Merrie Virginia Eggers (née Erlandson; August 8, 1925 – July 13, 2012), known professionally as Ginny Tyler, was an American voice actress who performed on dozens of cartoons and animated films from 1957 to 1993. In 2006, she was named a Disney Legend.[1][2]
Early life
Tyler was born the elder of two children of Erland Alfred and Harriet (née Ruttenberg) Erlandson in 1925 in Berkeley, California, United States.[3] The family moved to Seattle, Washington, where her brother Donald was born. Later her parents were divorced and her mother remarried and Ginny's step-father adopted Ginny and she became Merrie Virginia Eggers.[4]
Career
Tyler grew up in Seattle and her family had a rich legacy of storytelling and imitation of animal sounds, which proved very useful to her later on in her career as an artist.[2] She first appeared before a radio microphone sometime in the 1930s and co-hosted, alongside Al Priddy the radio show Make Believe Island on KOL station. The show was moved to television, on KOMO-TV and renamed Magic Island by the early 1950s.
Tyler began to work more and more offscreen as a voice artist, appearing in several cartoons and narrating vinyl recordings of Disney films like Bambi and Babes in Toyland. She provided the voice of an amorous squirrel who falls in love with the young King Arthur (while he is in the form of a male squirrel) in The Sword in the Stone. She sang the voices of several barnyard animals in the "Jolly Holiday" sequence of Mary Poppins.[3]
From 1960 to 1962, she also performed several voices for the series Davey and Goliath, including Davey's mother and his sister Sally. She was replaced by Nancy Wible, who had a similar voice (from both of their works in other series), but would use a louder tone than Ginny. The two played roles of carhops on The Flintstones episode "The Drive Inn" (made around the same time as the first episodes of Davey & Goliath) in 1960. Since 1963, inside Disneyland, she can be heard voicing Pele and Tangaroa-Ru during the outside pre-show for Walt's Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.[5] In 1964, Tyler appeared as the Genie in several performances of Aladdin and His Genie for the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1968, she was Flirtacia on Hanna-Barbera's The Adventures of Gulliver. She also played Jan on Space Ghost and Sue Richards, the Invisible Woman in the 1978 television series Fantastic Four.[6] Although Tyler later retired and moved back to Seattle, she still did some recording for local productions.
Death
She died on July 13, 2012, aged 86 at a Washington nursing home.[2]
^"Davey and Pal Make TV Bow". Hartford Courant. February 18, 1961. p. 11.
^Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 767–770. ISBN978-1476665993.
