Her name was Billie Mae Richards, but to the world she will always be Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
That’s right, the voice of Rudolph on the classic 1964 Christmas TV special was really a woman. But unlike the famous outcast reindeer, everyone who met Billie loved her immediately.
We lost Billie on September 10 of this year, at age 88.
She had provided voices for dozens of CBC radio shows throughout the 1950s, most famously giving voice to The Kid on Jake And The Kid. Yes, she was playing a boy long before Rudolph came along.
I knew Billie and had the good fortune to work with her on several occasions. Although I stood over a foot taller, I soon learned she had an unfair advantage in any performance. I could labour like crazy to win over the audience, then all she had to do was walk on stage and say, “Clarice thinks I’m cuuute!” and she’d steal the show.
Canada was not alone in feeling her loss; her death was covered in People and Variety magazines, in the Los Angeles Times, and she was even eulogized by Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News.
This is our first Christmas without her, so it seems an ideal time to remember this wonderful actress whose voice came to define the season.
A child singer, dancer and accordion player in Toronto vaudeville of the 1920s, by the time she was six she was performing in a variety show called The Merry Makers alongside those Canadian icons of the First World War, The Dumbells. During the Second World War, Billie decided to join the navy, and it wasn’t long before she was asked to put her talents to use by becoming part of the Meet The Navy show, which toured Canada and Europe.
After the war she embarked on a highly successful radio career at the CBC, specializing in providing voices for young male characters.
The beloved holiday special Rudolph was an American production, but the producers came to Canada to record the voices. Our radio drama industry was busy back then, and our voice artists were considered superior to their U.S. counterparts. With the exception of Burl Ives, the entire cast of Rudolph came from Toronto and included many popular (and still active) Canadian actors such as Paul Soles (Hermey the Elf, and the original voice of Spider-Man), Carl Banas (Elf Boss), Larry Mann (Yukon Cornelius) and the late Paul Kligman (Donner).
Soles, in particular, remained close friends with Billie. They later appeared together as husband and wife in the 1998 horror movie Shadow Builder in which his character attacked her with an axe. Yup, Hermey killed Rudolph! Let that one sink in for a while.
Unfortunately Rudolph was produced prior to the days when actors began receiving residuals for their work, meaning they got paid a one-time fee for performing the voices. In spite of the show’s continued success over the past four decades and the millions of dollars it has generated, the actors never saw another penny for their contributions.
Billie provided Rudolph’s voice for two subsequent animated specials, and went on to create voices for many other cartoons series including Spider-Man, Captain Nemo and The Care Bears. She continued to be active in voice, film and TV work well into her 80s, only slowing down in the past few years due to ill health.
This Christmas, as I indulge in my annual ritual of watching Rudolph, Billie will be front and centre in my thoughts. She spent 80 years as a proud Canadian performer, and left a legacy few can match.
So Billie, on behalf of everyone whose lives you touched with your friendship, humour and talent, you’ll live on in our hearts, always.
Randy Vancourt is a Toronto-based composer and playwright.
http://www.torontosun.com/entertainm.../16659906.html
Rudolph was a Canadian woman!
