Tony Jay (February 2, 1933 - August 13, 2006) was an English actor. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was known for his voice work in animation and computer games. Jay's distinctive baritone voice often landed him with villainous roles. He passed away on August 13th, 2006 from complications of a surgery to remove a non-cancerous tumor from his lung.
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Biography
Career
Jay appeared on-screen in several movies and on television, including Love and Death, Twins, and Eerie, Indiana. He also developed a distinguished career in the theatre, in plays such as Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, and The Merchant of Venice. Jay's other non-animation roles included the villainous and scarred Paracelsus on the 1980s CBS series Beauty and the Beast; the character of Minister Campio on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the prudish and poorly chosen betrothed of Lwaxana Troi; and Lex Luthor's villainous aide-de-camp Nigel St. John in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. He was also well known for his role as the voice of the virus Megabyte in the award-winning 3-D animated series ReBoot, and for his voice work as Judge Claude Frollo in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He also voiced Monsieur D'Arque in Disney's Beauty and the Beast and the Slave of the Magic Mirror (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) in the Disneyland/Walt Disney World nighttime light and fireworks show Fantasmic! Jay was an impassioned devotee of classic Broadway, and has made several recordings and performances of old-time Broadway lyrics, in spoken-word form. A CD of these readings, Speaking of Broadway, was released in 2005, however a years-earlier version of this same collection was titled Poets on Broadway, the same as his website. It features Jay reciting lyrics written by the likes of Noel Coward, Ira Gershwin, and Oscar Hammerstein and was composed entirely by him, according to the CD liner notes. He is also well-known and well-loved among Legacy of Kain fans for his voicing of the original Mortanius and of the Elder God, alongside several other minor characters.
Personal life
Jay was born in England in 1933. He later moved to the United States, and became a naturalized citizen. Jay was Jewish.[1] He died in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on August 13, 2006, at the age of 73. He had been in critical condition since April 2006, after failing to recover from a surgery to remove a a non cancerous tumor.
Notable voice roles
Notable characters Tony Jay has voiced include:
Film
- Voice of the Supreme Being in Time Bandits
- Monsieur D'arque, the asylum owner, in Beauty and the Beast
- Lickboot the butler in Tom and Jerry: The Movie
- Judge Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Jay also does his character's singing; see Hellfire) (in this role he also won an award for best voice actor)
- Dr. Rosenthal in Recess: School's Out
- Reginald in All Dogs Go to Heaven 2
- Shere Khan in The Jungle Book 2
Television
- Dougie Milford in Twin Peaks
- Edward F. Furrow in Garfield and Friends
- Shere Khan in Tale Spin
- Alf Mason in Peter Pan & The Pirates
- Ceronomus the wizard for the attraction Caesar's Magical Empire
- Chairface Chippendale in The Tick
- Megabyte in ReBoot
- Galactus and Terrax in The Fantastic Four
- Anubis in Gargoyles
- Jarlsberg in Bruno the Kid
- The Wraith in Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series
- Baron Mordo in Spider-Man: The Animated Series
- Lord Dregg, the main villain of the final two seasons of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Virgil the Lemurian in Mighty Max
- Sul-Van in Superman: The Animated Series
- Dr. Lipshitz in Rugrats.
- The Chief in the 1993 revival of Secret Squirrel
- Leader of the Rangers in Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter
- Played the antagonistic spider Spiderus in Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends
- Narrated Skeleton Warriors cartoon series
- Rex Smight Higgens the 1st in Hey Arnold!
- Shere Khan, Magic Mirror, and Ostrich on House of Mouse
- Mechestro in Xyber-9
Video games
- Super-mutant Leader in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
- Mithras in Sacrifice (2000 computer game)
- The Transcendent One in Planescape: Torment (1999 computer game)
- The Director in Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- Chancellor Florian Gustov Niemann in Freelancer
- Kresselack in Icewind Dale (2000 computer game)
- The Elder God in the Legacy of Kain series
- Zephon in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
- Mortanius the Necromancer in Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
- Magneto in X-Men Legends
- King Forge in Armed and Dangerous video game
- The Narrator in The Bard's Tale (2004)
- Xantam the Beholder in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
- Captain Saladin, ArchDruid, Gate, and Lamp Trader in "King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow"
- Kartom in the Aladdin series(episode book of kartom)
- Innoruuk in Champions of Norrath
- Magtheridon in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
Narration
Notable projects for which Tony Jay has narrated include:
- Albert Fish, a 2006 film
- Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
- The Bard's Tale
- Dark Age of Camelot, a MMORPG set in Arthurian times.
- Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
- Hunter: The Reckoning
- Inside a Death Camp: The Sobibor Story, a 2005 TV documentary about the Sobibór Nazi death camp
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
- Skeleton Warriors
- Teen Titans (in the episode Transformation)
- Treasure Planet
- Twins
- World of Warcraft, providing the introductions to the various player races.
Voice-overs
Notable projects for which Tony Jay has narrated include:
- LBC Radio (London), Tony Jay narrated voice-overs for the station's main jingle packages between 1974 and 1980.
Footnotes
- ^ "Tony Jay - Obituary", The Jewish Chronicle, 2006-12-22, pp. 26. Retrieved on 2006-12-24.
External links
- Tony Jay at the Internet Movie Database
