Tony Jay

Career

Tony Jay appeared on-screen in several Tom and Jerry: The Movie films and on television, including Love and Death, Night Court, The Golden Girls, Twins, and Eerie, Indiana. He also developed a career in the theatre, in plays such as The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, and The Merchant of Venice. Jay's other non-animation roles included Paracelsus on the 1987 CBS TV series adaptation of Beauty and the Beast; Minister Campio on Star Trek: The Next Generation; and Lex Luthor's villainous aide-de-camp Nigel St. John in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

He was also well known for his role as the voice of the virus Megabyte in the computer animated television show ReBoot (1994–2001), and for his voice work as Judge Claude Frollo in Disney's 1996 animated film adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and in the Walt Disney World version of the nighttime light and fireworks show Fantasmic!. He also previously voiced Monsieur D'Arque, the amoral asylum superintendent, in Disney's 1991 hit animated film version of Beauty and the Beast. In 1995–96, Jay had another animation voice as he voiced a vile alien warlord named Lord Dregg, the new main villain of the original 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated TV series in the show's last two seasons.

He is also well-known among fans of the 1996–2003 video game series Legacy of Kain for his voicing of the original Mortanius and of the Elder God, alongside several other minor characters. He was also the successor of actor George Sanders from the 1967 Disney animated film The Jungle Book in the role of Shere Khan. In 1990–91, Jay voiced the character in Disney's animated TV series TaleSpin and reprised his role of the character for fifteen years after it ended until his death. In 2003, The Jungle Book 2 was his final reprisal of the role.

Jay was a devotee of classic Broadway and made several recordings and performances of old-time Broadway lyrics, in spoken-word form. A CD of these readings, Speaking of Broadway, was released in 2005; a version recorded years earlier of the same collection was titled Poets on Broadway, as is his website. It features Jay reciting lyrics written by the likes of Noël Coward, Ira Gershwin, and Oscar Hammerstein and was composed entirely by him, according to the CD liner notes.

Personal life

Jay was born in London to Jack Jay (formerly Jacobs) and Ethel Jay (née Bart). He moved to South Africa and was involved with many radio productions on the SABC Commercial Radio Service, Springbok Radio, until 1980. He later moved to the United States, and became a naturalized American citizen.

He married Married With Children make up artist, Kathy Rogers, in 1988, and they had a son, Adam, later that year. In 2004, he married Marta MacGeraghty.

Illness and death

In April 2006, he underwent surgery in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles) to remove a non-cancerous tumor from his lungs. He never fully recovered from the operation and was in a critical condition throughout the following months.

He eventually died on August 13, 2006, at the age of 73. He was survived by his wife Marta, his son Adam, his brother Robert, his sister-in-law Lynda, his nephew Rylan, his niece Natasha, and his mother Ethel. Jay is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.

Film

Television

Video games

Narration

Notable projects for which Tony Jay provided narration include:

Voice-overs

Notable projects for which Tony Jay narrated include: