43 Facts About Paul Frees

Solomon Hersh Frees, better known as Paul Frees, was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian.

Solomon Hersh Paul Frees was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, on June 22,1920.

Paul Frees grew up in the Albany Park neighborhood and attended Von Steuben Junior High School.

Paul Frees began his career on radio in 1942 and remained active for more than 40 years.

Paul Frees was wounded in action and was returned to the United States for a year of recuperation.

Paul Frees appeared frequently on Hollywood radio series, including Escape, playing lead roles and alternating with William Conrad as the opening announcer.

Paul Frees announced the dramatic signature on Suspense in the late 1940s, and parts on Gunsmoke, and Crime Classics.

Paul Frees did dubbing for live-action films including Midway, dubbing Toshiro Mifune's performances as Admiral Yamamoto; and Some Like It Hot, in which Frees provides much of the falsetto voice for Tony Curtis' female persona Josephine and the voice of funeral director Mozzarella.

Paul Frees dubbed some of Humphrey Bogart's lines in his final film The Harder They Fall.

Paul Frees worked extensively with at least nine of the major animation production companies of the 20th century: Walt Disney Productions, Warner Bros.

Paul 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.

Paul Frees voiced the unseen "Ghost Host" at Haunted Mansion Attraction at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

Paul Frees provided narration for the Tomorrowland attraction Adventure Thru Inner Space and the original Great Moments with Mr Lincoln.

An animated singing bust in Paul Frees's likeness appeared in the 2003 film The Haunted Mansion as a tribute.

Paul Frees had a small on-camera role for Disney in the 1959 film The Shaggy Dog, playing Dr Galvin, a police psychiatrist who attempts to understand why Mr Daniels believes a shaggy dog can uncover a spy ring.

Paul Frees was a regular presence in Jay Ward cartoons, providing the voices of Boris Badenov, Inspector Fenwick, Ape, District Commissioner Alistair and Weevil Plumtree in George of the Jungle, Baron Otto Matic in Tom Slick, Fred in Super Chicken, and the Hoppity Hooper narrator, among numerous others.

Paul Frees was Hocus Pocus, the traffic cop, the ticket-taker, and Santa Claus in Frosty the Snowman in 1969 and played the central villain, Burgermeister Meisterburger, and his assistant Grimsley in Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town in 1970.

Paul Frees provided several voices, including Aeon the Terrible, for Rudolph's Shiny New Year in 1976.

Paul Frees voiced King Haggard's wizard Mabruk and the Cat in The Last Unicorn and provided several voices for the Jackson Five cartoon series between 1971 and 1973.

Paul Frees portrayed the Orson Welles sound-alike radio reporter in George Pal's film The War of the Worlds, where he is seen dictating into a tape recorder as the military prepares the atomic bomb for use against the invading Martians.

Paul Frees provided the film's dramatic opening narration, prior to Sir Cedric Hardwicke's voice-over tour of the Solar System.

Paul Frees subsequently provided the apocalyptic voice for the "talking rings" in Pal's later film The Time Machine, in which he explains the ultimate fate of humanity from which the time traveler realizes the origin of the Morlocks and Eloi.

Paul Frees did the narration for the George Pal documentary The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal, written, produced, and directed by Arnold Leibovit.

Two years later, Paul Frees provided the voice for Arnie the Dinosaur and the Pillsbury Doughboy in The Puppetoon Movie, produced and directed by Leibovit.

Paul Frees did work for Hanna-Barbera in their Tom and Jerry shorts at MGM.

Paul Frees worked with Spike Jones on his 1960 album Omnibust, heard as announcer "Billy Playtex" and several other characters on "The Late Late Late Late Movies, Part I and II".

From October 1961 through September 1962, Paul Frees provided the voice for the shady lawyer named Judge Oliver Wendell Clutch, a weasel on the animated program Calvin and the Colonel starring the voices of Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.

Paul Frees subsequently provided numerous voices for the follow up series The Famous Adventures of Mr Magoo.

Paul Frees provided the voices of both John Lennon and George Harrison in the 1965 The Beatles cartoon series, the narrator, Big D and Fluid Man in the 1966 cartoon series, Frankenstein Jr.

Paul Frees provided the voice-over for the trailer to the 1971 Clint Eastwood thriller, Play Misty for Me.

Paul Frees narrated many live action films and television series, including Naked City.

Paul Frees provided the voice of the eccentric billionaire John Beresford Tipton, always seated in his chair with his back to the viewer while talking to his employee Michael Anthony, on the dramatic series The Millionaire.

Paul Frees was the narrator at the beginning of the film The Disorderly Orderly starring Jerry Lewis.

Paul Frees looped an actor's voice in the film The Ladies Man, starring Jerry Lewis.

In 1980, Paul Frees was hired by Program Director Hy Lit to be the voice of radio station WKXW.

Paul Frees had a wide range of other roles, usually heard but not seen, and frequently without screen credit.

On rare occasions, Paul Frees appeared on-camera, usually in minor roles.

Paul Frees played a scientist in The Thing from Another World, a death-row priest in A Place in the Sun, and French fur trader McMasters in The Big Sky.

In Jet Pilot, Paul Frees plays a menacing Soviet officer whose job is to watchdog pilot Janet Leigh, but instead manages to eject himself from a parked jet, enabling Leigh to rescue John Wayne and fly back to the West.

Paul Frees then married Kleda June Hansen in 1947, and they divorced in 1950.

Paul Frees died at his home in Tiburon, California, on November 2,1986, at the age of 66, from a self-administered overdose of pain medication.

Paul Frees's death was considered a suicide; his agent issued a press release stating that he died from heart failure.

Paul Frees's body was cremated and his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean.