unKNOWN Actors: David Ogden Stiers

For our featured actor this week, we have a relatively well known actor, David Ogden Stiers.  He was born on October 31, 1942 in Peoria, Illinois and has had cameos in many different television shows throughout his career.  His most known television appearance is in the show M*A*S*H, playing Major Charles Winchester from 1977 to 1983.  His first Disney appearance was several years after this and, you will see throughout his Disney appearances what a unique voice David has, being able have many different accents and tones throughout his career.

David was used first in a Disney film in 1991.  In Beauty and the Beast, we get his first set of contrasting voices, providing the low, smooth voice of the narrator at the beginning and the high strung high pitched voice of Cogsworth.  He is the only one who has ever done the voice for Cogsworth, making voice appearances for supplemental movies including Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) and Belle’s Magical World (1998) and appearances in television shows, such as The House of Mouse (2001). He was even the voice for Cogsworth in the 2005 Playstation video game, Kingdom Hearts II.

After his first appearance, he next appeared in Pocahontas (1995), providing two opposite type of voices once again; the dark, stern voice of Governor Ratcliffe and the light, airy voice of Ratcliffe’s assistant, Wiggins.  He would voice Ratcliffe once more in 1998’s Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World.

In 1996, David leant his voice to the Archdeacon in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) had him voicing Fenton Q. Harcourt for the film.

In the American version of the 2001 Studio Ghibli Film presented by Walt Disney Studios, Spirited Away, David provided the English voice for the character Kamajii.

After doing some of these minor voices for a few years, David’s next huge character came to be: Mr. Jumba Jookiba from 2002’s Lilo and Stitch.  Jumba, like Cogsworth, would be a repeating character for David.  You can hear him voicing Jumba in the Experiment 626 video game (2002), Stitch! The Movie (2003), Lilo and Stitch II: Stitch has a Glitch (2005), the TV movie Leroy and Stitch (2006) and he was occasionally featured in Lilo and Stitch the Series (2003-2007) on television.

There are two other small movies that he has done a voice for, and those are Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo (2004) and Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie (2005) where he voiced the Narrator for both.

David has even done a couple of Disney voices this year! For the Kingdom Hearts: Birth to Sleep video game, he provided the voices for Jumba and, surprisingly, Doc, one of the dwarfs from Snow White.

It seems as though David Ogden Stiers is hooked on Disney.  Since his first appearance, he has made dozens more and doesn’t seem to be slowing down.  I know I will look forward to hearing his voice in future Disney creations.