August 8, 1925 – Voice Actress and Disney Legend Ginny Tyler is Born
“And I was raving away to Walt how wonderful Disneyland was, he said, ‘And that goes for my Disneyland Storyteller, too.’ I have never felt prouder in my entire life.”
On August 8, 1925, Merrie Virginia Erlandson was born in Berkeley, California; her family then moved to Seattle when she was a young girl. Steeped in a tradition of storytelling and imitations, Tyler began her career as a voice actor in the 1930s on the radio show Make Believe Island. By the 1950s, the show had been moved to television and renamed Magic Island. In the 1960s, Tyler was hired by the Disney Studios to narrate vinyl records for classic films Bambi and Babes in Toyland, and was known as one of the “Disneyland Storytellers.” Tyler was also a voice actress in several feature films, playing the amorous squirrel in The Sword in the Stone, several barnyard animals in Mary Poppins, and the bees in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. When the Mickey Mouse Club was in syndication, Tyler was hired as the Head Mouseketeer for the repackaged show, recording segments live from Disneyland’s Mickey Mouse Club Headquarters, located inside the Main Street Opera House. In 2006, Tyler was inducted as a Disney Legend. She passed away in 2012 at the age of 86,
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