Jump to content

Frank Welker: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
Hiro Suri (talk | contribs)
72 edits
mNo edit summary
Line 19: Line 19:
| spouse =
| spouse =
}}
}}
'''Franklin W. Welker''' (born [[March 12]], [[1946]]) is an [[United States|American]] [[voice acting|voice actor]]. He is responsible for a broad spectrum of character voices, noises, and other vocal effects that have appeared over the last 40 years in American television and motion pictures. As of May 2007, he is listed as number one "All Time Top 100 Stars at the Box office." His work in over 90 films has put him ahead of [[Harrison Ford]], [[Tom Hanks]] and [[Samuel Jackson]]. [http://www.the-numbers.com/people/records/]
'''Franklin W. Welker''' (born [[March 12]], [[1946]]) is an [[United States|American]] [[voice acting|voice actor]]. He is responsible for a broad spectrum of character voices, noises, and other vocal effects that have appeared over the last 40 years in American television and motion pictures. As of May 2007, he is listed as number one "All Time Top 100 Stars at the Box office." His work in over 90 films has put him ahead of [[Harrison Ford]], [[Tom Hanks]] and [[Samuel L. Jackson]]. [http://www.the-numbers.com/people/records/]
== Early life ==
== Early life ==

Revision as of 05:07, 4 July 2007

Frank Welker
File:Frank welker pd.gif
Frank Welker
Born
Franklin W. Welker
Height5 ft 8 in (173 cm)

Franklin W. Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American voice actor. He is responsible for a broad spectrum of character voices, noises, and other vocal effects that have appeared over the last 40 years in American television and motion pictures. As of May 2007, he is listed as number one "All Time Top 100 Stars at the Box office." His work in over 90 films has put him ahead of Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks and Samuel L. Jackson. [1]

Early life

Welker was born in Denver, Colorado. Attended college in California where he began his professional career as an actor 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 Mendez. He continued with stand up and in addition to touring the country, he appeared in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe as the opening act for headliners like Sonny and Cher, Diana Ross, Loretta Lynn, Ann Margaret, Neil Sedaka and others.

On Camera Actor

Welker began his career as an on camera actor and stand up comedian. His first film role was as a bar fight participant in Stan Dragoti’s Dirty Little Billy. He played a college kid from Rutgers in the Elvis Presley picture The Trouble with Girls. He later co-stared with Don Knotts playing his sidekick and garbage truck driver friend in Universal’s How to Frame a Figg. Welker also participated in two Disney classic movies, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and Now You See Him, Now You Don't playing one of Dexter Riley's (Kurt Russell) classmates.

His on camera television appearances were numerous including, Love American Style, The Partridge Family, The Don Knotts Show, He played a prosecutor in highly acclaimed ABC special, The Trial of General Yamashita and another military role as Captain Pace beside Richard Deryfuss’s Yosarian in Paramount television’s pilot, Catch 22. He appeared on, The Mike Douglas Show, The Tonight Show, Merv Griffin, The Smothers Brothers Show, The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour, and Laugh Trax were he was a cast member along side Jim Staahl and Howie Mandel.

Voice Actor

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 with his many roles in cartoons (Lilo & Stitch: The Series), films (The Cat in the Hat), and computer games (the Baldur's Gate series). In The Transformers, he voiced eight of the original fourteen Decepticons. With the release of the film, 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 did more live action movies during the 1990s. Among his work includes vocal effects for the character Goro in 1995's Mortal Kombat, the movie being based on Midway's popular fighting game, and Welker voiced the Devil Malebolgia in 1997's Spawn, the movie based on the very popular Todd McFarlane comic books. Welker also provided the voice (both speaking and non-speaking) of Nibbler in the cartoon TV series Futurama. Frank was also the voice of Snot Tiger, a cat who always sneezes and the Fox kits, and another band in the 2006 Walt Disney animated film The Fox and the Hound 2.

As of 2002, Welker is the voice of both Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo in What's New, Scooby-Doo?, the latest series-based spinoff to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!.

Frank Welker also is the voice of Bowser in the Nintendo DS video game, New Super Mario Bros.

Transformers

File:Megatron1.jpg
Megatron, voiced by Frank Welker

In the 1980s, Welker voiced Megatron, Soundwave and his cassettes, the Dinobot Sludge, and Galvatron in place of Leonard Nimoy(Season 3) in the Transformers cartoon. In this he formed a team with Chris Latta, who voiced Starscream, Megatron's second-in-command. In 1988, Welker did the voice of Rulon leader Krulos in the TV-series Dino-riders. In this cartoon he again formed a team with Chris Latta, who (coincidentally?) voiced Rasp, Krulos' second-in-command. In G.I. Joe, Welker also teamed with Latta. (Other actors who featured in Transformers, Dino-riders and G.I. Joe are Jack Angel, Charlie Adler and Peter Cullen.) In a famous goof from Transformers, Soundwave's unmodulated voice was revealed to be nearly identical to that of Dr. Claw of Inspector Gadget

Welker was asked to audition to reprise his orignial role of Megatron in the upcoming Transformers movie. Apparently due to conflict in schedules Welker never met with the producers or the director, Michael Bay. Bay, however, had Welker send him a couple of recorded lines and concluded Welker's Megatron did not fit his new interpretation of the character. Eventually, the role was voiced by Hugo Weaving. When the news was reported that Welker had auditioned for the role, many fans were hopeful he would be accepted, allowing for a 'reunion' of sorts with Peter Cullen, who had already been signed on to reprise the role of Optimus Prime. Welker have not provided his voice for a feature film together since the original, full length animated Transformers: The Movie, which saw both actors' principal roles essentially killed off, although Welker would return after the film to take up the role of Galvatron. Cullen would also return later when Optimus was resurrected.

Though not appearing in the film, Welker reunites with his arch enemy Optimus Prime in Transformers: The Game.

Partial filmography

Preceded by Voice of Barney Rubble
July 1989 —
(programs only, Jeff Bergman does Barney for commercials) 		Succeeded by
present
Preceded by Voice of Scooby-Doo
September 2002 — 		Succeeded by
present
Preceded by
none
 Voice of Fred Jones
1969- Present 		Succeeded by
present

Template:Simpsons cast

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Frank_Welker&oldid=142397017"