Dick Beals, R.I.P.
The legendary Dick Beals — a star of radio, cartoons and more commercials than just about anyone — has died in a Southern California nursing home at the age of 85.Dick stood 4'7" due to a glandular problem which also gave him his youthful voice. He was playing ten-year-old boys well into his seventies and was often called upon to loop (i.e., dub in the voice of) live-action child actors in movies or on TV programs.
He started in radio dramas in 1949 while attending Michigan State University. Several popular radio programs emanated from Detroit at the time and Dick wound up being heard on all of them but most notably The Lone Ranger, Challenge of the Yukon and The Green Hornet. His later cartoon credits include his being the first voice of Gumby and the first voice of Davey on the Davey & Goliath cartoon series. He was a loyal team member on the Roger Ramjet cartoon show and was heard throughout many Hanna-Barbera shows.
But his main line of work was commercials and he did thousands of them. His best remembered ones were probably the many he did for the Alka-Seltzer people as their mascot, Speedy Alka-Seltzer. Below, (And by the way: Was there ever a man who looked more like he needed an antacid than Buster Keaton?)
I worked with Dick a few times, the first being on the Richie Rich cartoon show where he voiced Richie's rival, the stuck-up rich kid named Reggie. Dick was always highly professional, showing up for recording sessions in a suit and tie, and carrying an attaché case. No one else ever wears a suit and tie to record cartoon voices and for a while, I didn't quite understand why Dick did. I finally decided it was his way of reminding everyone that he was an adult and not a little boy.
His last few years, he was a much-sought-after guest at Old Time Radio conventions and other such events. He was always surrounded by fans because he sure had a lot of them. I was one too and tonight, we're all sad to learn of his passing.
In January 1949, as a senior at MSU, Beals got a call to do a radio commercial for WXYZ, Detroit. After the show, the director asked him to be on call for all the children's voices as well as those of small, talking animals on all three network radio shows produced by WXYZ - The Lone Ranger, Green Hornet and Challenge of the Yukon.
Beals was a member of the cast of The Hudson Sketchbook, the "first regularly scheduled TV program to go on the air in Detroit," on WWJ-TV.
In 1952, after performing in an episode of The Green Hornet, WXYZ station manager Jack McCarthy referred Beals to Forrest Owen of Wade Advertising. Owen showed Beals a rendering of a proposed product spokesman for their client, Alka-Seltzer and had him record a voice audition. Four months later, Beals was notified that he had been selected as the voice for Speedy Alka-Seltzer as well as the voice of Sticky, the Vaseline mascot.
Beals moved to Los Angeles where he continued making commercials as Speedy Alka-Seltzer and also provided voices for other commercials, such as Alka-Seltzer, Oscar Mayer, the Campbell Soup Kids, and Bob's Big Boy.[3] Beals recorded his first Speedy Alka-Seltzer television commercial in 1953, doing a total of 225 in his career.
In 1953, Beals was hired to do the voice for his first cartoon character. This was Ralph Phillips, a Walter Mitty-type boy in From A to Z-Z-Z-Z by Warner Bros. Cartoons. The cartoon was nominated for an Academy Award.
Beals continued doing voices for cartoons Warner Bros. Cartoons cartoons, often as uncredited secondary characters. When Hanna-Barbera started with The Flintstones, and then The Jetsons, Beals provided many of the children's voices on those shows, sometimes performing several different minor characters on the same show. One of his recurring roles was as Mr. Spacely's son Arthur on The Jetsons with the exception of season 3.
From 1960 to 1964, Beals played the voice of Davey Hansen, as well as other child voices, on Davey and Goliath. He did not do any voices for that series after 1965, when Norma MacMillan replaced him as Davey.
Although some sources say that Beals voiced Gumby in the 1960s, Beals refuted this claim.
Beals provided voices for both the characters "Yank" and "Dan" of the "American Eagles" troupe in the mid-1960s cartoon series Roger Ramjet. In 1967, Beals was the singing voice of child actor Bobby Riha as "Jack" in the NBC-TV special Jack and the Beanstalk starring Gene Kelly. He was the voice of Buzz Conroy, the boy scientist on Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles, and Richie Rich's mischievous cousin, Reggie Van Dough on Richie Rich. Beals was also the voice of Birdboy on Birdman and the Galaxy Trio as well as the voices for Buzzer Bell, Jasper N. Parks and on rare occasions sharing the voice role of Nancy Wible as Shrinking Violette on The Funny Company. He also provided the voice for the recurring villain Tiny Tom in the 1966–1969 cartoon series The Lone Ranger.
A unique on-camera role came in a 1960 episode of Peter Gunn called "The Dummy", in which he played a human ventriloquist's dummy that performs the act on its own, since the ventriloquist had lost his voice, his other live action role was in the 1950s television series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist, playing as Bobby "Butch" Moore in the episode "The Kid Brother"
In the 1980s, Beals owned an ad agency. During the late 1980s, Beals provided the voices for various characters on Garfield and Friends with the most major character he voiced being Jon's cruel nephew Rosco. In the 1987 release of Arnold Leibovit's The Puppetoon Movie, Beals provided the voice for the character Speedy Alka-Selzer.
From 1989–1993, he played Nicholas Adamsworth on the Focus on the Family radio drama Adventures in Odyssey.
In 1996, Beals provided the voice of the Pinocchio puppet in the horror film Pinocchio's Revenge.
Beals continued doing occasional voice acting, appearing as a guest at Old Time Radio conventions and as a motivational speaker. He was active as an alumnus of Michigan State University and in his spare time he enjoyed spending time on his yacht Think Big.
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