Bill Scott (voice actor)
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William John "Bill" Scott (August 2, 1920 – November 29, 1985) was an American voice actor, writer and producer for animated cartoons, primarily associated with Jay Ward.
Biography
Scott was born August 2, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army's First Motion Picture Unit (reporting to Lt. Ronald Reagan), where he worked with such animators as Frank Thomas. After the war, he became what was then known as a "story man" at Warner Bros., working primarily on Bugs Bunny cartoons. He later worked at the cutting-edge studio United Productions of America where he was one of the writers who adapted Dr. Seuss's original story for the 1951 Academy Award-winning short Gerald McBoing-Boing, which later became a television show, as well as adapting the 1953 Academy Award-nominated short film of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart."
He began work as a voice actor as well when he joined Jay Ward as head writer and co-producer, and voice acted in such television series as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (most notably as Bullwinkle, as well as Dudley Do-Right, Peabody, etc.). He also wrote many commercials for General Mills and Quaker Oats, most notably those for Cap'n Crunch cereal, because General Mills had bankrolled much of the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show. The voice of Rocky, Nell Fenwick and much of the feminine roles on Rocky & Bullwinkle was done by June Foray, although Scott's wife Dorothy voiced a couple of female parts in Sherman & Peabody episodes. He also starred on George of the Jungle as George, Fractured Flickers, Hoppity Hooper. Bill Scott also had done live-action acting on the TV show The Duck Factory which starred Jim Carrey, as well as featuring noted voice actors Don Messick and Frank Welker. In the episode "The Annie Awards", Bill Scott plays the emcee at an award ceremony for cartoonists.
Toward the end of his career he worked for Walt Disney Studios, where he voiced Moosel on The Wuzzles, and was Gruffi Gummi in Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears (he was succeeded by Corey Burton after his death). Gummi Bears, his last role, had also reunited him with June Foray, his Rocky and Bullwinkle co-star.
The 1999 live-action film version of Dudley Do-Right was preceded by a newly made cartoon, "The Phox, the Box and the Lox," apparently based on a never-used script that Scott had written for the Fractured Fairy Tales segment of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
He died of a heart attack on November 29, 1985 in Tujunga, California. He is succeeded by his wife Dorothy, and their three children.
