Tony Jay

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Tony Jay (born February 2, 1933 in London , † August 13, 2006 in Los Angeles ) was a British-American actor and voice actor and former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company . One of his most famous works is the original voice of the sinister Claude Frollo in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame from 1996

Life & Career

Tony Jay was born in London on February 2, 1933 to Jewish parents. He attended the renowned Pinner County Grammar School , whose prominent former students include Sir Elton John , and moved to South Africa in 1955, where he worked for the radio and also gained his first experience with the medium of film.

In 1980 he went to the United States and became an American citizen. In Hollywood he appeared in several films and television series, where he was mainly cast as a cultivated villain due to his sonorous baritone voice and his impressive height of 193 cm.

At the same time he developed an impressive stage career and appeared in The Merchant of Venice , as well as in stage adaptations by Nicholas Nickleby and Great Expectations .

On television he played guest roles in Spaceship Enterprise - The Next Century as Alien Minister Campio, in Superman - The Adventures of Lois & Clark as Lex Luther's devious aide-de-camp Nigel St. John and in Beauty & the Beast as Paracelsus' main opponent , a megalomaniac universal genius who hides his burns behind a phantom of the opera-related golden half-mask and is armed with a retractable blade hidden in his sleeve.

A large part of his artistic work consisted in dubbing for film, television and also for video games. So he lent his voice to the fanatical judge Claude Frollo and the head of the insane asylum Monsieur D'Arque in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast and was the narrator in The Treasure Planet and in the English version of Asterix - Operation Hinkelstein zu Listen.
For his intense performance as Judge Frollo, he was nominated for the Annie Award for best voice acting.

In April 2006, a tumor in his lung was removed from him at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He never recovered from the operation and remained in critical condition until he finally died on August 13 at the age of 73. He leaves behind his wife Marta MacGeraghty, to whom he has been married since 1974, and their son Adam.
He found his final resting place in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills.

Filmography (selection)

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personal data
SURNAME Jay, Tony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American actor and voice actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England
DATE OF DEATH August 13, 2006
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States