Tony Jay

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Tony Jay
Born February 2, 1933 (1933-02-02)
London, England, UK
Died August 13, 2006 (2006-08-14) (aged 73)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Occupation Actor/Voice actor
Years active 1970–2006
Spouse Marta MacGeraghty (1974-2006; his death)

Tony Jay (February 2, 1933 – August 13, 2006) was an English actor, voice actor and singer. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was known for his voice work in animation, film and computer games. Jay's distinctive baritone voice often landed him villainous roles. He is best known as the voice of The Elder God in Legacy of Kain sagas, Claude Frollo in Walt Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Shere Khan in The Jungle Book 2, The Chief in the Super Secret Secret Squirrel segment of 2 Stupid Dogs, Galactus and Terrax in The Fantastic Four, Chairface Chippendale in The Tick, Anubis in Gargoyles, Magneto in X-Men Legends, The Narrator in Skeleton Warriors, and the virus Megabyte in the award-winning CG-I animated series ReBoot.

Contents

[edit] Career

Jay appeared on-screen in several movies and on television, including Love and Death, Twins, Night Court and Eerie, Indiana. He also developed a career in the theatre, in plays such as The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, and The Merchant of Venice. Jay's other non-animation roles included Paracelsus on the 1987 CBS series Beauty and the Beast; Minister Campio on Star Trek: The Next Generation; and Lex Luthor's villainous aide-de-camp Nigel St. John in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

He was also well known for his role as the voice of the virus Megabyte in the award-winning 3-D animated series ReBoot, and for his voice work as Judge Claude Frollo in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and in the Walt Disney World version of the nighttime light and fireworks show Fantasmic!. He also voiced Monsieur D'Arque, the amoral asylum superintendent, in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

He is also well-known among Legacy of Kain fans for his voicing of the original Mortanius and of the Elder God, alongside several other minor characters. He was also the successor of George Sanders in the role of Shere Khan the tiger as he voiced the character in Tale Spin and reprised his role of the character for fifteen years after it ended until his death. The Jungle Book 2 was his final reprisal of the role.

Jay was a devotee of classic Broadway, and made several recordings and performances of old-time Broadway lyrics, in spoken-word form. A CD of these readings, Speaking of Broadway, was released in 2005; a version recorded years earlier of the same collection was titled Poets on Broadway, as is his website. It features Jay reciting lyrics written by the likes of Noel Coward, Ira Gershwin, and Oscar Hammerstein, and was composed entirely by him, according to the CD liner notes.

[edit] Personal life

Jay was born in London, England in 1933. He attended Pinner County Grammar School. He moved to South Africa in 1966 and was involved with many radio productions on the SABC Commercial Radio Service, Springbok Radio, until 1980. He later moved to the United States, and became a naturalized citizen. He was Jewish.[1]

[edit] Death

In April 2006 he underwent surgery in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles to remove a non-cancerous tumor from his lungs.[2] He never recovered fully from the operation and was in critical condition throughout the following months, until his death at the hospital on August 13, 2006, at the age of 73.

[edit] Legacy

Jay was survived by his wife Marta and his son Adam.

[edit] Notable voice roles

Notable characters Tony Jay voiced include:

[edit] Film

[edit] Television

[edit] Video games

  • November 1997: Lieutenant in Fallout

[edit] Narration

Notable projects for which Tony Jay provided narration include:

[edit] Voice-overs

Notable projects for which Tony Jay narrated include:

  • LBC Radio (London), Tony Jay narrated voice-overs for the station's main jingle packages between 1974 and 1980.
  • SPRINGBOK RADIO (South Africa), Tony Jay acted, wrote & produced many radio series' in South Africa on the Commercial Radio Service, Springbok Radio.

Programmes include: Taxi (Starred as one of the main lead's Red Kowalski, also wrote several episodes) The Sounds of Darkness (Starred as the main lead, Lee Masters)

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Tony Jay - Obituary". The Jewish Chronicle. 2006-12-22. pp. 26. 
  2. ^ "Daytime Emmy nominated Tony JayLoses Fight to Recover". Archived from the original on 2006-09-07. http://web.archive.org/web/20060907003056/http://poetsonbroadway.com/1Intro.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-14. 

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tony_Jay&oldid=473299951"
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