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This memorial website, sponsored by Acklie Foundation, was created to honor Thurl Ravenscroft for his service to his country. Thurl proudly served in the United States Army Air Transport Command as a navigator flying high profile courier missions including Winston Churchill and Bob Hope. Thurl's contributions to the war effort and then community and public career have endeared him to millions. May he never be forgotten.

December 13, 2023
December 13, 2023
You were a great entertainer! Ty for your service sir and may you continue to rest in peace!
November 15, 2023
November 15, 2023
I'm up Thank you Mr. Ravenscroft for beautiful music. A beautiful voice and talented man.
January 18, 2023
January 18, 2023
“You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch!” But you’re also “Greaaaaat!”

Rest in Love!
December 19, 2021
December 19, 2021
Sir you are still remembered and loved
Thank you for both your service to this country and for the music!
P L
May 9, 2021
May 9, 2021
What a life! I had no idea. Amazing!
May 9, 2021
May 9, 2021
I remember him when singing You’re mean one mr grinch. From the movie.
January 6, 2020
January 6, 2020
Thurl left us all a memory from our childhood that continues to this day. Thanks to his service in WWII and his contributions to the memories of millions; we hope his memory will continue to be a blessing. RIP forever!

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Recent Tributes
December 13, 2023
December 13, 2023
You were a great entertainer! Ty for your service sir and may you continue to rest in peace!
November 15, 2023
November 15, 2023
I'm up Thank you Mr. Ravenscroft for beautiful music. A beautiful voice and talented man.
January 18, 2023
January 18, 2023
“You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch!” But you’re also “Greaaaaat!”

Rest in Love!
His Life

Famous Quote by Thurl

September 26, 2022
"All I have to do is walk into any crowd in the United States, I'll bet you, and say, G-rr-r-r-e--a-a-at! and everyone would turn around and say, Tony!"
Recent stories

The man who Voiced "Tony the Tiger" reprint from the Norfolk Daily News

December 10, 2018

The man who voiced Tony the Tiger and called the Grinch 'a mean one

For those outside of Norfolk,NE. there’s a good chance you’ve never heard the name Thurl Ravenscroft. But there’s a significantly better chance you’ve heard his voice — many times and as many characters, in films and TV shows, commercials and popular music.

The Norfolk native with the basso profundo voice struck a note that resonated for much of the 20th century.

You’re probably most familiar with his work as the voice of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes spokesman Tony the Tiger. Ravenscroft started roaring his “Grrrrreeeat!” catchphrase in the early ’50s and continued voicing the character almost until his death in 2005.

But Ravenscroft’s contributions can be heard across thousands of works.

“What made Thurl so unique was his wide-ranging talent,” said Keith Scott, an Australian voice actor in animated films who is writing a book on the history of the great American theatrical cartoon voice actors, which includes Ravenscroft. “He was gifted with an amazingly rich voice, which he was putting to use from a very early age.”

Ravenscroft did an awful lot. He was the singer of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” He voiced the pig in “Mary Poppins,” Monstro the whale in “Pinocchio,” Kirby the vacuum cleaner in “The Brave Little Toaster” and Captain the horse in “101 Dalmatians.”

His singing can be heard in “Dumbo,” “Cinderella,” “Peter Pan,” “Lady and the Tramp,” “South Pacific,” “The Jungle Book” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

As a part of the quartets the Sportsmen and the Mellomen, he sang alongside such artists as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Doris Day and Rosemary Clooney. He sang in “Looney Tunes” cartoons. He sang for various attractions at Disneyland and Disney World. In fact, his likeness can be seen (and voice heard) as one of the singing busts in the “Haunted Mansion” ride. The bust is sometimes mistaken for Walt Disney, a man whom Ravenscroft knew well.

With the new “Grinch” movie in theaters and the sequel to “Mary Poppins” opening later this month, it marks a good time to explore the extraordinary life and work of a Nebraska man with a peculiar name and an unforgettable voice.

The early years

Born on Feb. 6, 1914, in Norfolk, Ravenscroft attended Norfolk High School, where his voice became “The Voice.” He was the tenor lead in the school musical his junior year, and the bass lead his senior year.

“It just dropped,” Ravenscroft said of his voice in a 1983 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I didn’t go through the breaking and stuff. It just fell.”

