Billie Lou Watt

Billie Lou Watt (June 20, 1924 – September 7, 2001) was an American actress born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Watt. She received her early education at Midland and Howe Heights schools and Ritenour High School, where she also pursued dramatic training at the St. Louis School of the Theater and participated in a local amateur theatrical group. Her formal education continued at Northwestern University. Watt is recognized for her Broadway appearances spanning 1945 to 1972, her pioneering work in English-language anime dubbing, her long-running role on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, and her voice work in television commercials as Elsie the Cow for Borden Cheese.

Watt's professional stage career began at the St. Louis Municipal Opera in a production of The American Way. Her early work also included radio, with her voice featured on the KMOX program The Land We Live In. On Broadway, she appeared in Tough to Get Help, Barefoot Boy With Cheek, Take Her, She's Mine, and Little Women. Her television career began in 1949 with The Billy Bean Show, in which she played the girlfriend of the title character, a role she reprised in the 1951 edition of the series. She later appeared on the 1958 series From These Roots as Maggie Barber Weaver and on The Edge of Night in 1967, playing Florence Hatcher.

Watt's longest television role was Ellie Harper Bergman on the daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow, which she held from 1968 to 1981. Her animation career began when she and her husband, Hal Studer, were recommended by producer Fred Ladd to perform voice work, leading to their first major project, the English dub of the anime series Astro Boy in 1963, in which Watt voiced the title character. She went on to voice the title character in Kimba the White Lion and Jimmy Sparks in Gigantor. Through her collaboration with Ladd, Watt also developed skills in writing character dialogue and story situations for animated productions. Her later voice work included the feature-length Jack and the Beanstalk, in which she played Jack, Taro the Dragon Boy, in which she voiced the title character, and the television series Superbook and The Flying House, for which she voiced multiple characters and contributed script-writing work.

In the final years of her career, Watt lent her voice to In-Touch Networks, a radio service for visually impaired and blind listeners. Her last acting role was the recurring character Ma Bagge on the animated series Courage the Cowardly Dog, which she performed from 1999 until her death in 2001. The fourth and final season of that series was dedicated to her memory. Watt died of lung cancer in New York City on September 7, 2001, survived by her husband Hal Studer and their three children. In 2005, she was inducted into the Ritenour Alumni Hall of Fame in recognition of her contributions to the entertainment industry and her charitable work.