In Memoriam - Tony Jay

Time for another In Memoriam post.

Tony Jay was a prolific voice actor who made extensive use of his deep, often sinister-sounding voice.

You would probably best recognize his voice as Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Who, in my humble opinion, is probably THE creepiest villain in the history of Disney! For anyone not familiar, Frollo raised the eponymous hunchback, Quasimodo, and kept him hidden away in the Notre Dame Cathedral. I will omit any of the more disturbing facets of the character. I will just say that Frollo is one villain you should be thankful does not have superpowers. Frollo is effectively the dictator of Paris and has designs of eliminating the Romani portion of the populace, no matter what it takes. He is also a religious zealot, truly believing that what he is doing is the will of the Almighty. 

There is nothing redeeming about Frollo, but one thing that somewhat humanizes him is that he experiences inner turmoil which drives him to do the things he does and ultimately leads to his undoing. Still, I doubt many will think him any less a monster because of it. I certainly don't.

 I'll say this one thing in Frollo's favor: he has an unbelievably good singing voice, which Jay provides in spades. If you watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame, be sure to pay attention to Frollo's singing of "Hellfire."

Jay was actually nominated for an Annie Award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production after this role.

Without a heck of a lot of variation, Jay has used his voice and his accent to portray similar characters to Frollo. One example is when he played Monsieur D'Arque, the creepy as sin asylum director on Beauty and the Beast, or when he played Shere Khan in The Jungle Book 2, having taken over for another "late and great," George Sanders. Of course, that wasn't the first time Jay had played the character - or at the very least some variation. He played the iteration of Shere Khan from the 90s animated series TaleSpin. Additionally, he used a similar pattern of speaking for playing the sorcerer Wraith from yet another animated series, Mighty Ducks.

As good as Jay's voice was for villainous roles, it was used a few times for roles that were less so, including narrations. He narrated one episode of Teen Titans, played a small role as a doctor in The Rugrats Movie which he reprised in Rugrats Go Wild, a scientist in Recess: School's Out, and in the Disney movie Treasure Planet, he narrated a storybook that protagonist Jim Hawkins read as a child. One heroic role that Jay played was that of Virgil in Mighty Max, with his character serving as something of a mentor to the titular hero.

Jay's other roles include one for Disney's animated series Aladdin, The Smurfs, Darkwing Duck, Tom & Jerry Kids, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the animated series The Little Mermaid.

Jay passed away on August 13, 2006, having fallen critically ill after a surgery on his lungs to remove a non-cancerous tumor. He was 73 years old.

If you would like to leave a comment on the original videos, click on the links below:

[HoND] 2.2 The bells of notre dame Frollo 1080 p [HD]

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mighty Ducks, TaleSpin, The Jungle Book 2 and Recess: School's Out are all available for streaming on Disney+.