Shortly after Ravenscroft graduated in 1932, his father encouraged him to move to Los Angeles to go to art school. While at college, Ravenscroft quickly revealed a flair for entertainment and a great sense of humor.

Before long, friends started asking him if he’d ever considered going into show business.

Show business

After auditioning as a group singer at Paramount, Ravenscroft landed musical work at the major studios. He earned $15 a day for recording sessions and an additional $40 a week singing for the Country Church of Hollywood. (Ravenscroft was a devout Christian who often sang gospel throughout his 60-something-year career.)

In the late ‘30s, he formed the Sportsmen quartet, who were featured on Jack Benny’s radio show and sang on “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” cartoons. Ravenscroft had fully broken in to Hollywood.

Then came the war — which, in its own way, kept Ravenscroft connected to show business. He enlisted in 1942, hoping to be a pilot but learning that — at a height of 6-foot-5 — he was too tall for the fighter planes. So he served as a navigator for the Air Transport Command, flying VIPs around the globe.

According to the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Norfolk — which continues to display a Ravenscroft exhibit — he flew Bob Hope to Casablanca to perform for the troops at the Christmas show and flew Winston Churchill to Algiers to plan the Allied Invasion.

After the war, Ravenscroft became a training pilot for Trans World Airlines. Through the job, he met his wife, June Seamans. They were married three weeks after meeting and remained married until her death 53 years later.

Ravenscroft had a few career options. He could keep flying or give Hollywood another shot. He chose the latter.

When people asked him how he made a living, he said, “Well, today I sang like a mouse, I was a horse out in the barn, I was the voice of a coyote.”

Disney

“You can’t be in the Disney community and not run into (Ravenscroft’s work),” said J.B. Kaufman, a Wichita, Kan., film historian with a focus on the early animated Disney movies.

Kaufman said Ravenscroft’s earliest contribution to the studio was in 1940’s “Pinocchio.” He provided the voice (or, rather, the sound effects) of Monstro the whale. And with his quartet the Sportsmen, Ravenscroft provided promotional songs for the film.

And just like that, Ravenscroft had forged a relationship with Disney that lasted through the late ’90s, when he was doing the voice of Kirby the vacuum cleaner in “The Brave Little Toaster” and its sequels.

In between “Pinocchio” and “Toaster,” he performed singing and speaking roles for dozens of Disney works.

In an interview Ravenscroft did with the cartoon arts magazine Hogan’s Alley, he described being directed by Walt Disney himself for the film “The Lady and the Tramp.”

Disney wanted Ravenscroft’s quartet, The Mellomen, to sing as the four-legged prisoners in the film’s dog pound sequence. But he wanted them to really sing like dogs. They tried it out a few times in the recording studio, and Disney got them closer and closer to the forlorn howl you hear in the movie.

“He was a wonderful man,” Ravenscroft said of Disney in the interview. “He knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew how it should be done.”

Tony the Tiger

“I’m the only man in the world that has made a career with one word: ‘Grrrrreeeat!’” Ravenscroft told The Orange County Register in 1996.

When Kellogg’s ad agency, Leo Burnett, sent Ravenscroft a sketch of Tony the Tiger and the intended catchphrase, he suggested they do something with the word “great.” Why not rumble it out with an explosive roar?: “‘Grrrrreeeat!”

For the next 50 years, he did the voice of Tony. Odds are he’s brought “out the tiger in you” at some point in your life.

Over the decades, Tony grew taller (to 6-foot-2) and bulked up quite a bit, and he remained one of the most popular and enduring product mascots of the 20th century. In 1999, the ad industry magazine Advertising Age ranked Tony No. 9 in the list of the top 10 advertising icons of the century, just behind Aunt Jemima and the Michelin Man.

“I made Tony a person,” Ravenscroft said in the Hogan’s Alley interview. “For me, Tony was real. I made him become a human being, and that affected the animation and everything.”

But Ravenscroft did far more ad work than Tony. He appeared in TV commercials as the Marlboro Man and sang with the Melloman in ads for Pabst Blue Ribbon. According to the L.A. Times, he at one point had 27 different beer accounts throughout the U.S.

In the book “Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal,” Ravenscroft said his voice was at times too distinct.

