I want to tell you that you wrote a great article on Walter Tetley. Do you know if he was related to the Tetley Tea Company.
Also, there is another fellow who has a voice rather like Walter Tetley. He’s a character actor that I would see all the time in Disney movies. I was sure that was Walter Tetley! But nay. I cannot recall his name. But he often plays a cop. Well, if I see this actor again in an old movie, I shall let you know. 🙂 I will take a wild guess right now and say he was in “The Absentminded Professor.”
Some years ago, I had the great honor to interview June Foray, with the blessing of one editor of a magazine I was working for. Had a great talk with her. Then the editor in chief returned and he said that article had NO place in his magazine. I was a combination of very angry and embarrassed. June had given me at least an hour interview and then a nice chat afterwords. That was the first and only time that has ever happened to me in all my years of magazine work. Then this same editor several years later, when the movie version of “Rocky & Bullwinkle” came out, he had the nerve to ask me to intv June Foray again! Of course, I ignored his request!
Well, I am sure you run into a lot of crap when you write, too. My experience might make you feel like you aren’t the only one burned! 🙂
Jim S
NaturaLite Pictures
Jim:
Ironically, when I first put together the Tribute, I was going to entitle it “Good-bye Mr. Teabags”. At the time I thought that that title would be very catchy, since it alluded to the name that Walter shared, with the Tea Company………I was trying to go for a creative title, too……..one that showed a little bit of thought, or even humor. I am so glad, however, that I abandoned that title. I realized, before my partner, Greg Jones, even said anything, that that title was really a very STUPID name to christen Walter’s tribute with.
At the same time there had also been a part of me, which thought that saying good-bye to him, with an affectionate little nickname, would be a very touching way to express a little bit of my fondness, and sentimentality, toward him (since he was affiliated with some of my very early teenage memories). Saying good-bye, PERIOD, in the title, was what I thought would be a very touching memorial, for Walter (especially taking into account his very difficult last few years of life). Thankfully a more objective and impartial frame of mind prevailed, on my part, and I realized how ridiculous, and even a disservice to this great man, a title like that would be.
No, there is no relation between Walter Tetley, and the tea company. His real last name was Tetzlaff; Tetley was just a stage name.
That probably was Walter Tetley’s voice, on the Walt Disney cartoon. Walter did voices for Warner Bros. cartoons, Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker), Hanna- Barbera, etc. (for the record, one of those two producers, from Hanna-Barbera, just died this year—-I forget which one; they are/were both pretty old—-about the same age: 90 or 91).
It also would not surprise me, if it was Walter, on the Disney cartoon, because Disney has used two others of Jay Ward’s voice GIANTS: June Foray and Paul Frees (I am not sure if the studio used any of the other Jay Ward vocies……..He probably did not use Bill Scott, because Bill, for the most part, did voices just for Jay Ward, as Scott was a co-producer there).
However, I would be willing to bet, that the voice that you heard, from the Disney cartoon, could possibly have also been that of another man, whose voice was always quite high, and never changed: Dick Beals. Hal Smith did the voice of Gumby and David (David from the claymation show, DAVID AND GOLITAH). Dick Beals also did little boy voices, for many of the Warner Bros. cartoons. Today, well into his early 70s, he still has the voice of a young boy.
I am sure that Walter Tetley did NOT appear in THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR. I have read Walter’s filmography, and I would remember that movie, if it were there, because I really liked that Fred McMurray picture (and that credit would have stuck out, in my mind, FOR SURE).
How great an honor, that you were able to have a tete â tete, with June Foray. I never met her in person; I just exchanged letters with her, ONCE, when I was in my very early teens (and she sent a delightful photo of herself, in Africa). I have read, countless times, that she is a very CHARMING woman. I wish that my path could have crossed hers, when I was an adult (even better, as a middle-aged adult, like now………).
So far I have not been burned, as a writer, because I have not actually OFFICIALLY published (or done OFFICIAL interviews). I may have had my chance, back in 1974 or 1975, to be published………At that time, my father was strongly encouraging me to let our local newspaper interview me, so that I could share the fruits of my labors, from all the voice actors, with whom I had corresponded.
The local newspaper, had not contacted us; Dad was thinking of going TO THEM, with my story, and seeing if they would like to do an article on me. Being a 15 or 16- year-old boy, however, and caring so very much about PEER PRESSURE, and LOOKING COOL, I absolutely refused, back then, to let Dad do that. I told my father:
“I’m almost a man now! How cool do you think that is going to look, to my other classmates at school, if they hear that I am dabbling in CARTOONS!!”
Of course today, at 41, I am much more secure, and care less about what people think………..Most importantly, I am no longer struggling to cross that bridge, between childhood and adulthood, as I was when I was 15 or 16 years old.
Brian