Adriana Caselotti
Adriana Caselotti is an actor, born 1916.
Two uncredited voice jobs, a talk-show appearance and a sing-along compilation: that is the entire screen record, and one of those four entries is among the most heard performances in the history of American film. She voiced the title character of Disney's first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the credit here still carries the word uncredited, which was standard practice and no less strange for it. Disney named her a Legend in 1994.
The following year she turns up again, uncredited again, in The Wizard of Oz, singing Juliet's answering line in the Tin Man's number. It lasts a few seconds. After that the filmography simply stops for decades, until an appearance as herself on The Julie Andrews Hour in 1972, and then a posthumous credit on a Disney Princess sing-along release in 2006. She died in 1997.
There is no career arc to trace here, because there was no career in the usual sense. A soprano with a light, deliberately girlish top register recorded one role, that role became permanent, and the record of the rest is silence. It is a strange and slightly sad shape for a life in film, and it is the shape the credits show.
Movies (3)
TV (1)
Where to start with Adriana Caselotti
There is only one thing to see and it is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Watch it with the singing in mind rather than the animation: the voice is pitched high and thin on purpose, it sounds nothing like a modern Disney lead, and that unfashionable quality is exactly what makes the character read as young rather than as a star doing a part. Then go to The Wizard of Oz and listen for a few seconds of answering vocal in the Tin Man's song, which is one of the better pieces of trivia in either film. The Julie Andrews Hour is the only place she appears as herself. Disney Princess Sing Along Songs, Vol. 3 - Perfectly Princess is a compilation for small children and adds nothing.