old. He was so full of energy and talent and he sure didn't look 82. He was also one of the nicest people you could ever want to meet.
He was an actor, a historian, a voiceover specialist, a songwriter, a singer…in fact, he was a singing cowboy. There aren't many openings these days for singing cowboys but one day, Will decided he wanted to be one and danged if he didn't become one. He and his posse — the Cactus County Cowboys — could often be found at local theaters and nightclubs playing songs that sounded like they could have been from the days of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry but which were freshly written by Will.
Will hailed from Cleveland where he and a pal, Phil Baron, formed a comedy music act called Willio and Phillio. They played local venues and recorded some songs that Dr. Demento played on his radio show in the sixties. When Will relocated to Los Angeles, he began writing funny songs for the Disney company and performing on Disney records and eventually in films. He voiced the seahorse in The Little Mermaid and Willie the Giant in Mickey's Christmas Carol. He voice-matched a lot of classic Disney voices, especially for various Winnie the Pooh projects. And he was heard in a lot of non-Disney shows like G.I. Joe, Family Guy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, and so many others.
I had him on Garfield and Friends several times. Once, we had an episode about a very bad, evil ghost and a very timid, meek one. Will voiced the meek one and his performance was a perfect contrast to the bad, evil ghost who was voiced by James Earl Jones. He was also heard in hundreds of episodes of the radio drama, Adventures in Odyssey.
And he played ace straight man Sam Shooster in the Biffle & Shooster comedy shorts…
The producer/director/writer of those shorts, Michael Schlesinger, sent me this…
Everyone knows Will from his remarkable musicianship and his incredible voice work, but not enough is said about what a splendid comedy actor he was. The chemistry between him and Nick [Santa Maria, who played Biffle] was something to see. They reacted to each other in real time, almost as if they could read each other's thought process, and remained in character even when something went wrong. I soon learned not to yell "Cut!" at the end of a scene, because they often just kept going, ad-libbing on the spot. They could have played these characters full-time if they'd wanted.
There's so much more I could write about Will but since he touched so many lives — and always for the better — I'm sure others will say what I can't. They'll all talk about what a great, talented man he was; how he always seemed to be doing eleven things at once and all of them well.
So condolences to his splendid wife/partner Nancy. In fact, condolences to all of us who knew the amazing Will Ryan. We were so fortunate.