“When I did a commercial for another company, and it had the word ‘great’ in it, they would change it,” he said. “Because even if I said ‘great’ straight, it would be identifiable.”

The Grinch

Ravenscroft scored the most memorable music number on the 1966 TV special “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” purely by happenstance.

He didn’t really know anything about the Dr. Seuss book nor the adaptation that Chuck Jones was directing and Ted “Dr. Seuss” Geisel was producing. But MGM called him into the studio to do a few hours of work.

He joined several other singers as the people of Whoville. Toward the end of the session, the music director told Ravenscroft there was a solo they’d like him to take a shot at called “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”

Ravenscroft describes what happened next in a documentary on the special edition DVD of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”:

“They handed me the music, and we went through it with the orchestra a couple of times and made two or three takes, and that was it.”

The lines Ravenscroft was told to sing were a bit odd. Lines like, “Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled-up knots!”

But Ravenscroft nailed it. The whole session only took a few hours. “As we finished it,” Ravenscroft said, “and we’re in the control room listening to the last playbacks, Chuck and Ted turned to each other and said, “Well, that takes care of this.’ ”

Ravenscroft had another job to run off to, and he didn’t do much more thinking about “The Grinch” until the TV special and the song became holiday classics.

And his name was nowhere to be found in the credits.

He was mistakenly left out of them, with only Boris Karloff being credited, as the narrator and the voice of the Grinch. When news got back to Geisel that Ravenscroft had been forgotten, he called Ravenscroft and apologized profusely.

“And then,” Ravenscroft said in the DVD documentary, “to show you what kind of a wonderful man he was, (Geisel) wrote a letter to many columnists and said, ‘Please print this.’ And it was the story of this guy who sang the song about the mean old Grinch. Which was darn nice.”

Essential (and essentially unknown)

Ravenscroft: “It was hard to know if anything, any one particular thing, increased my career or not. I know Tony being around, of course, so long, everybody knew me and knew my voice. And of course the Grinch helped again. But to put any one thing, saying this did something for my career, I couldn’t tell ya.”

As Ravenscroft’s career flourished, he began wondering whether he should change his name to something simple — like, say, Ted Raven. But ultimately he stuck with Thurl Ravenscroft.

Though it wasn’t the unique moniker that kept Ravenscroft from becoming famous but the nature of his work. His was the kind of God-given talent that stayed out of the spotlight. These days, much vocal work in animated films is fronted with famous actors. But it wasn't always that way.

“Thurl and his fellow voice artists and session singers actually loved and preferred the anonymous lifestyle that Hollywood afforded them,” said the voice-actor-turned-author Scott, who had a letter correspondence with Ravenscroft late in the legend’s life. “It meant they could work constantly on a wide variety of ‘in-and-out’ recording sessions, with none of the burdens of fame. No photo shoots, no interviews, none of the constant stress of keeping your name in the limelight to a fickle public.”

Ravenscroft was a product of an era, Scott said, “when talent, professionalism and a courteous demeanor virtually guaranteed success, as long as the artist kept exercising and growing the innate gifts with which they were blessed.”

Now thanks to the internet, he said, “a new generation is slowly coming to know and appreciate these people who remained essentially unknown during their own lifetimes.”

October 16, 2013
ARTICLE

Interview: Thurl Ravenscroft: THURL'S GRRRRRRR-EAT! A Conversation With Thurl Ravenscroft by R.J. Carter Published: May 24, 2005

Author's note, May 24, 2005: It's been less than 30 minutes since I heard the heart-rending news that Thurl Ravenscroft had just passed away at the age of 91. Many people are unfamiliar with Mr. Ravenscroft and his work. Those who have a passing acquaintance may know of some of his more famous voice acting roles.
I was privileged and honored to speak with the man a few years back and learned there was so much more to Thurl than a career behind a microphone. Actor. Singer. Veteran. Mister Ravenscroft, you will be missed. You were, indeed, great.

