Verna Felton

With a gentle, kindly voice, Verna Felton made a name for herself as a character actress while providing voices for several of Walt Disney's most beloved films. After a few uncredited parts in the late 1930s and early '40s, Felton landed her first role with Walt Disney Pictures in 1941, providing the voice of Mrs. Jumbo, the ill-fated mother of the little elephant with the big ears in "Dumbo." Having charmed the Disney execs with her vocal chords, she was cast in perhaps her most famous role, the Fairy Godmother in Disney's midcentury classic "Cinderella," in which she voiced the timeless song of magic nonsense words, "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo." She continued her work with Disney the following year, 1951, taking on a new character type as the maniacal Queen of Hearts in the Lewis Carroll adaptation "Alice in Wonderland." Though best known for her work with Disney, Felton was also a prolific live-action film and television actress. Her largest role by far came on "December Bride" as Hilda Crocker, an amateur matchmaker to her best friend. Felton would reprise this role in the series' spinoff, "Pete and Gladys," in the early 1960s. When "December Bride" ended in 1959 (and before "Pete and Gladys" had premiered), Felton voiced another fairy for Disney, this time Flora in "Sleeping Beauty." She would go on to appear in two more Disney films, and her last, "The Jungle Book," was released in 1967, a year after her death.