James Jonah Cummings (born November 3, 1952) is an American voice actor. He provides the voice of Roland Carter in Pepper Ann.
Early Life[]
Born in Youngstown, Ohio, Cummings relocated to New Orleans, where he designed and painted Mardi Gras floats, worked as a river boat deck hand and sang and played drums in the regionally-successful rock band Fusion. He attended Immaculate Conception and St. Columba grade schools as well as Ursuline High School and graduated from there in 1970.
He later married and moved to Anaheim, California, where he managed a video store in the early 1980s, before launching his voice-acting career in late 1984.
Career[]
Cummings has appeared in nearly 400 roles, including Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, the Tasmanian Devil, Pete, and King Louie. His first voice role was that of Lionel the Lion and Aunt Fira in Dumbo's Circus. Some of Cummings' earliest vocal work was at Disney, where he replaced Hal Smith as the voice of Winnie the Pooh in 1988. He was the understudy for Paul Winchell as Tigger, before fully replacing him as the character in 2000's The Tigger Movie. In 1991, he was hired by Warner Bros. Animation to voice the Tasmanian Devil on the animated series Taz-Mania and would continue to voice the character in various Looney Tunes media.
When actor Jeremy Irons, the voice of Scar in The Lion King, developed vocal problems during recording of the song "Be Prepared", Cummings replaced him on the remainder of the track along with providing the voice for Ed the hyena. He also provided Scar's voice in a brief nightmare sequence in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Cummings would later be hired as the singing double for Russell Means in Pocahontas, the speaking voice of Kekata in Pocahontas and the singing voice of Christopher Lloyd in Anastasia.
In commercials, he voiced Smokey the Bear in several commercials, ads and promos from 1993 to 2006. Also in 2006 through 2008 he was the announcer for the short-lived court show Judge Maria Lopez which was produced and distributed by Sony Pictures Television.
In 2018, he became the first voice performer of animation to reprise his role(s) for a live-action Disney film, reprising the roles of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger for the film Christopher Robin. His performance as Pooh was particularly praised by Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair, who felt it was "Oscar-worthy" and said that "as Winnie the Pooh ... the veteran voice actor gives such sweet, rumpled, affable life to the wistful bear of literary renown that it routinely breaks the heart."
External Links[]
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