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Mary Kay Bergman
Mary Kay Bergman (June 5, 1961 – November 11, 1999), also briefly credited as Shannen Cassidy, was an American voice actress and voice-over teacher. She was the official voice of the Disney character Snow White from 1989 to 1999[1][2] and the lead female voice actress on South Park from the show's debut in 1997 until her death. She was also the voice actress of Claudette and Laurette in Beauty and the Beast, Dr. Blight in Captain Planet and the Planeteers (replacing Meg Ryan), Katie in Family Dog, and Daphne Blake from 1997 to 1999. Throughout her career, Bergman performed voice work for every aspect in media, including over 400 television commercials.[1] Bergman was born in Los Angeles, California. Bergman had an interest in animation and impersonation early in her life. After acting in her first professional role in the television film Return Engagement, she studied theater arts at UCLA for three years. Struggling to find a job suited for her, she was trained under her voice-acting teacher Kat Lehman and started performing radio voiceovers. She was chosen as the replacement of Snow White after a long search of talent agencies and voiceover classes. She joined The Groundlings to sharpen her voice acting skills, which contributed to her audition of Family Dog. In 1994, she started teaching voice acting classes. Bergman was cast as nearly every female character in South Park after she gave Trey Parker and Matt Stone ideas they originally did not have. Bergman suffered generalized anxiety disorder in her private life. Her condition, which led to physical symptoms and severe stress, was kept private. On November 11, 1999, she wrote two suicide notes and shot herself in the head. Shortly after Bergman's death, her husband Dino Andrade established the Mary Kay Bergman Memorial Fund. Life and careerEarly life and childhoodBergman was born on June 5, 1961, in Los Angeles, California.[3][4][5] An only child,[6] her mother, Patricia McGowen,[7] was a cel painter for Max Fleischer on Popeye cartoons in New York City.[3] Her parents performed as a singing duo at lounges and clubs in Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada, and Los Angeles.[3] They settled in Los Angeles after her mother became pregnant.[3] Bergman was piqued by her mother's interest in animation, which led to a shared interest by watching cartoons on Saturday mornings together.[3] At an early age, Bergman wanted to be a film star.[3] Bergman's early passion for impersonating was influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a film she watched in theaters at the age of six or seven.[3] She grew up around the corner from the home of Adriana Caselotti, the original voice of Snow White, of whom she idolized.[6] Bergman attended Joseph Le Conte Middle School and Hollywood High School.[8] 1978–1986: Career beginningsAt age 16, Bergman received her first professional acting job in the television film Return Engagement, which starred Elizabeth Taylor.[3] However, Bergman's scene at the end of the film was cut out, making her disappointed.[9] Shortly, Bergman joined the Screen Actors Guild.[10] Upon graduating from Hollywood High School in June 1978 with top academic honors,[citation needed] Bergman enrolled at UCLA and studied theater arts from 1978 until 1981.[9][11][12] According to her husband Dino Andrade, she attended the university because she was a fan of Carol Burnett and wanted to attend the same university as Burnett did.[10] She was a classmate and friend of future The Simpsons voice actress Nancy Cartwright.[10] After three years in the university, Bergman received a role in a play outside of school and dropped out to start her professional life.[10] Bergman joined a small agency in the valley of Los Angeles, which started six months before she joined.[10] She auditioned for an exercise program that was scheduled to appear on cable programming.[10] A week after Bergman received the role, the agency was closed, and reopened as a candy store.[10] She described the experience as "the worst agent story in the business."[10] Bergman's next role was as a receptionist for the Boy Scouts of America.[10] She enjoyed the job and was pleased to work with the people of the organization.[10] She also received compliments about her speaking voice, which added to her frustration.[13] Bergman also worked as a receptionist for an insurance company and from there she moved up the ranks to become an assistant underwriter, which she found "extremely boring."[14] To break the monotony, Bergman thought about becoming a disc jockey but could not find information about where to take classes.[14] While working as a receptionist, Bergman received an invitation to a party from one of her co-workers at the insurance company.[14] When Bergman attended the party, she danced and sang with a karaoke machine.[14] Her impersonation of Ethel Merman caught the attention of voice-over teacher Kat Lehman.[14] Bergman studied voice acting and took all Lehman's classes.[14] After her final class, Bergman recorded a demo tape and was delivered to Bergman's first voice-acting agency, Abrams, Rubaloff, and Lawrence.[14] Bergman soon quit her job as a receptionist after realizing that "squeezing auditions into her regular work schedule was not working."