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Thurl Ravenscroft
Ravenscroft in 1967
Born	Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (1914-02-06)February 6, 1914 Norfolk, Nebraska, U.S.
Died	May 22, 2005(2005-05-22) (aged 91) Fullerton, California, U.S.
Resting place	Crystal Cathedral Memorial Gardens,Garden Grove, California
Alma mater	Otis College of Art and Design
Occupations	Actor singer
Years active	1939–2005
Spouse	June Seamans ​ ​ (m. 1946; died 1999)​
Children	2

Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (/ˈθɜːrlˈreɪvənzkrɒft/; February 6, 1914 – May 22, 2005) was an American actor andbass singer. He was well known as one of the booming voices behindKellogg'sFrosted Flakes animated spokesmanTony the Tiger for more than five decades. He was also the uncredited vocalist for the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from the classicChristmas television specialDr. Seuss'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!^[1]

Ravenscroft did voice-over work and singing forDisney in various films andDisneyland attractions (which were later featured atWalt Disney World), the best known includingThe Haunted Mansion,Country Bear Jamboree,Mark Twain Riverboat,Pirates of the Caribbean,Disneyland Railroad, andWalt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.

His voice-acting career began in 1939 and lasted until his death in 2005 at age 91.^[2]

Ravenscroft left his nativeNorfolk, Nebraska, in 1933 forCalifornia, where he studied at Otis Art Institute. In 1939, he joined a singing group formed by tenor Bill Days called The Sportsmen: Days, Johnny Rarig, Max Smith, and Ravenscroft. They served as backup singers to vocalist Marie Greene on theOkeh record label (credited as "Marie Greene and Her Merry Men"). The quartet also contributed to a Disney feature,Pinocchio (1940), singing "Honest John". This was deleted from the film, but can still be heard in the supplements on the 2009 DVD.

The group, billed as The Four Merry Men, appeared in three-minute musical films, produced in 1941 by the Featurettes company, for coin-operated jukeboxes.^[3] That same year the Four Merry Men left Featurettes for the more successfulSoundies company, and made more jukebox musicals; they were now billing themselves as "The Four Sportsmen".^[4] They were also very popular on radio and in live nightclub appearances.

In 1942, Thurl Ravenscroft left the Sportsmen quartet to serve in the armed forces. He served as a keepernavigator contracted to theU.S. Air Transport Command, spending five years flyingcourier missions across the north and southAtlantic. Among the notables carried on board his flights wereWinston Churchill andBob Hope. As he told an interviewer: "I flew Winston Churchill to a conference in Algiers and flew Bob Hope to the troops a couple of times. So it was fun."^[5]

When he returned from the service, he found that his place in The Sportsmen had been taken by bass singer Gurney Bell, and Bell was unwilling to relinquish the job to Ravenscroft. Undaunted, Ravenscroft formed his own quartet,The Mellomen,^[6] which contributed to other Disney films, such asAlice in Wonderland andLady and the Tramp. The group appeared on camera in a few episodes of theDisney anthology television series; in one instance recording a canine chorus forLady and the Tramp and in another as abarbershop quartet that remindsWalt Disney of the name of the young newspaper reporterGallagher. Ravenscroft sang bass onRosemary Clooney's "This Ole House", which went to No. 1 in both the United States and Britain in 1954, as well asStuart Hamblen's original version of that same song. He sang on the soundtrack forKen Clark as "Stewpot" inSouth Pacific, one of the top-selling albums of the 1950s. He also backedThe DeCastro Sisters on their 1955 top 20 hit, "Boom Boom Boomerang."^[7] He sang "King of the River," as the character Mike Fink, on a Golden Record released in 1956.^[8] Singing with theJohnny Mann Singers,^[9] his distinctive bass can also be heard as part of the chorus on 28 of their albums that were released during the 1960s and 1970s. He was also the bass singer onBobby Vee's 1960 Liberty hit record "Devil or Angel".Andy Williams' recording of "The 12 Days of Christmas" features him as well. His work withSpike Jones included singing "(I Was a) Teenage Brain Surgeon" for the 1959 albumSpike Jones in Stereo.

