Bradley Bolke Passes On

Bradley Bolke, a voice actor who voiced Chumley on the animated TV show Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, died on January 15 2019 at the age of 93.

Bradley Bolke was born in New York City on October 1 1925. When he was five years old his family moved to Mount Vernon, New York. He attended New York University and majored in radio. After graduating in 1945, he worked in radio. Over the years his voice could be heard in many radio and television commercials.

It was in 1954 that Mr. Bolke first provided a voiced for an animated short, voicing a wolf and a sheepdog in the short "The Reformed Wolf" from Terrytoons. His brother Dayton Allen, now best remembered as the voice of Deputy Dawg, also provided voices for the short. Over the years Bradley Bolke would provide voices for several more animated shorts and was the voice of Stanley (as well as various incidental voices) in Famous Studios' series of "Honey Halfwitch" shorts in the mid to late Sixties. Ventriloquist and voice actor Shari Lewis was the voice of Honey Halfwitch herself.

Bradley Bolke was the voice of Nikita Khrushchev on Vaughn Meader's classic 1962 comedy album The First Family and its 1963 follow up The First Family - Volume Two. In 1963 Mr. Bolke could be heard in two Saturday morning cartoons. He provided the voices of Chumley in Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales and the Ghostly Trio (among others) on The New Casper Cartoon Show. He could later be heard in two TV films on the anthology  The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie: The Mad, Mad Monsters (1972) and The Red Baron (1972). He was the voice of Jangle Bells on the classic TV special The Year Without a Santa Claus.

His single appearance in live action was in the feature film Diary of a Bachelor (1964).

Bradley Bolke was an extremely talented voice artist. He was capable of many different voices, from sounding remarkably like Nikita Khrushchev to the friendly tones of Chumley to the slightly higher pitched voice of Jangles Bells. While his filmography is not quite as extensive as some and he is not as well known as some other voice artists, he certainly possessed a good deal of talent.