[14] Her first voice role was a frightened woman in a radio commercial for a small home security company on a local station in 1986.[citation needed] 1986–1993: Snow White and Family DogWhile she performed radio voiceovers, she found a part-time job at a department store to supplement her income.[14] Bergman went with her personal agent Libby Westby after Westby switched agencies to Sutton, Barth, and Vennari.[14] At around the same time, Disney was looking for a replacement for Adriana Caselotti, the original voice of Snow White, who was not always available to work.[14] Bergman was chosen by former Disney executive Les Perkins after a "long and tedious search" of talent agencies and voiceover classes throughout Los Angeles.[15] Upon learning that she would be the official replacement of Snow White, Bergman expressed trepidation, describing the voice as "very difficult".[15] Her first voiceover appearance as Snow White was for a book on tape, but she needed a day off for the recording.[15] After her boss at a department store refused, she had a choice to keep the job at a department store or do voiceover work as Snow White.[15] She chose the latter, and she agreed to lend her voice only when Caselotti was unavailable.[15] At its peak of popularity, Bergman was chosen to voice Dr. Blight in Captain Planet and the Planeteers by the producers of the show after Meg Ryan opted out.[16] She also voiced two of the Bimbettes, Claudette and Laurette, in Beauty and the Beast.[16] She began doing matches for other actors such as Jodie Foster, Gillian Anderson, Helen Hunt, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Tilly, Emma Thompson, and Alfre Woodard.[16] To further improve her acting skills, Bergman joined The Groundlings, which helped her use her skills while auditioning for Family Dog.[16] During audition, Bergman would be asked on "how [she act] to be sexy".[17] Bergman improvised "her best sexy dog" while feeling "like an idiot", worrying that she did "everything wrong" to the casting director.[17] Three weeks after the audition, Bergman received a call notifying her that she not only received the role of Katie, but her tape was chosen out of hundreds that were submitted by Steven Spielberg.[17] The show became one of Bergman's favorite projects. [17] Bergman stated that she would do five or six voices in each episode, which she enjoyed.[17] Bergman also met Frank Welker, one of her mentors, which was considered a positive experience for her.[17] Family Dog was scheduled to debut on March 20, 1991, but the show was ultimately pushed back until 1993 for the animation to be completed.[18][19] The show's first episode debuted on June 23, 1993, on CBS.[20] 1993–1999: Academy Awards dubbing and South ParkWhen Disney was working on a restored version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on LaserDisc, Caselotti was brought back in to record a rediscovered scene that was missing its audio track.[15] After the studio executives listened to her work, they decided to bring in Bergman to record the voice instead.[15] Bergman also voiced Snow White for the 65th Academy Awards instead of Caselotti.[15] Caselotti was unaware her voice had been replaced until the 65th Academy Awards when Snow White presented the award for Best Animated Short Film.[15] In 1995, Bergman expressed dismay on voicing her for the ceremony, stating that it was "one of the most uncomfortable times in [her] entire career."[21] She also felt disappointed for her, expressing that a responsibility should be made to keep the character as an important part of Caselotti's career.[16] Disney received hundreds of complaints after the ceremony, noting the changes to the Snow White character that Jeffrey Katzenberg had made, including a more modernized look to match her updated voice.[16] Katzenberg issued written apologies, and Bergman did not publicly admit to voicing Snow White while Caselotti was still alive.[16] In 1994, Bergman started teaching the technique of doing voice-overs for animation at the Kalmenson & Kalmenson Studios in Burbank.[11][12] Trey Parker and Matt Stone were looking for a different voice actress for the female characters in South Park, as they were unhappy with Karri Turner's performance in the series' unaired pilot.[17] Bergman attended a recast in Los Angeles and gave them several ideas they originally did not have.[17] The ideas she gave included portraying Liane Cartman as a "1950s sitcom-style mother", interjecting Sheila Broflovski's catchphrase "What, what, what!" when she gets flustered, and adding a lisp to Stan Marsh's sister, Shelley.[22] Parker and Stone cast her as nearly every female character in the series.[22] Bergman's characters included Liane Cartman, Sheila Broflovski, Shelly Marsh, Sharon Marsh, Carol McCormick, and Wendy Testaburger. In her interview with Entertainment Weekly in 1999, Bergman credited South Park for distancing her out of her reputation known for voicing characters in children's animation.[23] Although the show appealed to Bergman's "dark sense of humor", she was credited as Shannen Cassidy (taken from Shannen Doherty and David Cassidy) in the first two seasons due to the concerns that her voice role as Snow White would be taken out if the Walt Disney Company knew that she was in South Park.