We’ve talked about the early days of June’s career at Hanna-Barbera on the blog several times. Click on the highlighted link to read them. To sum up—she voiced a demo reel for The Flintstones (maybe it was still The Flagstones then) as Betty, but the part in the series went to Bea Benaderet. She did a couple of incidental voices on the series over the years and a part in the feature film The Man Called Flintstone. Maybe her biggest role at H-B was some years later as Jokey Smurf.
I’m sure you know by now June has passed away not too many weeks before what was to be her 100th birthday. As a remembrance, here’s a cute little poem published in the Toronto Star on December 23, 2013. Joseph Hall is the author.
Whose voice gave the Grinch a heart? Well, she's more than 2
(With apologies to Dr. Seuss)
Cindy Lou Who is a lot more than 2.
The voice of the tot from the classic Grinch story
Well she's now 96 and her name is June Foray.
And though decades have passed since her Who-ville connection,
She recalls Cindy Lou with undying affection.
"Oh she's everyone's favourite," Foray says via phone
As she talks from her Woodland, Los Angeles, home.
Her shortest of roles, it was easy to make:
"It was only one line. It was done in one take."
But her plaintive, sweet voicing of the blue-eyed Who girl
Has earned her acclaim from all over the world.
She's got letters from Poland. She's got letters from China.
From India, Holland and North Carolina.
She's got letters from places where people talk Finnish.
"People whom you'd think would never speak English."
In Foray's career she's done dozens of voices,
In cartooning terms they were some of the choicest.
She did Granny for Warner's old Tweety Bird shows.
She was Jokey the Smurf, and Lord only knows.
She was Witch Hazel, Aunt May, and that isn't all.
She voiced Chatty Cathy, the string-pulling doll.
She's done voices she now wracks her puzzler to name.
She was Rocky! Of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame!
Indeed, she's done Rocky again so we hear,
For a DreamWorks production that's coming next year.
But ask for her Cindy and she'll spot-on reply:
"Santy Claus why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?"
That's it, her whole Grinch role, that question above
Delivered in tones like the coo of a dove.
It's a line on which untold millions would feast,
Like they would on Who pudding, or slabs of roast beast.
And they've done so now, 47 years running,
For the Christmastime staple that just keeps on humming.
Its popularity simply can't be overstated.
Number One of the Yule shows that TV Guide's rated.
Her line's at a point — in the show's 20-odd minutes —
Where the Grinch's cold cunning is reaching its limits.
He stole all the Who presents and food he could see,
And when Cindy Lou enters, he's stealing the tree.
Boris Karloff, the voice of the Grinch — and narrator —
Says he's fixing the tree . . . and will bring it back later.
Foray knew Karloff, of monster renown,
But when she did the Grinch, he was nowhere around.
"I knew him from radio shows," Foray mentions.
And it's that radio work that drew cartoon attention.
On air at age 12, she soon caught the ear
Of someone named Disney, who said come over here.
Her Disney work wowed a guy named Chuck Jones,
Who directed the best Looney Tunes that you've known.
Jones's work with Bugs Bunny and Porky the Pig
Made him first choice for directing the Dr. Seuss gig.
And when Jones went to seeking a little Who girl,
He contacted Foray to give it a whirl.
Her voices, she says, were instinctive concoctions.
She'd think "what the character is"— and just got 'em.
"Is she young, is she old, is she fat, is she thin?"
The voice would come out and then she would begin.
Those instinctive efforts, which so many hold dear,
Won Foray an honorary Emmy this year.
While she loved all the voices she voiced and created
Her career was mistaken, so Foray has stated.
Her beauty was wasted away from the lens.
She should have done movies, the actress contends.
"I was very attractive," the lady avows.
"Still am, in my old age," June Foray allows.
But you know when the phone's down, at interview's end:
June Foray's delightful — delightful, times 10.