Sterling Holloway Spotlight: A Brief History & Introduction

Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney.  And welcome to the beginning of a brand new retrospective here on A Look at Disney.   The Sterling Holloway Spotlight.  What is the Sterling Holloway Spotlight?  Simple, over the next few weeks here, I'll be taking a look at the various roles, that one of my favorite voice actors played with his time at Disney. And there are quite a few as Sterling  was in many great films.  Keep in mind, that these will not be full reviews of the films that his characters appeared in but rather, just a look at the various characters, he has played over the years.  But before we get to his characters, I feel that a little history is need. Sterling Price Holloway, Jr. was born to Sterling Price Holloway and Rebecca DeHaven in 1905 in the Georgia town of Cedartown.

Cedartown as it appeared in 1905.  He had a younger brother named Boothby.  His father served as the mayor of Cedartown and his family owned a grocery store there as well.    It was at the age of 15, he left his hometown to head to New York City, where he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

It's alumni includes greats such as Danny DeVito,   Florence Henderson,  Don Rickles and many other future greats.    In his late teenage years, he performed in various theatrical plays, mostly one nighters.   In 1920,  he made his acting debut in the film,  The Battling Kangaroo. Which trying to find information on this thus far has been proven fruitless.  Something of interesting note, is that Sterling as most back in the day got his start as a radio star and he was also in many live action films and television series.  He made the transition quite easily. One of the films, he was in was Casey at The Bat, which came out in 1927 and this same story would be later adapted by Disney into a short film.

Holloway's voice work work career started in 1941 with the role of Mr. Stork in Dumbo(My favorite film) but his career could've started earlier as Mr. Disney actually considered him for the role of Sleepy in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs but the role ended up going to future Goofy,  Pinto Colvig.

Hmm, Winnie The Pooh almost played Sleepy. I wonder, what that would've been like.  Doesn't seem too different from Pooh Bear but alas, this is the role that got away.  Sterling as I mentioned prior also made a handful of television appearances such as The Adventures of Superman as Uncle Oscar,a rather eccentric inventor.

This and some of his other live action roles on television will be touched upon toward the latter part of this retrospective.

Although, Sterling remained unmarried throughout his life because as he put it, he felt happiness by himself,  he did adopt one son,  Richard Holloway.  In 1991, one year before his death,  Sterling became the very first voice actor to be honored as a Disney legend for all of his voice acting contributions throughout the years. In his old Georgia hometown of Cedartwon stands a plague honoring Mr. Holloway.

So, there you have it.  A brief history of Sterling Holloway's life.  I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed learning about Mr. Holloway.  Join me next week as I start my look at the characters, he's played by looking at his portrayal of Mr. Stork.