Tony Anselmo

Almost nobody has heard the name Tony Anselmo; nearly everyone in the world is familiar with Donald Duck. Anselmo became the voice of Disney's hapless cartoon character in 1985. Voice acting was a second career for the young man. His first choice was to be one of the people drawing characters like Donald--he attended the prestigious Cal Arts school in order to train as an animator. Disney Studios snapped him up, and he soon began working as an artist for "the Mouse." At Disney he met Clarence Nash, the original voice of Donald. The storied voice-over artist trained him on how to imitate the Duck, and an apprenticeship was born. Before long, Anselmo took over the role and held it through scores of TV shows, films, and straight-to-video productions. Being Donald's mouthpiece provided a thick stream of work for him. He voiced the character in TV series such as "Mickey Mouse Works" (1999) and "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" (2006), the titles of which must have caused much consternation for the insecure Donald. The actor/animator also loaned his pipes to Robert Zemeckis's 1988 live action/cartoon hybrid mystery, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?," in which America's most famous duck has a cameo. Anselmo never stopped working as an animator while he was voicing Donald. His artistic talents can be seen in big-budget Disney films such as "The Lion King" (1994) and "The Emperor's New Groove" (2000).