James Jonah Cummings (born November 3, 1952) is an American voice actor. Since beginning his career in the 1980s, he has appeared in almost 400 roles. Cummings has frequently worked with The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros., including as the official voice of Winnie the Pooh since 1988, Tigger since 1989, the Tasmanian Devil since 1991, and Pete since 1992. Other notable roles include Fat Cat and Monterey Jack on Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1989–1990), the title character of Darkwing Duck (1991–1992), Dr. Robotnik on the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series (1993–1994), Kaa on Jungle Cubs (1996–1998) and The Jungle Book 2, and Cat on CatDog (1998–2005).

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's first voice role was as Lionel the Lion and Aunt Fira in Dumbo's Circus. Some of Cummings' earliest vocal work was at Disney, where he replaced Sterling Holloway as the voice of Winnie the Pooh in 1988. His impression proved to be so spot-on that he also filled-in for Holloway as Kaa for both Jungle Cubs and The Jungle Book 2, and as the Cheshire Cat for various Disney video games. He also notably impersonated J. Pat O'Malley in the roles of Colonel Hathi for both aforementioned productions and the Colonel in 101 Dalmatians: The Series, Louis Prima as King Louie in Jungle Cubs and TaleSpin, and Wayne Knight as Tantor the Elephant in The Legend of Tarzan. Starting with Goof Troop, Cummings also became the regular voice of Pete (which he claims that he is his favorite character).

Beginning with The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Cummings alternated with Paul Winchell as Tigger, before fully replacing him as the character starting with The Tigger Movie. He had also filled-in for Winchell as the voice of Zummi Gummi in the final season of Adventures of the Gummi Bears, and as Dick Dastardly in Wacky Races Forever and Wacky Races Starring Dastardly and Muttley. Similarly, he alternated with Peter Cullen in the role of Monterey Jack in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.  In The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, Cummings voiced King Triton in place of Kenneth Mars, who was unable to reprise the role due to his struggles with pancreatic cancer. In 1991, he was hired by Warner Bros. Animation to voice Taz 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. 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 both Russell Means as Chief Powhatan and Gordon Tootoosis as Kekata in Pocahontas, and the singing double for Christopher Lloyd as Grigori Rasputin in Anastasia. He’d later substitute for Lloyd entirely by portraying Rasputin for the Anastasia: Adventures with Pooka and Bartok video game.

From 1993 to 2006, he voiced Smokey Bear in several commercials, ads, and promos.

Besides being a voice double and fill-in, Cummings was given the opportunity to voice original characters.

In Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin, he portrayed a wide variety of other characters. His most famous role in Rescue Rangers was Fat Cat, and for TaleSpin, he notably starred as the show’s main villain, Don Karnage. After both shows concluded production, Cummings went on to portray the title characters in Darkwing Duck and Bonkers, each of which he also got to voice other characters. He would later costar with Tom Kenny in CatDog, with Cummings playing Cat and Kenny voicing Dog. Also, despite having starred in animated feature films under “additional voices”, Cummings achieved a motion picture breakthrough by starring in Disney’s Aladdin, where he voiced both Razoul the Agrabah Guard Captain and Farouk the Merchant. He’d later go on to voice original characters for a variety of the company’s theatrical and direct-to-video films, such as Ed the Hyena in The Lion King and Ray the Firefly in The Princess and the Frog. In 1998, Cummings also starred as Ocula the Gorgonite in Small Soldiers, which was a live-action film directed by Joe Dante.

Aside from Fat Cat and Don Karnage, Cummings’s involvements as Pete and the Tasmanian Devil were elements that’d particularly land him in antagonistic roles. An example comes from when he voiced Steele the Alaskan Malamute in Universal’s Balto. According to an interview with director Simon Wells, the role was originally going to be played by Brendan Fraser, but executive producer Steven Spielberg recommended recasting the role with Cummings because he wanted to feel a clearer sense of Steele's "inherent evil". Wells stated that Cummings "did a fantastic job, and totally made the character live, so I don't regret the choice.". Other villain roles Cummings notably took on include Sierra the Cearadactylus in The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire, and Dr. Robotnik in the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series that aired from 1993 to 1994.

In addition, he voiced various characters for the Scooby-Doo, Tom and Jerry, and Star Wars franchises. His most famous role in Star Wars is Hondo Ohnaka the Weequay Pirate. According to Cummings, Ohnaka was initially only going to appear in a two or three episode story arc of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but the character was so well-received that he became much more recurring throughout the franchise. Following the departure of Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, Cummings was hired to portray characters in several productions by Dreamworks, most notably voicing the Captain of Lord Farquaad’s Guards in Shrek, Hernán Cortés in The Road to El Dorado and some additional characters, and Luca in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. In 2006, Cummings voiced a variety of characters for the Curious George animated TV show, notably voicing that of Pisghetti the Italian Chef, the male members of the Quint family, and Jumpy Squirrel, the latter which he provided merely animal sounds. The series became one of the longest running American children’s programs around, having initially run for nine seasons on PBS Kids before being renewed following the launch of Peacock, the streaming service of NBCUniversal.

In 2018, Cummings became the first voice performer of animation to reprise a role or more for a live-action Disney film, reprising the roles of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger for Christopher Robin. For the film, the role of Tigger was originally going to be played by Chris O’Dowd, but due to negative reactions from test audiences, Disney immediately replaced O’Dowd with Cummings. His performance as Pooh was particularly praised by Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair, who felt it was "Oscar-worthy" and said that "[a]s 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."

Nearly three years later, Cummings reprised the role of Taz by providing uncredited vocal effects for the character in some scenes of Space Jam: A New Legacy''. His recordings in question were mixed with material by Fred Tatasciore, who was the character’s credited voice actor for the film and previously played the part for Looney Tunes Cartoons. Cummings would later go on to reprise the roles of Fat Cat, Darkwing Duck, and Pete for the  
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers film, along with the right arm of Shredder from the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, and bootleg versions of Pooh and Tigger. Meanwhile, the role of Monterey Jack was played by Australian actor and comedian Eric Bana.

Personal life
Cummings has two daughters with his former wife Stephanie Jardon. The two were married from 2001 to 2011, when they divorced. In 2019, they became involved in an acrimonious custody dispute. Cummings also has two older daughters from a previous marriage.

In an interview with the A.V. Club, Cummings commented that his prime voice acting influences are Mel Blanc, Paul Winchell, Paul Frees, June Foray, and Frank Welker. He particularly noted Blanc by classifying him as the “Frank Sinatra of voice acting”, and Welker by calling him “The Beatles of voiceover”.

In a separate interview with Collider, Cummings stated that his favorite characters to play are Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Ray the Firefly, Drake Mallard/Darkwing Duck, and Hondo Ohnaka.

Filmography

Accolades

References

External links

 
 
 
 Jim Cummings  at Voice Chasers
 Jim Cummings Interview at Toon Zone
 
 Jim Cummings feature article and photos at Voice Actors in the News
 Jim Cummings ' Imaginography at Imagine Casting
 

1952 births
Living people
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century Roman Catholics
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male video game actors
American male voice actors
Animal impersonators
Audiobook narrators
Disney people
Hanna-Barbera people
Male actors from Youngstown, Ohio