Frank Welker
From The Unofficial DisneyWiki
Frank Welker (born March 12, 1946) (age 63) is a veteran American voice actor. He is responsible for a broad spectrum of character voices, and other vocal effects that have appeared over the last 40 years in American television and motion pictures.
Welker is listed as the number one "All Time Top 100 Stars at the Box Office," not as a box office draw, but in terms of the total revenue generated by the films he has participated in.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Life
Welker was born in Denver, Colorado. He attended college in California, where he later began his career appearing in commercials. While in college he appeared in numerous plays, and developed a stand-up comedy act which got him started on the concert circuit touring with The Righteous Brothers and Sergio Mendes. He continued with stand up, appearing in places including Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe as the opening act for headliners like Sonny and Cher, Diana Ross, Loretta Lynn, Ann-Margret and Neil Sedaka.
[edit] Acting career
Welker's first on camera film role was a bar fight participant in Stan Dragoti's Dirty Little Billy. He played a college kid from Rutgers University in the Elvis Presley picture The Trouble with Girls. He later co-starred with Don Knotts in Universal's How to Frame a Figg. Welker also appeared in two Disney films, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and Now You See Him, Now You Don't.
His on camera television appearances included Love American Style, The Partridge Family and The Don Knotts Show. He played a prosecutor in highly acclaimed ABC special The Trial of General Yamashita and as Captain Pace beside Richard Dreyfuss' Yossarian in Paramount television's pilot, Catch-22. He appeared on Laugh In, The Dean Martin Roast, The Mike Douglas Show, The Tonight Show, Merv Griffin, The Smothers Brothers Show, The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour and Laugh Trax. In the later show, he was a cast member alongside Jim Staahl and Howie Mandel. Frank also played an on camera role of a voice actor on an episode of Simon and Simon. He is set to return to an on camera role in the film The Informant (2009 film) playing Matt Damon's character's father.
[edit] Voice acting career
Welker has been referred to as a "voice acting god" (by John DiMaggio and Billy West in the DVD commentary for Futurama) in Hollywood for the sheer number of voices he has done--over 1,200-- ranging from his work on Scooby-Doo to the present day. His voice acting credits include television shows and films such as Curious George, Aladdin, Pocahontas and computer games such as the Baldur's Gate series, and CarnEvil. Frank's ability goes beyond creating human voices and is often cast as animals and used for animal vocals, for example the animal-spirit Totoro and Catbus in the Disney 2005 re-dub of My Neighbor Totoro.
Welker starred in more live action movies during the 1990's. His work includes vocal effects for the character of Sil in Species, Goro in 1995's Mortal Kombat, the Devil in 1986's The Golden Child, and Malebolgia in 1997's Spawn. Welker also provided the voice (both speaking and non-speaking) of Nibbler in the cartoon TV series Futurama.
As of 2002, Welker is the voice of both Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo. This includes the most recent What's New, Scooby-Doo?, and the series-based spinoff, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue! Also, Welker starred in most of the 2000's Scooby-Doo projects as Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo. He also was Sasquatch in The Legend of Sasquatch. Welker's talent was also recognized in Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626, voicing the jealous and maniacal Experiment 6-2-1.
[edit] Transformers
In the 1980's, Welker voiced many recurring characters in the Transformers animated series. He voiced eight of the original 14 Decepticons: Megatron/Galvatron, Soundwave, Skywarp, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage and Ratbat. He also did voicework as the Autobots Mirage and Trailbreaker. With the release of the animated film in 1986, he took on the role of the Autobot Wheelie and afterwards, took over the role of Galvatron from Leonard Nimoy. Having already provided the screams for Nimoy's character Mr. Spock in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, this marked the second time he had inherited a role from Nimoy. Welker was asked to audition to reprise his original role of Megatron in the 2007 live action Transformers movie. Apparently due to a conflict in schedules, Welker never met with the producers or director Michael Bay. Bay, however, had Welker send him a couple of recorded lines and concluded that Welker's Megatron did not fit his new interpretation of the character and that having him use a different voice would defeat the purpose of casting him. Although this did not occur in the film itself, Welker reunited with Transformers co-star Peter Cullen in the 2007 Transformers: The Game, with both returning to voice their signature roles. He also reprised his role in the animated prequel, a bonus premium of the DVD package.
Welker also returned to two of his most famous Transformers roles when he portrayed Megatron and Soundwave as part of a spoof in the third season episode of Robot Chicken, aired shortly after the release of the live action film.
According to imdb.com, Frank Welker's voice archives of Ravage will be used for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
