Voices Silenced

Paul Winchell and John Fiedler died last weekend. Winchell was the voice of Tigger, Fiedler was the voice of Piglet in the Winnie The Pooh films — my younger son’s current favorite series.

Winchell actually stopped doing voice work for Tigger in 1999 when Jim Cummings, the current voice of Pooh, took on Tigger’s part as well. Sterling Holloway, the original voice of Winnie The Pooh, died in 1992.

Winchell, Fiedler and Holloway all had very distinctive voices. Winchell was originally a ventriloquist (remember Jerry Mahoney?). Fiedler and Holloway had both been popular character actors.

It’s interesting to note that despite the deaths of these voice actors, their voices live on through others. Cummings has been doing an impression of Sterling Holloway’s near-falsetto voice as Pooh for 13 years after Holloway’s death. If more films are made, it’s likely that someone will reproduce Fiedler’s high-pitch Piglet voice as well.