[23][22] Additionally, Bergman's husband, Dino Andrade, noted that nobody believed that South Park was going to last.[22] After South Park became a success, however, Shannen Cassidy began to receive copious amounts of fan mail and Bergman decided to abandon the alias.[23] In addition, Bergman performed sixteen voices for the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.[22] Bergman overdubbed nine separate voices for the film's song "Blame Canada".[22] Bergman was nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production for her performance as Sheila Broflovski at the 27th Annie Awards.[1][2] Personal lifeBergman married voice actor Dino Andrade on April 7, 1990.[24] They remained married for the rest of Bergman's life.[25] At the height of her popularity, Bergman started to physically suffer from insomnia, myalgia, and nausea.[22] She was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder by her physician, which was determined to be caused by severe stress.[22] This was hidden as a secret to everyone, including her husband, family, and friends.[2][26] She also privately admitted to her husband that she was afraid of losing her abilities and that her career would end because of her condition.[26] DeathOn the morning of November 11, 1999, Bergman contributed to a radio program celebrating Disneyland's 45th anniversary,[6] performing the voice of Snow White for a radio commercial.[26] Later, in the evening, Andrade returned to her home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice to find that Bergman had fatally shot herself in the head, with two suicide notes, the first one for Andrade and the second one for John Bell, stating that she could not "handle [her] fear anymore."[1][6][23] Attorney Robert Harrison originally stated that she had shown no signs of depression.[23] The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office reported that the cause of death was ruled a self-inflicted shotgun wound.[27][2][28] Bergman is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills.[26] Andrade revealed that she was buried there since one of her biggest thrills was attending private screenings of Beauty and the Beast in the Walt Disney Company's original screening room, which is located near her grave.[26] Public reaction and memorialsFollowing her death, news of her death was published on several websites, including South Park's website.[1] A lot of established websites that included the news of her death, including her memorial page and a message board of Bergman, also received popularity.[23] News of her death triggered an outpouring of grief from her fans and friends.[23] South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were initially "too distraught" to issue a statement about her death.[23] On March 2, 2000, during an interview with Parker and Stone at the Paley Center for Media, they issued a statement about Bergman, stating they realized that "one person wasn't going to do it" because of her vocal capabilities, and that they were in a process of finding "a lot of talented voice people".[29] On November 15, Sutton, Barth, and Vennari ran a full memorial to her on the Variety magazine.[1] To honor Bergman and encourage others to seek help, Dino Andrade established the Mary Kay Bergman Memorial Fund at the Suicide Prevention Center of Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center,[30] which raised thousands of dollars toward the cause.[26] Her official website, mkbmemorial.com, was converted to support a mental health program for those diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.[26] Voice acting styleBergman was known for her distinctive voice acting on her "sweet, cute little characters."[23] Her voice-acting skills also increased over time, which included her experience with The Groundlings.[16][23] She credited the troupe with "honing her ability to come up with voices on demand," which included her skills when auditioning for Family Dog.[16] In her interview with Entertainment Weekly in 1999, Bergman stated that she had "more of a range as [she has] gotten older".[23] InfluencesAt an early age, Bergman envisioned herself becoming a film star.[3] At the age of six or seven, her mother took Bergman to watch a theatrical re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.[3] Bergman cited it as an inspiration to crossover from a mere fan to a performer, stating that the film "made a complete impression" on her.[3] Shortly, Bergman started impersonated everything, including Lily Tomlin on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and her neighbor's barking dogs.[3] Voice actor Frank Welker, one of Bergman's mentors, was also cited as an inspiration to her outlook.[3] SuccessorsBergman's friend and student Grey DeLisle inherited the role of Daphne Blake in the Scooby-Doo franchise. Voice actress Tara Strong replaced Bergman as the voice of Timmy Turner in The Fairly OddParents, as well as redubbing Bergman's lines from the Oh Yeah! Cartoons era.[31] FilmographyFilm
Television
Video games
Live-action
References
Sources
External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mary Kay Bergman.
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