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Adriana Caselotti
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Adriana Caselotti was born in 1916 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, into an Italian-American family. Her father taught music and was a vocal coach, her mother was a coloratura soprano. She herself worked briefly as a chorus girl and session singer at MGM. In 1935 Walt Disney chose her as the voice of Snow White, the title heroine of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's first feature-length animated film.
Music and breakthrough
The film came out in 1937, with songs such as I'm Wishing and Someday My Prince Will Come. Whistle While You Work belongs to the same film. Caselotti received a total of 970 dollars for her work and her name was not in the credits. Afterwards she found it hard to get other work, because Disney did not want to dilute the voice of Snow White. She did, uncredited, still sing the voice of Julia in The Wizard of Oz from 1939, in the Tin Man's song, and in It's a Wonderful Life from 1946.
Influence
Her singing is light and clear, trained in the operatic tradition of her parental home. In 1972 she sang I'm Wishing again together with Julie Andrews, and in 1990 she recorded the song once more for the wishing well at Disneyland. In 1994 she became a Disney Legend, the first female voice actor to do so. She died in 1997 in Los Angeles. She shows how an animated film in the 1930s also needed a new kind of singer.
Listening
Whistle While You Work · Adriana Caselotti, 1937