 

You might not recognize the name, but the odds are nearly even that you would recognize the voice. For years, Thurl Ravenscroft has lent his mellifluous basso profundo to such characters as Paul Bunyan and Kirby the vacuum cleaner, among several others. But he’ll probably forever be remembered for giving the gift of speech to the icon of the Kellogg’s cereal company, Tony the Tiger. Since he’s also the man who sang those wonderful Seussian lyrics, “You’re a mean one, Mister Grinch,” and since it’s so close to Christmas and Grinch-time, I felt that this was the perfect time to dust off this interview from a couple of years ago with Mr. Ravenscroft. I got a lot more than I bargained for, and learned about the fascinating events of his life.
I have to admit that you, the readers, are cheated of an integral part of this interview. It’s impossible to transcribe a sentence from Thurl Ravenscroft and have it read on paper the same way it sounds when Mr. Ravenscroft says it. Nevertheless... onward!
Before you even hear the voice, there’s the name: Thurl Ravenscroft. You can almost hear the rolling thunder behind it. What’s the derivation of that?
Well, Ravenscroft, of course, is English. We’ve traced our family history clear back beyond William The Conqueror, and there have been many important Ravenscrofts in the history of England--artists, song writers, hymn writers, crystal glass makers, and etc.
But “Thurl” throws everybody into Scandinavia, for some reason or other. But my father had a friend whose name was Thurl, and he thought that “Thurl” and “Ravenscroft” were a happy combination, so when I came along, he decided to call me Thurl.
When did you begin your career in singing--before, after or during your tour as a navigator with the Air Transport Command?
Oh, long before. I came to California in ’33, from Nebraska, to study interior design and set design. In high school and college, I had been a ham and I had been acting in all the musicals, all the dramas, etc. While I was going to school, I sang in the choir in a church here in California, and the choir director was one of the studio singers. That’s at the time when all of the studios were making nothing but musicals. He said, “Paramount’s having an audition for singers. Why don’t you go audition?” And I said, “Well, why not?”
An interesting thing, you talked about my name--when I sang, they said, “What is your name,” and I said, “Thurl Ravenscroft.” They said, “Well, that is a beautiful stage name. What is your real name?”
Anyway, I began to get a call as a studio singer, and one thing led to another and I never went back to art school. I became very active as a studio singer. And met, of course, many people who were also studio singers.
Then one thing led to another, and I was asked to be a member of a quartet. That was my first steady job, so I took it. It was $40 a week. I thought that was for the quartet, but I found out that was for me--$40!
From there, it went on. I helped form The Sportsmen Quartet, and we were featured with Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallee, and all the radio shows. I was with The Sportsmen until the World War II. I was the youngest member of the quartet, and not married.
Having my pilot’s license, I wanted to fly. But I was too tall for the fighter pilots, so I found out my best bet to fly was to become a navigator. I got my navigator’s license while I was still singing. Then I heard that the Air Transport Command was hiring navigators to fly the Atlantic. I applied and was cleared by G2 Intelligence. During the War for five years, I spent flying the North and South Atlantic.
During that time, I got married, and after the War, they wanted me to go to Cairo as Chief of the North African Division. My wife and I had both been in Cairo, and didn’t want any part of it. So, I said “All I know is show business,” and we came back to California.
So you would have been flying during the formation of the United States Air Force? It was still a division of the Army at that time.
Oh yeah, that was when it was the Army Air Corps. The Air Transport Command was part of the Army Air Corps. That was before our own Air Force.
You mentioned this list of people you’ve sung with. I understand you’ve also sung with Elvis Presley. What was that like?
Well, it was very odd--very peculiar. This was before he became involved with all the odd stuff. But we’d made a couple of records with Elvis. He always had his own quartet back in Nashville, but when he came out to make a picture, they were not available. So MGM said, “Well, we have a quartet we think can do the job.” So he agreed to let us work with him on the picture--off camera, of course. Just recording. We did that, and he liked us very much, so he used us on a couple of records after that. But it was a very odd experience. He was a peculiar man.
When did the transition occur from singing to doing voice-overs?
It was during that time, after the war. The quartet began to do a lot of jingles and things, and got into the commercial field. The quartet had been doing some Sugared Corn Pops commercials for Kellogg’s, so they knew me back in the advertising agency, and when the new cereal and a new character came out, they decided to see what Thurl will do with it.
