Biography
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Born
3 November 1952 (age 71)
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Born In
Youngstown, Mahoning County, Ohio, United States
James Jonah Cummings (born November 3, 1952 in Youngstown, Ohio) is a prolific American voice actor and has often been considered to be a successor to the voice acting legend Mel Blanc.
After moving to New Orleans and working as a constructor of Mardi Gras floats, Cummings eventually found himself in Anaheim, California working odd jobs. In 1983, the increasing illness of longtime Winnie the Pooh voice actor Sterling Holloway led to an open call to replace him for the movie Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore. Cummings offered an uncanny substitute, and was hired for his first voice actor job.
Over the next 20 years, Cummings' role in voice acting evolved from bit characters to leading roles in major series at a number of studios, including Nickelodeon, Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, Dreamworks, and 20th Century Fox studios. However, his most famous and long-lasting roles have occurred at Walt Disney Studios, where has provided voices for any number of television series, including leading roles in Gummi Bears, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, Bonkers, Gargoyles, and House of Mouse, and movies such as Hercules, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas and the Disney special edition of Alice in Wonderland (as the Cheshire Cat singing "I'm Odd"). Cummings also voiced the non-speaking role of Ed the laughing hyena in 1994's The Lion King.
Other roles for Cummings include Mr. Bumpy in the cult Claymation show Bump in the Night, Dr. Robotnik on Sonic The Hedgehog, Psy-Crow and Bob the Killer Goldfish on Earthworm Jim and Taz Tazmanian Devil on Taz-Mania and a number of other projects. In addition to Taz and Pooh, Cummings has over the years become the official voice for a number of legendary cartoon characters, including Tigger, Pete, Dick Dastardly, the Slag Brothers, Big Gruesome, Private Meekly, Clyde, and Morocco Mole . He also did some voices on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles such as Leatherhead the mutant alligator and some additional characters. He also did the voice of Don Karnage in Disney's TaleSpin. Cummings has also provided voices for video games, television commercials, and movie trailers, and is the current official announcer for Kids' WB!.
Cummings is well-known for being a superb voice imitator. He imitates Sterling Holloway's voicework as Winnie the Pooh and Kaa extremely well, and was even able to imitate Paul Winchell's the voice of Tigger when Winchell retired. When Jeremy Irons's vocal cords blew out during production of The Lion King, Cummings was chosen to imitate Irons's voice in the last part of the song "Be Prepared".
In the world of video games, Cummings has done the voice of Minsc of Baldur's Gate/Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn and Drizzt Do'Urden in the First Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance game. He is also prominently displayed in the credits of Kingdom Hearts as Pooh, Tigger, and Pete. Cummings provided his voice for Bad Mr. Frosty, Hougan, and Sumo Santa in Clay Fighter 63 1/3. He voices Sarge and the other soldiers in the Army Men games. In Ys Book I and II for the Turbografx -16 CD system, he is credited as voicing Dalles and also did some side characters' voices for Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.
Cummings also narrates the current Epcot fireworks show, IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth.
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