It's not polite to tell a lady's age but when the lady in question is the First Lady of Cartoon Voices, it's not exactly a secret. June Foray is 99 years old today and that's just one of many amazing accomplishments in her long, amazing life. Others involve the staggering number of times in which her voice was heard in animated cartoons, radio commercials, records, dubbing other actors in movies, narrating films and TV shows, etc.
There was a long period in that life when she would get up early each morning, drive herself into the Hollywood area and spend the day going from job to job to job to job, often not returning home until late in the evening. You all know how she played Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha and almost all the female voices in Jay Ward cartoons…how she played Granny (owner of Tweety) and many supporting roles in Warner Brothers cartoons…a couple of Smurfs…witches for Disney and really every cartoon studio in Southern California…and so many other cartoon characters.
Well, all that is just a small part of what this woman did. For 20-30 years in this town, if you needed a thoroughly dependable male voiceover artist, there were many men you could call in. If you needed a female, you said these four words: "Get me June Foray!" Not all that long ago, the late Earl Kress and I were honored to assist June with her autobiography and one of the big problems we had was that even June couldn't tell us all the things she'd done. I'm still learning about jobs we should have included.
I was also honored to hire June on many occasions for cartoons I directed…and believe me, I was not doing her a favor. Other way around. I was merely getting the best person I could for the job.
I worked with her many times and June was always early. Always. One day, she was sitting in the waiting room, complaining not in the slightest that the engineer wasn't ready yet to record what she was there to record. A young, beginner actress was there for some other job and she recognized June.
The beginner told the old pro how much she admired her, how she had learned so much from studying her work, how she hoped someday to have the kind of career June had had…and was then still having. She asked, "Do you have any advice for me, Ms. Foray?"
June said to call her June, then asked her, "What are you doing here today and what is your call time?"
The newbie said, "I'm here to record some lines for a movie trailer spot and my call time is 11 AM."
It was around 11:10 when this conversation took place. June asked her, "And what time did you get here?"
The young lady said, "I was here at 11."
June said, "Then you were a half-hour late. You should have been here at 10:30."
The young lady said, "But I was here on time. And look — they still aren't ready for me."
June said, "That doesn't matter. They could have been ready for you at 11. You also could have hit unexpected traffic or had car trouble or something else on your way here. My call time was 11 and I was here at 10:30." (And she was. She was there waiting for me when I arrived…and remember, this was June Foray doing a job for someone who loves her and thinks she's the best in the business and wouldn't have minded one teensy bit if she'd been late.)
The young lady didn't get it. She said, "I don't see what the problem is. They said to be here at 11 and I was here at 11." Another human being might have at least paused to think, "Hmm…this is June Foray, the woman who has had the greatest success in my chosen profession. Maybe she understands something I don't." But this young lady just didn't get it.
What she might have learned from June is that if you're going to do a job, do it right. I might have booked June for her ten-thousandth voice job but she did it right. You don't get to your ten-thousandth job — or for that matter, to the age of 99 — doing things any way but right.