Paul Frees

What does Larry Mitchell, Crime Correspondent, have in common with Baron Otto Matic of Tom Slick?

They’re both played by Paul Frees.

Mind you, that applies to an awful lot of characters on radio, TV and films. Frees even played himself; a radio station hired him for a late-night show for a little while in the early ‘50s.

In 1949, Frees landed starring parts on two shows—the aforementioned Crime Correspondent and then the title role in The Green Lama.

Frees was already catching the attention of columnists in the late ‘40s. This appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on May 29, 1949.

Here's a young actor who recently won two important radio awards in one week—one of which named him as the "outstanding supporting player of the year"—and still scarcely anyone, outside the business, knows who he is.
Did you ever hear of Paul Frees? Remember the deep, ominous voice of the narrator on "Suspense"—the guy who gives you the shivers as he introduces ". . . a tale well calculated to keep you in—Suspense!" That's Paul Frees.
Remember the hilarious Peter Lorre impersonation on Spike Jones recording of "My Old Flame." That's Paul Frees, too.
Frees is, in a sense, a victim of his own versatility—for he has so many voices that he has no single identity. Described by Spike Jones as "one of the greatest impersonators in the world," he has simulated the voices of virtually every celebrity you can think of, from the late Franklin Roosevelt to Sidney Greenstreet. He does every dialect known to human speech, and often takes several roles in a single production."
"It's fun," says Paul, "but I'd rather be a star."
If radio performers ever start electing their own stars, you can bet that Paul Frees' name will be high on the marquee—a thought which should be some consolation.

Cartoon fans know Frees from all kinds of places. In the theatrical world, he was hired by MGM, Walter Lantz and Walt Disney. On television, Jay Ward, Hanna-Barbera, UPA and Rankin/Bass found animated characters for his voices. Oh, and Format Films. Oh, and those Beatles cartoons. Oh, and... well, it’s probably easier listing where he didn’t work than where he did. This isn’t including animated commercials.

Let’s not bother with lists and move on to an unbylined article that appeared in a bunch of newspapers in 1961; I spotted this in papers published in August through November.

Paul Frees has never been able to follow the parental dictum that he be seen and not heard.
In fact, Paul is the talkingest man you're likely to meet and he's seldom seen at all.
One of the group of performers known as "voice men," he's virtually unknown outside casting offices and advertising agencies, yet there's hardly an adult in the United States that hasn't heard his voice.
Paul figures he's played in 15,000 radio shows, more commercials than he can count and currently, he's the voice of Professor Ludwig Von Drake on "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" and of Boris on "The Bullwinkle Show," both on NBC-TV. Of all the roles he's played, he likes Professor Von Drake best.

"Walt Disney gave me a lot of liberty in portraying the professor and I've made him more personal than any of my other characters," Paul says, resisting a temptation to slip into the German dialect he uses on the show.
"The professor is bright, good natured, has a sense of humor and is marvelously absent-minded at times," Paul adds. "But he has character. He's always driving at something and he's not beyond scolding you for lack of attention."
A German dialect like the professor's is just one of the things Paul carries in his bag of voice tricks.
"I can duplicate any voice and any dialect I hear," he says, confidently. Besides, he says he can deliver three or four versions of each of the common dialects and, in one feature picture, "A Time to Live and Time to Die," he took the speaking parts of 17 different German characters.
So good is he at voice duplication that he did the voice "stand in" work for stars like Orson Welles and Humphrey Bogart and once, he says, did a half hour radio show for Bogart when the actor couldn't make it.
Radio listeners will remember him as the voice of the old "Suspense" and "Escape" shows and TV viewers have heard him as the voice on “The Millionaire” series, among other shows.
Paul began training for his unusual profession when he went into vaudeville at the age of 13. Along the way, he's been a singer, dancer, nightclub emcee and impersonator. His impersonations paved the way for his present voice work.
Last year he won nine awards at the Commercial Film Festival. Those, he added to more than 100 others he's won over the years.
Paul has literally talked himself to success and, although he's a competent TV actor, he's happy right now to go on being heard and not seen.
"Sometimes it creates an ego problem," he admits, "but nothing so serious I can't overcome it when I look at the bank balance."

Frees had some great cartoon roles (Boris Badenov, Ludwig von Drake) and some mediocre ones (Charlie Beary, Squiddly Diddly) but he always gave a top performance and that’s why fans still love his work, even today.