So they sent a drawing of Tony and a character description and a sample script out to see what I might do with it. And, of course, the payoff in the early Tony was “Tony, are Frosted Flakes any good?” And Tony would always say, “Good? Why, they’re great!” So I decided I had to do something with the word ‘great’ to make it really explode, and I experimented and came up with the ‘great’ that I do. They took it back to Chicago, to Kellogg’s and the advertising agency, and I’ve been doing him ever since.
Well, it’s certainly made an impact on the pop culture of America. Few characters are more widely recognized than Tony the Tiger.
(Laughs) That’s right. Tony is the icon of the cereal business.
Do you ever run into children or parents in the cereal aisle who recognize your voice?
Oh yes, all the time. Now, of course, I’ve been doing him so long that everybody knows me. I get fan mail now from all over the world. [Editor’s note: You can send fan mail to Thurl through the Walt Disney Company. Send it to: Thurl Ravenscroft, c/o The Walt Disney Company, 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, California 91521]
In looking at your extensive credits, I find that many of your appearances are listed as “uncredited.” “Donald and the Wheel,” “The Music Man, “The Jungle Book.” Was this unintentional? What happened?
No. You see, I was freelance, and I didn’t have an agent, and I was doing five or six jobs a day. It was ‘another job.’ When I did the singing on “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” I didn’t get any credit either, because we thought it was just... I was there in the studio about an hour, and Ted Geisel was there, and Chuck Jones the animator, and it was just another job. When I finished it in about an hour, I went on to the next job.
If I had, of course, had an agent, and they had realized that it was going to be a big hit, I would probably have gotten credit.
I just bought the tape tonight, and checked out the audio CD version as well, and they still don’t list your credit on there.
I know. I never have gotten credit.
There’s a similar case with the Superman creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who didn’t get their dues from DC Comics for a long time. Is there any possibility that maybe the studios will say, “Hey, let’s do you right?”
Oh, I have no idea. (Chuckling) I wish I had credit, of course, bud I didn’t have because I went on to the next job, and I remember Dr. Seuss--Ted Geisel--was there, and Chuck the animator, and when we finished in about an hour, they said, “Well, that takes care of this Christmas. What’ll we do next Christmas?”
Not dreaming, of course, that it would become an international favorite.
When the new version of “The Grinch” was being produced, were there any expectations that they might approach you to sing it again, or replay the original song somewhere in the movie?
I never heard a word from anybody.
Oh, that’s disappointing.
Yeah, and I’m... I don’t know whether I want to see it or not, because I’m afraid that they have ruined the original “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.” It was such a beautiful story.
I understand you also used to do the announcing for the Laguna Beach “Festival Of Arts Pageant Of The Masters.”
Oh, for twenty years, I was the narrator, yes.
What was that all about? What I read about it seemed very interesting.
Well, it was internationally famous. People came from all over the world to see it--and it’s still going on. But I had to stop it six years ago after twenty years of doing it, because I couldn’t climb up to the top of the pole every night. My legs began to play tricks on me, so I had to give it up.
But it’s fantastic--you can’t describe it. We reproduced--on stage--in any media, artwork: oil paintings; sculpture; stained glass. You name it. We reproduced artwork with real people! And you would swear you were looking at the original. People came from all over the world to see it. They still do--it’s still going on.
And your voice is still being used in many of the attractions at Disneyland.
Oh yeah, I’m on practically every ride in the park.
Are you still doing the occasional voice-over for Disney or anybody else?
Well, I’m not jobbing anymore. I still do Tony. I’ve been doing Tony for... this will be my 49th year. They call me back now and then to re-do something that I have done at the park, but I don’t make Disney pictures anymore. But I’ve done so many. I knew Walt personally through my work there, and it was a real treat.
Have you ever thought about publishing your memoirs? You have such a varied career, I’m sure people would love to read about it.
Oh, there’s a lot of people that want to write my story, but... I don’t know. Who would want it? Who would want to buy it?
Oh, I think there’d be a great many people out there who would want it.
Well, it could be. Several people are after me to do it. I had quite an experience during the War. I flew special missions for the Air Transport Command over both the North and South Atlantic. We flew special missions; we flew high priority cargo or high priority personnel.
We flew Winston Churchill to the conference in Algiers where they decided whether to invade through Italy or through France.
Even though I knew Bob Hope before the War, I flew him and his troop on a trip from Scotland to Casablanca during the War. That was a lot of fun.

Special thanks go out to Brian Jacob and his web site, All Things Thurl, for providing background research to make this interview possible.

This column originally appeared December 10, 2002.

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