Well, here we go again… two more fine character actors that none of my readers will recognize by name have passed away. Oddly, both John Fiedler and Paul Winchell, who died within 24 hours of each other, are best known for working on the same projects, specifically Disney’s “Winnie the Pooh” films. Winchell, who died Friday at the age of 86, was the voice of Tigger from 1968 until 1999, and it was he who coined Tigger’s memorable catch-phrase “ta-ta for now!”
Meanwhile, Fiedler, who was 80 when he left us on Saturday, continued to play Pooh’s gentle little buddy Piglet right up to this year’s entry in the long-running franchise, Pooh’s Heffalump Movie.
Naturally, there was a lot more to both men than these two signature roles. Winchell, in particular, had an extremely varied career. He began as a ventriloquist and was known to an older generation as the voice of the puppet Jerry Mahoney. Folks in my generation might recognize his voice from Disney’s The Fox and the Hound and The Aristocats, and he did the evil Gargamel on the mid-80s cartoon series The Smurfs. Curiously, Winchell was also an inventor who patented a number of devices, including an artificial heart that he later donated to my alma mater, the University of Utah, for research purposes. (I’m proud to remind you that researchers at the U. of U. developed the first permanent artifical heart to be implanted in a human, the Jarvik-7, back in 1982.)
Fiedler, too, did much more than voice-over work. He was a respected Broadway actor and had appeared in the classic courtroom movie Twelve Angry Men before Walt Disney himself decided he should be Piglet. His credits include John Wayne’s True Grit and the Cary Grant vehicle That Touch of Mink as well as numerous guest appearances on episodic television. (My personal Fiedler favorite is an episode of classic Star Trek called “A Wolf in the Fold,” in which he plays a mild-mannered lawyer possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper. Imagine how it messed with my youthful mind to hear the voice of Piglet threatening to slaughter the crew of the Enterprise…)
As usual, I learned of Winchell and Fiedler’s deaths from Evanier, who seems to know everybody who’s ever had anything to do with animation or ’60s television. He’s written a nice obit for Winchell as well as a couple of supplementary anecdotes.
