The Grim Reaper has been busy lately, with three obituaries to pass along.
We start in basketball, with two passings. Orlando Woolridge played for a number of teams, including the New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets, during the 80's & 90's, and passed away earlier this week at 52. Jack Twyman was not only a star player in the NBA's early years, but also a humanitarian who became the legal guardian of teammate Maurice Stokes when Stokes had to deal with debilitating illness that ended his career prematurely. Twyman passed away at 78.
Cartoon lovers will recognize this next name. Dick Beals specialized in child voices, and the reason for that was a glandular condition that prevented Beals from reaching puberty, at least in terms of his voice changing. Beals, who passed away on Tuesday at 85, is best remembered in cartoon circles for Davey & Goliath (he was the original Davey), Frankenstein, Jr. (as juvenile scientist Buzz Conroy), and Birdman (as Birdboy), but historians also will link him to commercials, such as this vintage ad for Alka-Seltzer when it first hit store shelves in 1954........
Rest in peace, gentlemen. You will all be missed.
So sorry to hear of Beals' passing!
ReplyDeleteHe'll always be the voice of Davy Hansen to me ("Davey & Goliath") although he's just as familiar to me in his other voice work (although his turn as "Speedy" was more to my parents' generation than mine).
I always thought he was miscast as Birdboy however.
I think in the case of Birdboy, who I think was meant to be a pre-teen, they just didn't want to typecast Tim Matheson in those kind of roles, and Matheson instead did Young Samson, which would be his last job for H-B.
ReplyDeleteThe research I did finds that Beals was the original Davey, succeeded by Norma McMillan, and now both are in Heaven.