June Foray: The Woman Who Made Hollywood Respect Animation

Chuck Jones once said Mel Blanc was not the male June Foray's counterpart; rather, Mel Blanc was the male June Foray. She was Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Granny, Cindy Lou Who, and the terrifying Talky Tina, yet for years she worked entirely uncredited. This is the story of a performer whose job was to be invisible and who demanded to be seen.This deep dive traces nearly nine decades of work, from a dancer sidelined by pneumonia who channeled everything into her voice, to an industry advocate who forced Hollywood to treat animation as high art. We follow her from golden-age radio through Disney, Warner Bros., and the institutions she built.How a dancer's physical understanding of breath and posture made her voice acting uniquely embodiedWhy studios kept voice actors nameless, and how she made herself indispensable insteadVoicing both hero Rocky and villain Natasha, and twisting her Chatty Cathy voice into Twilight Zone terrorFounding the Annie Awards and lobbying the Academy for two decades until the 2001 Best Animated Feature categoryWinning an Emmy at 94 as the oldest nominee, working until 97, and landing on Nixon's enemies list over a meat boycott