My Father the Voice
Jim Cummings
James Jonah Cummings, born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1952, is one of America’s greatest voice actors. Over the last forty years, he has given voice to Winnie the Pooh, Taz the Tasmanian Devil, and hundreds of other iconic characters. He most recently supplied the voice of Winnie the Pooh in the live-action Disney film Christopher Robin. He is the father of four daughters, Livia, Raleigh, Gracie, and Lulu.
Raleigh (seven months old) and Jim, 1987
like every other kid, I grew up watching cartoons. But unlike most other kids, I often heard my father’s voice coming from the television. My dad seemed to be on just about every program, voicing such characters as Darkwing Duck and Dr. Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog, Mickey’s nemesis Pete on Goof Troop, Cat from CatDog, and Winnie the Pooh, one of the most beloved characters in all of children’s literature. His voices were different for each character, obviously, but I always knew when I heard Dad.
We—my sister, Livia; my dad; my mom; and I—lived in a ranch-style house in the Santa Rosa Valley in Camarillo, California. It’s horse country, and there were trails all over the neighborhood and a creek at the end of our cul-de-sac. Livia and I grew up outside, making tree houses and getting into trouble. When the sun went down, my dad would whistle for us to come in for dinner. It was like an arrow shot across the land. He had a unique whistle for each of us—the one for me was a sort of four-note phrase using my first and middle name: Ra-leigh-JACK-son; the one for my sister was a triplet: Li-vi-a!—and as soon as we heard it, we’d race back home. Funny for the daughter of a voice actor, but my dad’s whistle is what really sticks in my mind.
As one of the most in-demand voice actors of the '80s, Dad worked constantly when I was a kid. He frequently left for the studio before we got up and returned late at night. I always loved when his recording schedule allowed him to take me to school. And he had great kid advice: “Have too much fun.” “Instincts are the best stinks.” “Ask the questions and question the answers.” The last piece of advice I took so much to heart that I was told by more than one teacher that I asked too many questions. Dad categorically denied that this was possible.
He was an excellent storyteller. He once told us about when he was working on a tugboat in New Orleans and something went wrong when the boat was going through the locks. Locks are essentially water elevators used to navigate boats down the Mississippi River. The water was emptying to take the boat down a level. Dad and the other deckhands needed to untie the boat from the docks so it could go down with the water level, but a rope on one side was stuck. The water was lowering, but that side of the boat wasn’t. The boat started tipping on its side and threatening to capsize. According to Dad, he raced to the galley, grabbed a cleaver, ran back to the line, and cut it free just before certain disaster. I was enthralled by this story as a kid and was convinced that it was completely true. My father was a hero for sure.
Our home was always filled with stories, music, and art. My mother was a gifted stained-glass artist before becoming a full-time mom, and she was constantly working on some project to decorate the house. Re-covering the furniture, framing old family photos, or arranging our artwork. Every time she’d decide to change the wall color, Dad would take the opportunity to paint on the walls with us before she covered them with a new shade. My sister and I loved to doodle on the walls while Dad created big murals of leafy greenery. Any opportunity to be creative and fun and feel a little like a troublemaker, he jumped at.
Right after I turned thirteen, my parents got divorced. It was messy. My sister and I would go for months without contact with our dad. Normally when you don’t speak to someone, you don’t hear their voice at all, but that wasn’t the case for us. I’d be over at a friend’s house, and my dad would be selling us Cheez-Its during the commercial break. We’d be driving in the car, and we’d hear Dad telling us to buy a Lexus. Someone could be watching TV two rooms away, and I’d all of a sudden turn and say, “That’s my dad.” I can tell if it’s him just by how he clears his throat. It’s like a homing beacon. I’m not conscious of it, but my ear turns my head and I can’t help but say, “That’s my dad.” I interrupt whoever is talking. No “Excuse me,” just a quick “That’s my dad.” It’s a compulsion. I still do it. It’s a bit of a heartbreak when the voice of someone you’re angry at comes into your space so often, but such was life for my sister and me as teenagers.
Things eventually settled down, and we began to reconnect with him. We all went to Disneyland together a few years ago when he was working at D23, the Disney Convention. I was waiting for him to go to lunch in the lobby of the Grand Californian. It’s an enormous Arts-and-Crafts-style hotel with fifty-foot-high ceilings, kids and families everywhere, cartoons playing on an old-timey TV. I was in a chair staring at my phone in the middle of all this when I found myself suddenly standing and looking three stories up toward the elevators and the third-story rooms. My dad was standing there, grinning from ear to ear in shock and amazement. He had done my whistle, the one that he once used to call me home from playing outside as a kid. I hadn’t even realized it till I saw his face! It was like I was a sleeper agent programmed as a child to come to this whistle. I stood up and looked before my brain even registered it. Neither of us could believe that it had worked, so many years later and across a crowded hotel lobby. I looked up at him, he looked down at me, and we shared a laugh, bridging the distance and years between us.