The Woman Who Voiced Rudolph

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Hi5Casino. Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your podcasts. Billie Mae Richards is a Canadian actress best known for voicing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The special first aired on December 6, 1964 on NBC. Here's Billie Mae to share her story. I go back almost 75 years now. I've been in every kind of show business. I'm quite proud of the work in the Navy show as part of the war effort in World War II. We went all across Canada and back and then overseas. We did a command performance for the king and queen and went into Paris. We played for the American troops in Paris and then Brussels and Amsterdam and then to Germany.

So after World War II that is, you know how long ago it is. I took my credits from the Navy and I joined Lorne Green's Academy of Radio Arts and he of course is a very famous Canadian and he did Bonanza. That was a great series and so I joined the Academy of Radio Arts because I had already done stage work and I was a musician and an actor and everything but I didn't know the technique for actually for radio and drama so that's why I went there. And out of that I graduated and everybody that heard me gave me a part of the child. So that's where my first big show was a big drama and on the stage series in Canada. So that it just went from there.

So I spent 25 years in the CBC doing school broadcasts and then when the cartooning came our way then it was just sort of a natural progression to go into voice work because you're not you know I'm not a I'm not a television actor and certainly not now. Hey Clarice after practice would you would you get back here it's your turn you know. Yeah I got to go back. Would you walk with me. Uh huh. Rudolph I think you're cute. I'm cute. I'm cute.

Magnificent. Just want you to know that I'm still cute. Well I see her me once in a while and I always wanted to be like her me I wanted to be independent.

He wanted to be a dentist. So we were mixed together. Hey what do you say we both be independent together. You wouldn't mind my red nose. Not if you don't mind me being a dentist.

It's a deal. Well that was fun. You know the whole show was fun to do and it was all Canadian all the voices are Canadian except for Burl I'd say I thought it was an American show.

No. Well it was partly Bernard Cowan. He was directing it along with with Jules Bass and they came up to Toronto because we we have all the voices from radio because our radio never died. You know it kept on with because of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

You know we'd all been still working in in radio. We had the voices for radio because the puppets are actually three dimensional and they have to be filmed. You know one little teeny movement at a time with the 3D puppets you might say but they're not puppets. They're moved each little teeny little bit as they move through the snow for instance the snowman goes through the snow and the snow is pushed in front of him. It's a unique process that Rankin and Bass first developed and they went on to do other ones of course.

The shows I did were all aimed for children because that's all I ever did were voice voices like Care Bears and things like that. I don't tell anybody either because it spoils the illusion especially for children. I hate to say it you know especially now. Oh I have children grandchildren and great grandchildren. They think it's wonderful.

When they were little they went to school and told their teacher that their mother was Rudolph and the teacher looked at them and said oh yes dear of course. Oh we get on with the work now. But I sometimes I go to schools and it's very good to teach kids how important it is to learn to read not only for pleasure but there actually is a side of that that can be a profession.

So it's a boost for children in the reading and that's when your character voice is fine. Then you can say by the way we thought it would go one year maybe two at the most and that was it. But that's you know that's fine.

Look what's happened to it. You realize it would it had become a classic you know sort of like you know Wizard of Oz you know that that type of show that has a it has a moral to it and you know everything works out in the end. And so I mean there you go.

What more can you ask. You know it all worked out in the end. It revived Rudolph from being just the song and a little Christmas book and made it into something that could be watched every Christmas. It became a Christmas classic because you know my grandchildren even now are almost beyond it but they still watch because they say oh but it's so cute. Rudolph is also of course I'm Rudolph in Rudolph shiny new year and the one that's Christmas in July with Frosty the Snowman. So whatever there's a Rudolph that's my voice.

Rudolph with your nose so bright won't you guide my sleigh tonight. It will be an honor sir. And it was wonderful to see it all put together with the actual figures because we didn't really know what they were going to look like. So it was a really fun thing and I'm very proud that it's been on this long. There are not too many people that can say that. It's really great but I I enjoyed the work that I do and I'm quite happy.

And that's good enough for me. And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. The story of the woman who voiced Rudolph here on Our American Stories. Here at Our American Stories we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.

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