It turns out I have actually seen a movie wherein Sterling Holloway appears in person, not just as a voice. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not just that he’s in a single segment of Star Spangled Rhythm, parodying Veronica Lake. It’s that you don’t picture Sterling Holloway. You hear him. Especially if you’re someone as raised on Disney as I; he’s one of the formative voices of a Disney person’s childhood. I suspect you know his voice even if you don’t grow up immersed in Disney culture. It doesn’t take much familiarity with it to know that voice.
There are certain whole phrases I can hear in my head. Telling the lambs to pick out the ewe that they like best and she will be their mother. Pausing over the Cyrillic before confirming that, yes, Peter and the Wolf. Talking about a little house on a hill way out in the country. Asking Alice if she can stand on her head. Singing that he’s just a little black rain cloud. Suggesting that Mowgli trust in him. And we aren’t even done. It’s to the point that I’d honestly be surprised if you could’ve gone a full week of Disney Channel viewing in the ‘80s without hearing Holloway’s voice.
Oh, there’s a great deal more to his career than that. In fact, he was in the 1933 Alice in Wonderland as well, as the Frog Footman—possibly the only person to appear in both. He did a ton of TV. Perhaps surprisingly for someone so well known for his voice, his movie career goes back to the silent era. He was in certified classics; the first movie he was in generally considered one was Blonde Venus, of all things. But also Gold Diggers of 1933. Meet John Doe. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. And of course Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood.
Still, there’s a reason he was the first person awarded with a Disney Legend in voice acting. If you went to Walt Disney World today, right now, there are golden statues of Pooh and the Cheshire Cat that speak when activated, and since the things they say include older recordings, they might indeed include the voice of Sterling Holloway. As we’ve discussed in multiple columns, Disney didn’t really have a Mel Blanc and instead hired lots of distinctive people—Thurl Ravenscroft, Paul Frees, and even June Foray as needed. It’s quite a constellation, and Sterling Holloway is far from the dimmest star in it.
He also, it should be noted, died a bachelor. I don’t know where they got this information, but Wikipedia says, “He once said this was because he felt lacking in nothing and did not wish to disturb his pattern of life.” This, I must admit, is a [citation needed], but if true, it covers several possibilities—as, indeed, does the bare fact of his perpetual single state. My long-term promise to myself has been that I do not cite gossip as fact. Why didn’t Holloway marry? All we can say here is “because he didn’t.” But my goodness there’s speculation possible, isn’t there?
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