Solomon Hersh "Paul" Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986) was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during the Golden Age of Animation, and for providing the voice of Boris Badenov in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Voice actor Mel Blanc said Frees was known as "The Man of a Thousand Voices", though the appellation was more commonly bestowed on Blanc himself.
Early life
Solomon Hersh Frees was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, on June 22, 1920. He grew up in the Albany Park neighborhood and attended Von Steuben Junior High School. He had an unusually wide four-octave voice range that enabled him to voice a scale from the thundering basso profundo of the unseen "Ghost Host" in the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland in California and at Walt Disney World in Florida to the voice of the farmer who educates the Little Green Sprout (voiced by Ike Eisenmann) about vegetable products of the Jolly Green Giant in the Green Giant vegetable commercials.
Career
In the 1930s, Frees first appeared in vaudeville as an impressionist, under the name Buddy Green. He began his career on radio in 1942 and remained active for more than 40 years. During that time, he was involved in more than 250 films, cartoons, and TV appearances; as was the case for many voice actors of the time, his appearances were often uncredited.
Frees's early radio career was cut short when he was drafted into the United States Army during World War II, where he fought at Normandy, France, on D-Day. He was wounded in action and was returned to the United States for a year of recuperation. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute under the G.I. Bill. When his first wife's health failed, he decided to drop out and return to radio work.
He appeared frequently on Hollywood radio series, including Escape, playing lead roles and alternating with William Conrad as the opening announcer of Suspense in the late 1940s, and parts on Gunsmoke (doing an impersonation of Howard McNear as Doc Adams for at least one episode, "The Cast"), and Crime Classics. One of his few starring roles in this medium was as Jethro Dumont/Green Lama in the 1949 series The Green Lama, as well as a syndicated anthology series The Player, in which Frees narrated and played all the parts.
Frees was often called upon in the 1950s and 1960s to "reloop" the dialogue of other actors, often to correct for foreign accents, lack of English proficiency, or poor line readings by nonprofessionals. These dubs extended from a few lines to entire roles. This can be noticed rather clearly in the films Grand Prix (as Izo Yamura) and Midway, wherein Frees reads for Toshiro Mifune's performances as Admiral Yamamoto; or in the film Some Like It Hot, in which Frees provides the voice of funeral director Mozzarella as well as much of the falsetto voice for Tony Curtis' female character Josephine. Frees also dubbed the entire role of Eddie in the Disney film The Ugly Dachshund, replacing actor Dick Wessel, who had died of a sudden heart attack after completion of principal photography. Frees also dubbed Humphrey Bogart in his final film The Harder They Fall. Bogart was suffering at the time from what was later diagnosed as esophageal cancer, thus could barely be heard in some takes, hence the need for Frees to dub in his voice. He also voiced the cars in the comedy The Great Race.
Unlike many voice actors who did most of their work for one studio, Frees worked extensively with at least nine of the major animation production companies of the 20th century: Walt Disney Productions, Warner Bros. Cartoons, Walter Lantz Productions, UPA, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Filmation, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Jay Ward Productions, Rankin/Bass, and Ruby-Spears.
Disney
Some of Frees' most memorable voices were for various Disney projects. Frees voiced Disney's Professor Ludwig Von Drake in 18 episodes of the Disney anthology television series, beginning with the first episode of the newly renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on September 24, 1961. The character also appeared on many Disneyland Records. Von Drake's introductory cartoon, An Adventure in Color, featured "The Spectrum Song", sung by Frees as Von Drake. A different Frees recording of this song appeared on a children's record, and was later reissued on CD.
In addition to voicing characters, Frees narrated a number of Disney cartoons, including the Disney educational short film Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. This short originally aired in the same television episode as Von Drake's first appearance.