Mary Kay Bergman

Mary Kay Bergman From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Mary Kay Bergman Born June 5, 1961(1961-06-05) Los Angeles, California, United States Died November 11, 1999 (aged 38) Los Angeles, California, United States Other name(s) Mary-Kay Bergman, Shannen Cassidy, Shannon Cassidy Occupation Voice actress Years active 1991–1999 Spouse(s) Dino Andrade (1990-1999; her death)

Mary Kay Bergman (June 5, 1961 – November 11, 1999) was an American voice artist, best known for her work on South Park. Contents [hide]

   * 1 Personal life
   * 2 Career
   * 3 Death
   * 4 Footnotes
   * 5 External links

[edit] Personal life

Bergman was born in Los Angeles, California. Her parents were Jewish, but Bergman was non-practicing and converted to Roman Catholicism after exploring several Christian denominations; although she still remained proud of her Jewish heritage. She grew up around the corner from the home of Adriana Caselotti, the original voice of Snow White.[citation needed] At an early age, she found herself drawn to fantasy entertainment ranging from science fiction to anything Disney. She was always proud of the fact that as a child she and her mother wrote letters to NBC to help keep the original Star Trek on the air for a third season. With regard to Disney, she regularly visited Disneyland and was once quoted as saying, "My one regret is that I never got to meet Walt Disney." Later, with her husband, Dino Andrade, she enjoyed Star Trek conventions while continuing to visit Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Disneyland Paris.[1] [edit] Career

Bergman was known for voicing most of the female characters in animated series such as Fox Kids' The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs, where she played a dog named Mitzy and also a number of other characters. She also voiced characters for South Park and the 1999 feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Her characters included Liane Cartman, Sheila Broflovski, Sharon Marsh, Mrs. McCormick, and Wendy Testaburger. Originally, Bergman was credited on South Park as Shannen Cassidy because she was also serving as Disney's official Snow White voice. The South Park episode "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" was dedicated to her, as was the episode "Starvin' Marvin in Space," the first episode to air after her death.

Another large role was her voice work in Captain Planet and the Planeteers as Dr. Blight for five seasons with the show. She did the voice of Arista in the Little Mermaid TV series.

Bergman's other voice credits included over 400 television commercials, including the voice of Mrs. Butterworth in Mrs. Butterworth's syrup commercials, as well as various Disney films (Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Toy Story 2), Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Timmy Turner in Oh Yeah! Cartoons episodes of The Fairly OddParents (When the pilot episodes were aired as actual episodes in 2001, Bergman's voice was overdubbed by Tara Strong.), and several female voices in The Tick animated series. She also contributed vocals to the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi", alongside Tress MacNeille. According to the IMDb, her final film role was in Balto II: Wolf Quest.

Bergman also carried on the Scooby Doo character Daphne Blake in the following movies: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island in 1998, Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost in 1999 and Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders in 2000, being this last one a posthumous dedicatory to her. [edit] Death

After suffering from depression and anxiety, Bergman committed suicide in her West Los Angeles, California apartment, on November 11, 1999.[2][3] Andrade, along with a friend, discovered her body and suicide note and later established the Mary Kay Bergman Memorial Fund, which contributes to the operation of the Suicide Prevention Center[4] at the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center.[5]

After Bergman's death, voice actress Eliza Schneider took over all of her voice roles on South Park. Grey DeLisle replaced Bergman as Daphne Blake in Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase. Tara Strong also took over her voice roles of Timmy Turner, the main character in animated television series The Fairly OddParents, and Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series (Bergman had previously voiced the character in the movie SubZero).

Bergman was a self-described "geek," as she was an avid fan of science-fiction, horror, and fantasy. Andrade later created the geek dating website SoulGeek.Com[6] in her memory.