He sang the opening songs for the two Disney serials used onThe Mickey Mouse Club,Boys of the Western Sea andThe Hardy Boys: Mystery of the Applegate Treasure.

He sang the "Twitterpatter Song" and "Thumper's Song" on the Disneyland recordPeter Cottontail and other Funny Bunnies.

On the Disneyland recordAll About Dragons, he both provided the narration and sang the songs "The Reluctant Dragon" and "The Loch Ness Monster".^[10]

His voice was heard during thePirates of the Caribbean ride as well asThe Haunted Mansion atDisneyland as Uncle Theodore, the lead vocalist of the singing busts in the cemetery near the end of the ride.^[11] He also played the Narrator inThe Story and Song From the Haunted Mansion. Ravenscroft is also heard in theEnchanted Tiki Room as the voice of Fritz theAnimatronics parrot, as well as the tree-like Tangaroa tiki god in the pre-show outside the attraction. He was also the voice of the Disneyland Railroad in the 1990s. Further roles include that of The First Mate on The Mark Twain Riverboat, a spokesalien for Tokyo Disneyland's Pan Galactic Pizza Port restaurant, and the American bison head named Buff at The Country Bear Jamboree.^[12]

One of Ravenscroft's best-known works is as the vocalist for the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch". He was accidentally uncredited, leading the song to be misattributed toBoris Karloff andTennessee Ernie Ford.^[1] The song, now credited to Ravenscroft, peaked on the U.S.Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 32 for the week ending January 2, 2021.^[13]

Ravenscroft sang "No Dogs Allowed" in thePeanuts animated motion pictureSnoopy Come Home.

For more than 50 years, he was the uncredited voice ofTony the Tiger forKellogg's Frosted Flakes. His booming bass gave the cereal's tiger mascot a voice with the catchphrase "They're g-r-r-r-eat!!!!".^[14]

Various record companies, such as Abbott, Coral, Brunswick, and "X" (a division ofRCA) also released singles by Ravenscroft, often in duets with little-known female vocalists, in an attempt to turn the bass-voiced veteran into a pop singer. These efforts were commercially unsuccessful, if often quite interesting. He was also teamed up withthe Andrews Sisters (on theDot Records albumThe Andrews Sisters Present) on the cover ofJohnny Cymbal's "Mr. Bass Man". The Mellomen released somedoo-wop records under the name Big John & the Buzzards, a name apparently given to them by the rock-and-roll-hatingMitch Miller.

A devoted Christian, he appeared on many religious television shows such asThe Hour of Power. In 1970, he recorded an album calledGreat Hymns in Story and Song, which featured him singing 10 hymns, each prefaced with the stories of how each hymn came to be, with the background vocals and instrumentals arranged and conducted byRalph Carmichael.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Ravenscroft was narrator for the annualPageant of the Masters art show at theLaguna Beach, California, Festival of the Arts.

Ravenscroft married June Seamans in 1946 and they had two children. June died in 1999.

Ravenscroft died at his home on May 22, 2005, fromprostate cancer, at the age of 91. He was buried at the Memorial Gardens at theCrystal Cathedral inGarden Grove, California.^[2]

In the June 6, 2005, issue of the advertising industry journalAdvertising Age, Kellogg's ran an advertisement commemorating Ravenscroft, theheadline reading: "Behind every great character is an even greater man."

• All Things Thurl (an authorized fan site, to which Ravenscroft contributed; includes discography)
• Thurl Ravenscroft atIMDb
• Thurl Ravenscroft at theTCM Movie Database
• Thurl Ravenscroft atFind a Grave
• He’s GRRRRRRR-EAT! The Thurl Ravenscroft Interview
• All About Dragons - Part 1 (the first side of the LP)
• All About Dragons - Part 2 (the second side of the LP)

• 1914 births
• 2005 deaths
• 20th-century American male actors
• 20th-century American singers
• 20th-century American male singers
• American basses
• American male voice actors
• American performers of Christian music
• Animal impersonators
• Audiobook narrators
• Deaths from prostate cancer in California
• Kellogg's people
• Male actors from Nebraska
• People from Norfolk, Nebraska
• Singers from Nebraska
• United States Army Air Forces officers
• United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
• Warner Bros. people

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